Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Thousands of miles away, on an island near a completely different continent than the one most of us reside on, a group of 46 players and several coaches managed to embarrass us. I, personally, had to work and wasn’t even watching the game and I was embarrassed. That should tell you all you need to know about the state of this Detroit Lions team. They’re bad, far worse than they have the talent to be, and we’ve discussed ad nauseum what many of those causes are. As is always the case on Tuesday, we’re not here to just talk about the negative, so let’s dig a little deeper and see who has seen their stock rise and fall this week.
Stock Up: Darius Slay
The past few weeks have seen some of defensive coordinator Teryl Austin’s worst work. As we’ve seen looking at these stock reports, that isn’t because every single player on the defense is failing, but rather because a few are causing severe breakdowns. Early in the season, you might have seen Darius Slay as one of those players causing those breakdowns.
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That hasn’t been the case lately, and I’m sure anyone watching him play could tell you he’s building on his 2014 success despite the defensive collapse. The promising cornerback allowed only a single catch against the Chiefs, in a rare showing of actually shutting down a passing attack in his area. It’s a shame the rest of the defense wasn’t playing so well, because if they were we’d see a lot more praise for his stellar play.
Darius Slay often went for the pick earlier in the season, trying to live up to his nickname of “Big Play” Slay. Often times, those big plays were going the other direction. He course corrected a few games into the season and that change in approach seems to be paying dividends. It isn’t often the Detroit Lions have good secondary players, and they could add more in the offseason, but they have a good one now in Slay to build on, regardless of who is calling plays in 2016.
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