The Detroit Lions have spent years trying to find their identity. This season we’ll see if they have finally figured it out.
For years the Detroit Lions have been losers. A team that was mediocre to decent in their best seasons and awful to atrocious the rest of the time.
Yet for those of us who know their distant past, they actually have one of the great lineages in NFL history. They were the dominant team of the 1950s. As a matter of fact, they were to the 1950s what the Pittsburgh Steelers were to the 70s or the San Francisco 49ers were to the 80s or the Dallas Cowboys to the 90s.
You get the picture, as hard as it may seem to believe for those of us who have only been alive since the Lions fall from grace into obscurity and beyond.
One of the consistent problems that have contributed to the Lions woes has been the inability to develop a team identity. All too often this franchise has seemingly tried to make things work on the fly.
In professional sports that just doesn’t work. As a matter of fact not having everyone headed in the same direction is another major issue. One the Lions have dealt with all too often as well.
Jim Schwartz was a defensive coach, but his defenses in Detroit never amounted to much and somehow offensively, despite being a coach who did want to build a productive ground game, things always fell back on Matthew Stafford‘s right arm to save them.
When Jim Caldwell arrived he also wanted a ball-control offense, yet once again it always fell back on Stafford to save the day.
One of the things that the fans should be ecstatic about is the fact that the current regime is in lockstep with one another and are building a definite identity for the Detroit Lions. An identity that has every opportunity to work.