After two games without Matthew Stafford under center, Jeff Driskel has proven to be a serviceable backup quarterback for the Detroit Lions.
The Detroit Lions can pretty much kiss their 2019 playoff hopes good-bye, as they now trail the second place Minnesota Vikings by 4.5 games while managing to lose six of their past seven games.
The most depressing thing about all these losses is that the Lions have managed to hold a lead in every one of their 10 games. This is typically a trend for successful season, as Andrew Siciliano pointed out on Twitter earlier this week: Only three NFL teams have had a lead in every game this year. They are the 8-0 San Francisco 49ers, the 6-4 Kansas City Chiefs, and the 3-5-1 Lions.
But alas, the Lions are nowhere near the quality team that the Niners and the Chiefs are both. Those two squads could very well meet in the Super Bowl, while Detroit is bound for a top-10 draft pick.
This was yet again the case, as even though the Lions drew first blood with a 7-0 lead on the Dallas Cowboys, they were still unable to come away with a victory.
While there are a lot of negatives to take away from this loss-with the main one being how the Detroit Lions defense made quarterback Dan Prescott look like the best quarterback in the league-one positive fact is that the Lions may have found their back-up quarterback for the future in Jeff Driskel.
Part of the reason why Dallas opened the game as 7-point favorites was because it was announced that they would yet again be without starting quarterback Matthew Stafford, who could be out for the rest of the season due to the broken bones in his back.
Driskel was under duress in the pocket all day long, getting sacked three times thanks to an inconsistent offensive line play.
Even with this constant pressure, Driskel never looked panicky in the pocket and ended the day with 51 positive rushing yards, which usually isn’t the case for any quarterback who gets sacked multiple times.
He looked very confident, made plays with both his feet and his hands, and helped lead four touchdown drives against an above-average Cowboys defense, which is more than you can expect out of most NFL back-ups.
Some of his highlight plays included when he scored on a fake handoff keeper in the first half and hit Marvin Hall on an impressive deep-crossing pattern for 39 yards that set up his 11-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Jones that cut the Cowboys’ lead to 24-21 midway through the third quarter.
Driskel ended the day completing 15 of his 26 passes for 209 yards while throwing for two touchdowns and posting a passer rating of 109.3, which is more than serviceable for a second-string passer.
Even though we only have a two-game sample size for Driskel in the 2019 season, he has clearly improved since the loss to Chicago. He looks more comfortable in the offense, and it’s easy to see on touchdown celebrations that his receivers love him.
While the Lions may have a questionable season if Driskel was at the helm the whole year, he should be more than serviceable as Stafford’s backup next season.
Perhaps if the former Florida Gator continues to improve, the Detroit Lions could move in the offseason to a team in dire need of quarterback depth in exchange for some draft capital.