Detroit Lions: Bob Quinn, Matt Patricia should remember ‘buyer beware’
By Robert Jones
Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn will exercise all available resources at his disposal to improve this team, but he needs to do so with caution.
While the excitement of playoff football fills the hearts of those lucky fans who are watching their teams advance, the Detroit Lions and their followers are busy dreaming up ways to improve their roster and give themselves a chance to be in that position next year.
After a 9-7 finish in 2017 and barely missing the playoffs, fans were expecting new head coach Matt Patricia to fix the defense and build a running game to compliment what had been an explosive passing attack just one year earlier.
Instead the defense took the majority of the season, as well as a trade for Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison, before they finally started to play well and offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter seemed to omit all the vertical passing plays that had been so effective last year from his playbook.
Add in more roster turnover than had been expected and suddenly a 6-10 finish is not all that surprising.
However, the point is that Bob Quinn has declared losing to be unacceptable. Which means that this is a very big offseason for both himself and Matt Patricia as they try to find the pieces necessary to turn their sputtering Pinto-like performance of this season into a finely tuned Ferrari.
If it was as easy as having their fairy godmother turn them into champions and giving us all a happy ending, that would be great. But these are the Detroit Lions we’re talking about. As far as we can tell from the last 60 years, there is no magic on Earth powerful enough to turnaround this team in the flick of a wrist.
Even if that wrist did wield a magic wand.
But Bob Quinn has thrown down the gauntlet of accepting blame for not doing a better job. He has also admitted the need for his head coach to improve his game as well. All of which is fine and dandy if they can.
That still doesn’t change the fact that they need more play-makers on both sides of the ball before these Lions are truly ready to contend.