Instant Analysis – Tony Scheffler traded to the Lions

Tony Scheffler was traded to the Lions today in a 3-way trade with the Eagles and Broncos where LB Ernie Sims was dealt to the Eagles.  The Broncos received draft pick compensation in the form of a 5^th round pick  from the Eagles and the Lions received a 7^th rounder from Denver.  We had a suspicion that Scheffler would be moved once he signed his one year tender last week, and that didn’t take long at all.  The Broncos have now purged themselves of their entire passing offense from 2008 with Cutler, Marshall and Scheffler all out the door.  For the Lions, they felt confident going into next year with DeAndre Levy in the middle and he’s a buy candidate now as well.  Here’s my instant take on players affected by this deal.

Tony Scheffler TE DET
Tony could have gone someplace better for sure.  He’ll come in play right away, but Brandon Pettigrew is the future at TE in Detroit.  I can imagine he’ll have opportunities since the Lions end up throwing from behind quite a bit, but two TE systems rarely give us regular producers.  Move him down on your cheat sheets.  I still see Pettigrew as the TE to own in Detroit….if you’re really focused on having that.

Brandon Pettigrew TE DET
Unless his injury is a little more severe than we’ve been let on to, I don’t see his value changing much.  He’s a very talented player and I think he’ll eventually beat out Scheffler to be the primary catching TE.  However, I’d keep some close tabs on the training camp and minicamp position battle here.  Scheffler’s shown he has talent, that’s for sure.

Matt Stafford QB DET
If anything, this assures the Lions of having one other skilled person take some red zone and short yardage targets.  It hurt when Pettigrew was lost for the season last year – depth is always a good thing.

Calvin Johnson WR DET
Anything, I mean ANYTHING the Lions can do to add pass catchers will help Megatron.  The additions of Burleson and Scheffler should at least keep teams from triple-teaming him.  Double teams?  I still see lots of those in his future.

Daniel Graham TE DEN
I can’t imagine they roll with him as their primary catching TE.  I’d sell ASAP if you have an owner interested.  Same goes for any other Denver TE.

The Draft
The Broncos have a lot of needs, including people who can catch the football.  I still think Dez Bryant is likely to end up there when you couple this with the Marshall trade, but they could trade back if they needed to fill some other needs.  With another #5, I believe they could also justify a focus on WR early, knowing they could fill another need later.  They could also be in the market for a TE like Aaron Hernandez, Rob Gronkowski or Ed Dickson.

We’ll find out just a few days from now.