How much of the Detroit Lions disappointing season is Matt Patricia’s fault?
By Robert Jones
It’s O.K. to be offensive
Let’s start by saying that while many fans will blame the Ford family and continue to trumpet the belief that the only answer to breaking this seemingly insurmountable curse called Lions football is for the Fords to finally sell the team. While that could be true, it could also change hands to someone like Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, whose results in our nation’s capital have really been no better.
So sticking within the framework of the coaches and players, there are a few who have garnered most of the blame in the media and fan outrage. Let’s focus on them and see who might actually deserve some of that blame.
Year in and year out, there is always a faction of fans who blame Matthew Stafford for all of the Lions short-comings. Let’s get this straight right now; Matthew has been the Lions MVP so far. He has bounced back from a poor season last year with a very good one so far. Has he made mistakes? Yes, but not enough to be even close to the reason this team has underachieved. Enough said.
And we won’t even look at the receivers, because they seem to have taken turns each week burning opposing secondaries.
How about the running backs? Kerryon Johnson was not having a great year before his injury and none of the remaining backs stood out in last weeks win over the Giants. Yet it’s hard to blame them for not having anywhere to run to.
Which leads us to the offensive line. They have been a peculiar conundrum so far. While they didn’t play well at all in the opener in Arizona, they have improved almost weekly since. Unfortunately, the majority of their improvement has been at protecting Stafford, while they have been unable to open up the ground game consistently at all.
Not that protecting Stafford is a bad thing. It’s about time he actually got some pass protection. But if they could only open up the ground game a little bit more, it would go a long way towards making this offense very explosive. An offense that is already scoring 28 points a game over the last five without much help from the rushing attack.