Even if Josh Allen was on the board?"As with any draft pick
Cheap Travis Fulgham Jersey , there’s going to be a debate as to whether Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn made the right choice with first-round selection
T.J. Hockenson. While the pick received an A or B grade by 71 percent of fans,
many criticized the pick, arguing that the value wasn’t there or a better
prospect should have been the choice. But for Quinn, there wasn’t much of a
debate. The Lions general manager joined 97.1 radio show “Jamie and Stoney” on
Tuesday morning and said the pick was easy.“At the end of the day, it was a very
easy decision when we were on the clock,” Quinn said. “He’s someone that we
fully vetted, and really put a lot of time and effort into making sure he’s a
good fit for us on the field as well as off the field, and really for us, it was
a very easy decision.” There isn’t much debate about Hockenson the player. He’s
a does-everything tight end with no red flag concerns about his character and no
significant injury history. However, the debate about value is one worth
considering. We talked about it last week, regarding both the financial and
on-field value of a tight end and whether that’s worth such high draft capital.
Quinn thinks there’s value in just about every position in the top 10, given the
player and fit is right.“I think there’s value in any position you look at
across the league if you use the guys correctly and they’re good players, which
we obviously think T.J. is,” Quinn said.The other concern were the player
available. A lot of fans and analysts thought the Lions may take Houston
defensive tackle Ed Oliver with the choice or Michigan linebacker Devin Bush.
Obviously, if the pick was “easy” for Quinn, those players were never really in
consideration when Detroit was on the clock.However, the Lions almost had what
many perceived to be a dream scenario. Kentucky defensive end Josh Allen nearly
fell to the Lions
Travis Fulgham Jersey Womens , but the Jacksonville Jaguars swooped him up just before the Lions went on the clock. Had Allen still been on the board, would
that have made the decision any harder? “It probably would have been a little
bit more of a talking point,” Quinn admitted.Ultimately, though, Quinn seems
very confident in this pick. After failing to put together a tight end crew
worth fielding in 2018, it was clear improving that room was a big priority for
him and the team. “I think the draft recap is who we took and we’re really
excited about T.J. having him on the team, putting him in there with the other
guys in the room—especially with signing Jesse James in free agency. I think it
went from a position of weakness last year to a position of strength.” Build it
and the Super Bowl will come.While that’s not exactly how the sites of the NFL’s
championship extravaganza are determined, it sure doesn’t hurt to have a brand
new, billion-dollar facility in your city.Including the 2004 game in Houston,
the league will have staged nine Super Bowls in metropolitan areas with new
stadiums in the past 15 years: Detroit, Phoenix, Dallas, Indianapolis, New York,
San Francisco, Minneapolis and, now
Travis Fulgham Detroit Lions Jersey , Atlanta. Arizona and Houston actually have hosted twice, but obviously neither of those buildings was new the second time
around.There’s nothing written on a game plan sheet guaranteeing such an award
from the NFL, it’s more a nodding agreement it will happen. And it will once
more in Los Angeles in 2022, and very likely in Las Vegas before the end of the
next decade.“It really depends, but a world-class stadium is critical, and we
are going through a run with Minnesota and Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta and
other new buildings,” says Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s senior vice president of
events. “There are lots of factors that come into it in determining where and
when we go and what is the right sequence. So that’s not necessarily a truism …
though certainly there is a track record of a number of recent buildings that
have been built that are incredible facilities.”Atlanta last hosted a Super Bowl
in 2000, when it was hit with severe weather, including ice storms that nearly
shut down the city. The NFL didn’t go back until this year, in part because the
Georgia Dome no longer was a state-of-the-art venue, and in part because of
memories of 2000.Since Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened in 2017, Atlanta has been
the site of several major sporting events, including the college football
playoff. Atlanta United of MLS has set all sorts of attendance records in the
building.Those successes matter in the Super Bowl race.“We do attend and we
watch all those events that are coming into a venue,” says O’Reilly, who also
oversees the staging of the draft that has become a traveling show and heads to
Nashville this April and Las Vegas next year.“Part of the reason we have a
policy in place that we don’t play a Super Bowl in the first year after a
building opens is you understand and learn from the events and the games in
there. One of the positives is a number of the key vendors who work on the Super
Bowl work on other major events. Clearly, in this community it’s a really
collaborative spirit.”Of course
Travis Fulgham Jersey 2019 , hosting a Super Bowl is about a lot more than spirit. It’s about dollars, millions of dollars.Economic impact studies tend to show the
value of the NFL’s big show ranges from $200 million to $500 million for a city.
Plus, more than 100 million viewers across the country are seeing that city
being showcased. Minnesota might not have been a winter vacation destination to
many people before it was spotlighted for last year’s game.Naturally,
Minneapolis wouldn’t have gotten the Super Bowl without having built an
ultramodern indoor stadium. The only outdoor game in a cold weather city was in
2014 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, and that was a given once the Giants and
Jets agreed to foot most of the bill for the facility.With a wink and a nod,
Detroit was destined for a Super Bowl once Ford Field was ready and the Lions
moved back downtown from the suburbs. Indianapolis, which put on a sensational
Super Bowl week, never would have been considered without Lucas Oil Stadium
being constructed.“There’s nothing formal,” explains Marc Ganis, president of
Sportscorp, a Chicago-based consulting firm, and an adviser to several team
owners. “It is an understanding that if you build a new stadium and have the
facilities for a Super Bowl and the community gets behind it, you will get a
Super Bowl. Maybe you will only get one, like Indianapolis — as great a job as
Indianapolis did, it’s really on the edge of a community that can support a
Super Bowl. They made up for it with the great community support.“It is not an
issue of how well a franchise is run, either. It’s an issue of the market, the
hotel rooms and the stadium. So we know that Miami (2020)
Travis Fulgham Jersey Mens , Tampa (2021), New Orleans (2024), Texas, Arizona (2023), LA and Las Vegas will get them.”The process for securing a Super Bowl has changed.
No longer do cities bid against each other — Ganis notes that a so-called loser
in the bidding could be embarrassed despite putting up a very strong
presentation, and that a lengthy series of ballots doesn’t look good for
anyone.Now, O’Reilly and the owners’ Super Bowl committee go to each club
seeking an expression of interest in hosting the game. Many cities know they
have no chance, perhaps because of weather concerns at an outdoor stadium — it’s
unlikely any such venue in the Northeast except MetLife would be considered — or
lack of stadium size or insufficient infrastructure or hotel space.The committee
identifies a city that fits best for a particular year and asks it for specifics
for hosting.“We end up with optimizing the sequences, avoid a scenario where
multiple cities are spending significant time and resources on a bid and
ultimately they’re not rewarded,” O’Reilly says.Suggestions that the game could
wind up in London seem farfetched, and the NFL certainly would need a franchise
there before it could happen. Besides, Ganis says there will never be a shortage
of U.S. locales interested in hosting.“I focus on the tremendous amount of new
money coming into the community, and not just the week of the Super Bowl, but
all the planning and the attention that takes place, and the money spent from
outside (the venue) on that. Those things are almost impossible to put a price
tag on, as is the visibility over a number of years focused on those two weeks
in your city. It is almost always very positive.”
