Cory Redding is the best defensive tackle in the NFL

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Cory shows his stuff

Who?

Cory Redding, you know.

No, who is he?

Cory plays for the Detroit Lions.

Wait. Everyone knows that Shaun Rogers, ala Big Baby, is the king of the defensive tackles on the Lions, not Cory whatever his name is.

Cory Redding, his name is Redding. The Detroit Lions just inked him to a 49 million dollar deal to make him the highest paid defensive tackle in football. 16 mill is guaranteed! So in terms of money. Cory Redding has been named the best!

No way. How did that happen?

The answer is two words – Franchise Tag. The Lions tagged Cory and that automatically makes you one of the 5 highest paid for a year if you don’t sign. The Lions elected to sign him and went after him big time!

This is how badly the Lions wanted to keep Cory Redding: Owner William Clay Ford called. President Matt Millen flew to Houston to have dinner with Redding and his agent. Coach Rod Marinelli couldn’t come because he had hip replacement surgery. But Marinelli called Redding constantly — every third day, every other day, whatever it took to recruit him and keep an open line of communication. source

The Lions did this because they are trying to show that effort will be rewarded and Redding has an endless motor.

Why?

Still, Cory was drafted in 2003 and has less than one seasons experience at defensive tackle. Most of the time he was a so so defensive end. Emphasis on the so so.

As bad as part of me wants to scream out and say “There go my Lions again. A player has one good year and they reward him”, my mouth is strangely staying shut. The Lions need to pull of a deal or two now and then. The history of the club is to let the good players go when they start demanding money.

There is no doubt that Cory is dedicated and ready for a big season. Marinelli loves this and it shows in the way the deal went down.

Marinelli “told me from the beginning, ‘I’m going to stay on top of this until it’s done,’ ” Redding said. “And I held him to that word. And I told him, ‘You hold up your end of the bargain, and I’ll come in camp under my weight and I will tell you right now that I’m dedicating my time my effort and everything.’ Rod Marinelli knows he’ll get it out of me 100%.”

Redding didn’t participate in the off-season program but said he would be ready to report to training camp July 25. He studied his playbook while taking classes at the University of Texas. He worked out with the Longhorns and is under his target weight of 295 pounds. And defensive line coach Joe Cullen even flew down to give him a two-hour tutorial.

The Final Word

The defensive tackle is very important in the Tampa II defense that the Lions play and Redding will be an important cog for the Lions machine. Slowly but surely the Lions are putting the pieces together.

Now if only they could win more than 3 games!

Cory Redding’s Final Word

But let’s give Cory the final word.

“I just love this game,” said Redding. “You take this away from me and you’re taking my child away from me. It’s my heart. This is what I worked all my life for. God’s blessed me with a lot of ability – a lot of talent – and I’m just using this to the max every game. For me not to (bring everything to the table every game) I’m cheating myself and cheating everybody. I just try to leave it out there on the field every single snap. That’s how I get up for the game because I love this too much. I love it too much not to.” source

NFL Football Fan Question Should the Lions have paid all that dough?

As always, any NFL Football related comments are welcome.

More blogs about football.