The biggest reason the 2019 Detroit Lions could surprise everyone

As the Detroit Lions and the rest of the NFL roll through their offseason activities, there is one big reason why there could be hope for next season.

This weekend the Detroit Lions are having their rookie mini-camp. Head coach Matt Patricia and his staff are busily trying to assimilate his first-year pros with the way they do things in Allen Park as well as the playbook.

At this point, much like grading the draft, it is way too early to learn anything about how much this draft class will contribute this coming season or even how the Lions as a whole will do.

Each team has several factors that have to go their way in order for them to find success and have a chance to make a run at a championship. And for years the Lions have been unable to find that path.

Much like a turtle trying his best to cross an L.A. freeway, the Lions last 60 years have been like the NFL version of ‘blood on the highway’.

They say that even a blind squirrel finds a nut, and back in 1991 the Lions somehow found that nut as they won their division (the NFC Central at that time), had a first-round bye, and became the only team to beat the Dallas Cowboys under then-coach Jimmie Johnson in the playoffs (feel free to look it up) before crash landing back to their own mediocre reality in the NFC title game as the Washington Redskins steam-rolled the Lions to oblivion.

It was an exhilarating ride with a heart-breaking crash ending. A ride that the Lions haven’t been even close to since. Instead, they have stayed in their usual haunts of being somewhere between mediocre and pathetic.

Now as we stare at the horizon of the upcoming season, the odds have already come out as to who is the favorite to win it all and who is considered nothing more than garbage time. Any guess where the Lions are expected to finish?