Can the Detroit Lions ever conquer their consistent inconsistency?
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions maddening history of inconsistent play has not only plagued this franchise but their long-suffering fans for far too long.
Today the Detroit Lions will face the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers after losing a completely winnable game last week in Dallas.
This should be an easy win for the Packers because, well, the Lions defense is pathetic and the secondary is banged up. Yet this is also one of those games (see the Patriots in week three) where the Lions typically find a way to win the game, boost the expectations of their fans, then find some way to lose during their bye week.
It’s a feat that only the Detroit Lions could accomplish.
Unless you are well beyond the age of retirement, the only thing you have ever known as a Lions fan is disappointment. Conventional logic has often posed a reason for hope, but this Lions team is anything but conventional.
Where there is light, they can bring darkness. Where there is victory, they can find defeat. Where there could be a successful future, they bring Armageddon.
When you think about, being a Lions fan is like losing out in every category of the genetic lottery. You’re the subject of everyone else’s jokes, never taken seriously and you never get the girl in the end.
That’s being a Lions fan.
Yet the awful truth of this past offseason is that this new alliance of general manager Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia looked and felt different.
Patricia is a detail-oriented rocket scientist who successfully ran championship defenses for the NFL’s longest-running dynasty, the New England Patriots.
The feeling was that between the two of them they had made the right kind of offseason moves to finally fix the ground game and that there had to be enough talent left on this roster after they evaluated it to be able to field at least some facsimile of a functional defense.
However, after a preseason that showed no progress and four inconsistent efforts so far this season, one has to believe that something is clearly wrong.