FanHouse Charlesrogers

There ain't no party like a Winnipeg Blue Bombers party, because the Blue Bombers keep signing players who paved their way out of the NFL because they found more thrills off the field than on it.

One day after news of their plans to sign Pacman Jones became public knowledge, the Toronto Globe and Mail is reporting that Lions washout and noted marijuana enthusiast Charles Rogers will be heading to Manitoba to continue his football dream. Both players are represented by Jason Fletcher, who is fast becoming the biggest conduit for Americans traveling to Canada since Robert McNamara. (UPDATE, Sept. 2: The Blue Bombers released a statement saying that they would not sign Jones. "We have completed our assessment and due diligence and at this time we will not be pursuing the services of Adam Jones," coach Mike Kelly said.)

Our new NFL Twitter mailbag features reaction from readers to former Lions draft bust Charles Rogers saying he used to smoke marijuana every day, and follows that up with an X's and O's look at the defenses of the Seahawks and the Cardinals.

Your questions and comments, and my responses, are below.

Charles Rogers, the former No. 2 overall NFL draft pick for the Detroit Lions whose career lasted just 15 games, says in a new interview that he smoked marijuana every day and got hooked on prescription pills when he was an NFL player.

Asked by ESPN's Jemele Hill how often he used marijuana, Rogers said, "Regularly. Regularly. ... Yeah. I blew every day. I blew every day. You know, I was doing something wrong. You can't smoke in the league, so I was wrong."

Video of the interview is after the jump.

When talking about front-office futility, Matt Millen sets the pace. Mercifully for Lions fans, he's been relieved of his duties as the team's president and general manager, but his legacy lives on. His infatuation with using high-round draft picks on wide receivers might have been his biggest weakness, although that's certainly up for debate.

Charles Rogers and Mike Williams are on the list of first-round wide receiver busts, but a name that's often overlooked -- and one that we can't blame on Millen -- is Peter Warrick, who the Bengals selected with the fourth-overall pick in 2001.

Everyone makes mistakes. But when those mistakes are magnified by intense scrutiny of the NFL draft, well, they become much more embarrassing than, say, my typical Friday morning, mustard-stain-on-khakis incident.

Which is why the NFL FanHouse braintrust got together to determine who is the biggest bust for each NFL team. They're not listed in terms of stupidity -- they're all stupid relative to a team's total draft performance. Meaning, of course, some teams "bust" is much different than another organization's; we did it this way to avoid just linking you to DetroitLions.com.

Instead, we're putting it in current draft order, sans trades, and allowing this list to serve as a reminder of each's team's ability to properly execute a fail. The "bust factor" was based primarily on three things: statistical production (or lack thereof), position in the draft and other available options during that year's draft.

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The Lions have the first overall pick of the 2009 Draft. This is the reward for going 0-16. Perhaps former team president Matt Millen's biggest accomplishment is that never during his misguided eight-year tenure did Detroit have the first selection. It seems almost impossible in retrospect.

On three occasions the Lions chose second (Joey Harrington in 2002; Charles Rogers in '03; Calvin Johnson in '07), but by the time Millen finally got it right with Johnson it was too late, the team was too far gone.

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Twelve months ago, Devin Thomas was making his way up draft boards after an outstanding junior season at Michigan State and impressive combine and Pro Day performances. The previous fall, he had hauled in 79 passes for the Spartans, and then busted out a 4.40-40 in Indianapolis in February. By April, He would be the second wide receiver selected, going 34th overall to the Redskins.

In the weeks leading up to the draft, NFL Network's Mike Mayock admitted that Thomas had all the physical attributes teams look for in a wideout -- deep speed, the ability to get off the line of scrimmage and a knack for coming down with jump balls -- but he also cautioned that Thomas' junior season could be an anomaly.

On Sunday at the NFL Combine, we got our first glimpse of Matt Stafford and Mark Sanchez. And while it was difficult to divine much from, well, glimpses -- Stafford didn't take part in the passing drills and Sanchez didn't stand out in his handful of attempts -- it provides coaches, scouts and front-office types one more piece to the evaluation puzzle.

Although conventional mock-draft wisdom has Stafford going before Sanchez -- and probably to the Lions -- those sentiments aren't shared among all scouts. Via the Chicago Tribune's Dan Pompei:

When Mlive.com's Tom Kowalski writes that the Martin Mayhew -- the chap burdened with the impossible task of being less competent than Matt Millen -- is taking draft preparations seriously some five months before Roger Goodell starts reading names off a sheet of paper, pretty much tells you all you need to know about why the Lions are annually the worst team in football.

Millen had no business running a team (in case that wasn't obvious, the careers of Charles Rogers and Mike Williams confirm as much) and even though Mayhew is only the interim general manager, he has a chance to show he's capable of handling the full-time gig. (And when I say "handling" I mean in the conventional sense; not in the "Matt Millen shows up for work to catch up on his sleep" sense.)

The Lions are so bad ...

How bad are they?!

The Lions are so bad that Calvin Johnson longingly watches CFL games and wonders if they'll let him back on the Yellow Jackets if he returns to Georgia Tech for his doctorate. They're so bad he's bugging Ben Roethlisberger for advice on how not to survive a motorcycle crash. They're so bad he's contemplating a name change to Charles Rogers.

They're so bad that, though the score between the Lions and Texans currently reads 28-10 in favor of Houston, the Lions have managed to fall behind 21-0 for the fourth time this season. In only six games.

And while those opponents -- the Falcons, Packers, Bears, and now Texans -- are better than their current 12-12 aggregate record, there's no good news here. It's bad enough to lose all four (which the Lions have, on top of every other freaking game they've played). But it's inexcusable to crumble so easily and early -- almost every 21-0 deficit came in the first half -- when you claim to be a professional football team. I don't care how many garbage time yards and points you produce in response.

Maybe somebody from Elias Sports Bureau can put this stretch of putridity in perspective, but it's not necessary. I keep thinking the Lions have hit bottom, but they keep sinking. This is the worst I've ever seen the team play. And there's no Millen to blame anymore.