Detroit Lions: Do you like the direction of the team?

Here’s why

The biggest reason is the abuse that quarterback Matt Stafford has been taking the last two games, in particular.

"Tim Twentymen, Lions beat writer, shared this statistic, “Stafford’s been sacked 12 times and hit 14 times over the past two weeks alone.”"

Stafford was hobbled by the hits, including one by Kawann Short, a defensive tackle for the Carolina Panthers, which seemed to sprain his ankle when Short rolled onto it during a sack.

Stafford is likely to play, but he cannot continue to get killed or the Lions hopes of a playoff berth would likely die with his absence.

Defensively, I thought I was watching last year’s team. We made every quarterback look like New England Patriots Tom Brady last year. This past weekend we couldn’t stop the Panthers.

Cam Newton, the Panthers quarterback, was barely touched as he completed 26 of 33 attempts, for 355 yards and three touchdowns and zero interceptions. I’d like to get that production out of my fantasy quarterback every week!

Just FYI, that’s a quarterback rating (QBR) of 141.8; 158.3 is a perfect rating. Yeck!

Not only that, but the middle of the defense let Ed Dickson, the Panthers backup tight end, have a career best game, 175 yards on only five catches. To be clear, Dickson has had entire seasons where he had less receiving yards than he did in that game, Sunday.

That scares me going forward.