I have been thinking about this for awhile now and I just don't the point of NFL Europe. Teams always sign a handful of guys and ship them to Europe to gain experience, but they rarely make it off the practice squad when they return. It just doesn't seem worth the money to groom someone for practice squad experience, and many of them don't even make the practice squad, much less onto the field for an NFL game. Granted, players like Kurt Warner and LT Barry Simms have been exceptions, but I just fail to see the productivity on the Lions behalf.

NFL Europe has multiple purposes. One, it is a marketing tool by the NFL to increase interest in Europe and across the globe. I don't think they have made much progress in that area.

As a development league, however, there have been a number of success stories. At one point, an NFL Europe team had both Warner and Delhomme as QBs on their roster. That's not too bad.

The issue is that NFL teams don't want to send any high potential players there due to injury concerns. So they focus more on fringe players, who tend to be practice squad type guys.

The league doesn't have a minor league like baseball and hockey. They are more like the NBA where the NCAA is the minor league system.

I agree that I don't see the Lions getting much productivity from the league, but I also don't see any other teams really benefiting either.