In the last four years, the Detroit Lions have slid back into playoff irrelevance. Is this GM Bob Quinn’s plan? We’ll compare 2015 to 2019 and you decide.
Executive Vice President and General Manager, Bob Quinn, was hired in January of 2016 to run the Detroit Lions and take over for a string of underperforming former managers and front office mistakes.
No player is on the Lions roster without Quinn’s decision to keep, sign, or select them. After four offseasons and almost four seasons of football with a roster that is completely his, we will look at whether or not his plan is working by looking at the roster unit by unit.
Let’s face facts, every fan is onto 2020, even the most stubborn diehard. Here at Kick In The Crotch Weekly, we think that from time-to-time it’s good to evaluate the direction of the team.
Frustration has been built with the last-place standing and moves like getting rid of Quandre Diggs without adding any other pieces because everything has pointed to a poor end to the season but little seemed to get done to shore up the problems that were obvious to casual fans.
The question is: Is this the plan? Before we get into how Quinn has shaped the roster, don’t get caught up in how much more competent Bob Quinn seems coming from the New England Patriots, and how much better Martha Firestone Ford seems to run things, we need to refresh our memories about where the team was when Quinn took over.
Mrs. Ford’s role
We won’t discuss too much about Mrs. Ford’s role except to say that if she had her way former head coach Jim Caldwell would probably be her adopted son and the coach forever. She was clearly not in favor of him being jettisoned after four years of almost accomplishing something. In the good column, she did advocate for new leadership after she took over as the owner, ousting Tom Lewand, Martin Mayhew, and eventually Caldwell.
She hired President Rod Wood, a family business friend. Wood turned around, admitted to his inexperience, and asked for assistance from the NFL to choose the next vice president and general manager. With Ford’s blessing, they announced that Bob Quinn would be the new head of football operations for the Detroit Lions.