Big Baby and Bengals and Browns, Oh My!

The salary cap may have just saved Matt Millen.

On the first day of free agency, The Detroit Lions seemed to have come to an agreement with the Cincinnati Bengals.

They would send overweight defensive tackle Shaun Rogers in exchange for a third and fifth round pick in the upcoming draft. Needless to say, Detroit fans were not pleased.

Yes, Shaun Rogers needed to go, but how could Detroit get virtually nothing for their former pro-bowl nose tackle?

The trade made even less sense when you consider that Matt Millen can not draft well.

Cases in point: Quarterback Joey Harrington, wide receivers Mike Williams, and Charles Rogers, and more recently, last year's fourth round pick, cornerback A.J. Davis who didn't even make the practice squad on a team with one of the worst defensive backfields in the NFL.

So how come Big Baby isn't wearing Bengal strips? Apparently the deal didn't comply to some salary cap rules and the league shot it down.

Cleveland wasted no time in stealing Rogers away from their divisional, in-state rival by offering starting cornerback Leigh Bodden and a third round pick for Rogers.

If Detroit could have gotten this value for Rogers in the first place, why would they have settled for less?

Rogers $1 million salary bonus was due at midnight that day, but that was no reason to settle for less than they could have gotten when other, better offers were on the table.

Detroit received a considerable upgrade to their abysmal defensive backfield with this deal, but now they have to move on improve more because it will take alot more than one move to pull the thorn out of these Lions' paws.

The Lions did sign safety Dwight Smith, but more needs to be done.

Linebacker is a pressing need in Detroit as well, and since their attempt at Jonathan Vilma fell through, they need to get more aggressive in their pursuit of a defensive game breaker.