The Detorit Lions: Too Much Hype!

Austen's Goal Line Stand

Can everyone please calm down about the Lions first win of the season? While it is a big win for a team that has been the worst road team in the NFL for most of a decade, this win was still against a very young and inexperienced team that lost its starting quarterback for a significant portion of the game. On top of this, they also came close to blowing a huge lead once Josh Freeman came back into the game. Since blowing leads has been a constant problem for this team, it was concerning to see it almost happen again.

Everyone knows the type of talent that is on this team, but their final record this season will be mostly due to whether or not starters Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson, and Jahvid Best can be healthy for at least the majority of the season. All three of those players are crucial to this team making the push into the playoffs that everyone seems to be expecting from them, but all of them come with a lot of injury concerns. Despite their improvements on defense, they are not close to a top 10 unit that can help them win games. They need to continue to win despite their defense and they will not be able to do that without their top 3 offensive weapons, most importantly Stafford.

Every year it seems like the Lions are in need of fixing their offensive line and yet year after year they seem to avoid upgrading this position, baffling all draft experts, including myself (for the sake of this article I am going to consider myself a draft expert). I think this is the glaring need that will again hold this team back once again. Whether it is by giving up a huge sack that takes out Stafford or allowing unblocked linebackers to cream Best in the backfield, I believe Stafford or Best, or both, will go down with an injury that will be because of a failure on the offensive line. That could be the difference between 9 wins with a playoff berth and another disappointing season below .500.