What do the Detroit Lions possibly have to build upon?

The Detroit Lions have had a tremendously disappointing season, but if the future is going to hold promise they need something to build it upon.

The Detroit Lions being out of the playoff picture at Thanksgiving is unfortunately not a rarity. As a matter of fact, some would say it’s part of the Thanksgiving tradition here in Detroit. Not a happy or joyous tradition, but a tradition none the less I suppose.

The hope that filled this fan base as the season began, was beyond palpable. Fans believed that the Lions had the right general manager and now they had added the right head coach. All that was left was for the winning to start.

Well, that cart was only about a few hundred miles ahead of the horse. Let’s be honest here, everything looks sketchy at this point. The work of general manager Bob Quinn, Matt Patricia’s coaching and without a doubt the players.

After all, this is year three of the Bob Quinn era, even if the previous two were with Jim Caldwell as his head coach. As near as we can tell, Quinn dramatically improved the Lions overall talent on the roster, but everywhere we look there seem to be holes in this team. And not the kind our running backs can slip through for a first down.

Every facet of this team looks suspect and suddenly all the assumptions about what these Lions have and don’t have can be thrown out the window because they certainly aren’t performing anywhere near the level we expected from a Matt Patricia led team.

Part of that is the failure to come anywhere close to expectations that were simply just way too high for this team. The other is the fact that with how this team has performed, it’s hard to say how much is poor players and how much is poor coaching. Unfortunately, that leads us to believe that both share plenty of blame.

Yet in the end it leaves us with a very big conundrum; just what exactly do the Lions have that they can build a better future upon?