FanHouse KevinJones

File this under the "Cuckoo Bananas" area that can only exist during the NFL offseason, when players are jiving a little too much with their teams' offseason moves.

Detroit's second-year running back Kevin Smith, who just endured an 0-16 season if you recall, used his personal blog Smith34.com to make an eye-opening prediction.

Who moved to the head of the NFL class during the draft? Find out with FanHouse's team-by-team 2009 Draft Grades.

When the Bears made one of the biggest offseason splashes by trading for Jay Cutler, they were left without a first-round pick. Many Bears fans would argue this was a blessing in disguise, considering general manager Jerry Angelo's rocky history with first-round picks (David Terrell, Cedric Benson, Rex Grossman, Michael Haynes).

Still, there were more needs than just quarterback on this team for the near future. Would Angelo be able to fill all those holes with a bunch of second-day draft picks?

The Detroit Lions are at a turning point, no? They just shed their old regime run by Matt Millen, they drafted their franchise quarterback and, even in the darkest of times for Detroit, there appears to be some hope. Until you start reading Terry Foster's recent Lions round-up in his Detroit News column.

You see, Foster finds -- in two separate items -- the real reason why the Lions fail: as their fans are, sadly, busy caring too much about the team, the Lions are busy caring too little about their fans. How do I know this? Because Foster mentions a fan who gets a Lions tattoo on his butt, and then in the next item discusses the fact that the team is repurposing jerseys. That's right, "Kevin Jones" is suddenly becoming "Kevin Smith."

Even when the Bengals drafted Chris Perry 26th overall in 2004, there were skeptics. In addition to Kevin Jones still being on the board (he was rated higher coming out of college, although his NFL career hasn't been particularly noteworthy), there were concerns about Perry's durability and whether he could be an every-down NFL running back.

(Not to mention he was from the Big-10, which is only slightly less conspicuous that wearing an "I'm a bona fide bust!" hat on stage at Radio City Music Hall after hearing the commissioner call your name.)

As it turned out, both were a problem. He played in just two games as a rookie, and mustered nine starts over four seasons, amassing 606 rushing yards (3.4 yards per carry) and two touchdowns. And today, the Bengals released him.

Because the NFL season never ends, we present our 2009 Offseason Roadmaps for front offices to navigate through the summer.

The Bears surprised everyone by being a respectable football team in 2008. Most expected them to completely unravel, winning maybe three of four games. Instead, they took down the Colts in Indianapolis to kick off a winning season.

Along the way, though, they blew several key games and ended up severely disappointing their own fans by not winning a very winnable division -- not to mention one additional win would have garnered a wild card.

It's that time in the Fantasy Football season. The contenders in most leagues have been established, the pretenders have a few more weeks to shake themselves out, and the bottom-dwellers have probably stopped bothering to even set a weekly roster. Or said bottom-dwellers are conspiring with another owner to pull off a lopsided trade to stack one team and split the winnings. Oops - I might have just referenced some of the shenanigans that I encounter in one of my leagues year in and year out.

Anyhow, it's mid-season and so what if your call on Ricky Williams being a sleeper didn't quite pan out. Fret not my good friends, there is a wealth of untapped potential sitting on your waiver wire as we speak. Well, maybe some of these guys have been snatched off the wire by now. However, there are still a handful of players to be had that could make a slight difference. Don't get too excited since these guys probably aren't going to decide a championship. But if you're in the hunt, it doesn't hurt to take a look.

You never know, they could very well have an impact in a game or two, which could put you over the top in a critical week. The advice with all these guys is to simply monitor and play the matchups. And so, it's time to take a look at some "potential" second-half sleepers. Let's get down to business shall we?

Cheer up, Lions fans, your long national nightmare is about to end. That's right, in just three days the curse of Bobby Layne is set to run out, and your beloved football team will once again return to prominence in the NFL. What's that you ask? The Lions were cursed? Yeah, I had no idea. But apparently this explains everything from Matt Millen, to Joey Harrington, to Barry Sanders suddenly walking away from the game. The Curse Of Bobby Layne website has the full story.

In 1958, after leading the Lions to 3 NFL Championships and providing Detroit nearly decade of Hall of Fame play, the Lions traded Bobby Layne. Bobby was injured during the last championship season and the Lions thought he was through and wanted to get what they could for him. According to Legend, as he was leaving for Pittsburgh Bobby said that Detroit "would not win for 50 years"

With this news, and the fact Millen was finally relieved of his duties two weeks ago, things are really starting to look up for the Lions. But back to this curse business ...

Training camp is finally here and FanHouse breaks down the most important position battles heading into the season, team by team.

Seriously, I tried to narrow this down and actually spotlight one positional battle like all the rest. Other than just picking the offensive side of the football, where could we even begin? I could simply spotlight the anemic duo at QB like everyone else, or take the easy way out and sort through Kevin Jones vs. Matt Forte at RB.

That's just not good enough. The fact of the matter is that half the offense is up for grabs in training camp. Let's take a little stroll through Halas Hall's proud offense ...

Training camp is finally here and FanHouse breaks down the most important position battles heading into the season, team by team.

I wasn't so sure the Lions were going about their offseason the right way by committing to a stronger rushing attack this year and then cutting their best runner, Kevin Jones. Especially considering the fact that, at the time, the team was putting all of its eggs in Tatum Bell's basket. The problem with putting your eggs in Bell's basket is that he's going to fumble them. And probably tear his groin in the process.

But a month later the Lions did something unusual -- let's call it "good drafting." They bypassed a back in the first round and moved up in the third round for underrated superbeast Kevin Smith, who ran for something like 2,567 yards and 29 touchdowns for the University of Central Florida. Forget that it was against lesser competition, that's the type of thinking that will have you underrating a good player.

Both backs excel in the Lions' new zone blocking scheme. Both will get touches, but you can be sure that the team wants one guy to ride primarily.

It seems all but obvious that Smith is going to win this, but Bell did run for almost 2,000 yards and 10 touchdowns between 2005 and 2006 in this same scheme. Besides, there's got to be a reason the Lions re-signed him this offseason after Bell demanded a trade out of Detroit in the midst of being inactive for the season's final 11 games.

Really, the question with these Lions (as always) is: how does Jon Kitna feel about the matter?

As reported earlier by Josh Alper, Kevin Jones has been signed by the Bears. He joins Matt Forte in the backfield sure to be chock full o' carries while the Bears try to avoid the turnover machine that is Rex Grossman and let the defense/Devin Hester/Robbie Gould win games. This is a very solid move, but most of you that clicked on this don't care about that ...

Fantasy Spin

Kevin Jones -- Though his contract is small and only one year, he has the experience and upside to take control of this job. He'll still have Forte to contend with. The Bears did seem high on Forte, but after waiting this long to sign Jones you wonder if they haven't been as impressed with the rook as they've been letting on. I'd still count on some sort of a time-share situation here, probably 60-40 in favor of Jones to start the season ... assuming everyone is healthy.

Matt Forte -- His value is absolutely killed by this. As I said above, you can count on about 40 percent of the carries. That's not good for fantasy. I'd have to remove him from my "breakout" candidate at this point in time.

Our staff fantasy rankings are coming soon, but right now I'd say that you'll want Kevin Jones as a flex guy or third RB and Forte as his insurance. It's a tandem deal for the Monsters of the Midway ... which is good for their team and bad for your fantasy team.