BILL, LIONS BUNGLED TRADE FOR DOCKERY

If you’re looking for evidence that things have changed in Detroit, keep looking. Though a tango such as the one described below requires two teams, the fact that one of them was the Lions really isn’t much of a surprise. According to the Washington Post, the Lions were poised pull off a trade for guard Derrick Dockery, but the paperwork didn’t get filed in time. That said, the account provided by Jason La Canfora of the Post is a bit confusing. He writes that the paperwork didn’t make it to the Management Council before 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday, February 26. But since no trades can happen until the first day of the league year (this year, February 27), nothing could have been done on the 26th. Another confusing fact is that word of Dockery’s release by the Bills broke well before the 4:00 p.m. EST on Thursday. It’s therefore possible that, once the Lions heard that Dockery was being cut, they tried to swing a trade in order to get Dockery before he hit the open market -- and thus could decline a luxury cabin inside the fractured, sunken hull of the Titanic. If that’s the case, the Lions knew what they were doing. Because even though they made a run at signing Dockery once he was free, Dockery took $3.5 million less over the life of the deal to return to D.C. With the Redskins, Dockery signed a five-year, $27 million contract with $8.5 million in guaranteed money and $11.5 million paid out over the first two years. And what a difference two year makes. In 2007, Dockery inked a seven-year, $49 million deal with $18 million in guaranteed money.