As part of blogging in the sports world, one often monitors papers from throughout the country for other takes on the large headlines, or even those stories that go well under the radar. Looking the other day on a Pittsburgh newspaper site, I came across a story about Paul Ernster, a P/K who was recently waived by your Detroit Lions. Why his name happened to come up, was that he was ecstatic to arrive in Steelers camp where he will likely be the punter this upcoming season for the Steelers with Daniel Sepulveda tearing up his ACL.
In many cases a name like Paul Ernster, a half-punter/half-kicker from Northern Arizona would not draw outrage from many already-outraged Lions fans. In fact, the Lions have already brought in Eddie Johnson (not the soccer guy) to fill in when needed this season. Ernster represents a significant group of players who will put on a uniform for somebody else this season and likely have tremendous success – a contrast to what they did in a Lions jersey.
Rueben Droughns has had some wonderful contributions for the teams he’s played for, including his current NY Giants team – one example of how a summer cut can come back to bite you. Will one of the quarterbacks on the chopping block be added to this list? Summer cuts are nothing new to the league or the Lions, but the empty feeling of seeing a rare good game out of Joey Harrington or Artose Pinner will continue for years to come.