The Detroit Lions secondary has been hung out to dry

The 2019 Detroit Lions defense has been atrocious, but while the secondary does need more talent, the front seven hasn’t done them any favors.

The Detroit Lions season will finally, and mercifully come to an end today. Next weekend the Honolulu Blue and Silver faithful will only have real NFL football to watch in the playoffs. Like almost every season at this time.

As we sift through the ashes of the Lions 2019 season trying to figure out where everything went wrong, I think it’s safe to say that it derailed right where our expectations started.

After Lions general manager Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia had painstakingly acquired more pieces to add to the defense this past offseason, the consensus among the majority of the fans and media was that Matt Patricia’s defense had a chance to be really good.

And that belief started up front with the defensive line. Damon ‘Snacks’ Harrison was the anchor around which the line was built, Romeo Okwara had been a productive pass-rusher in his first season with Detroit, A’Shawn Robinson stepped up his game and Da’Shawn Hand played like a budding star.

Then in the offseason they added Trey Flowers from New England, former Green Bay Packer Mike Daniels, not to mention getting Austin Bryant who was part of the University of Clemson’s talented defensive line last year in the draft.

There appeared to be tangible evidence that the Lions defense was on the upswing. After all, they had played very well, especially against the run, in the second half of last season allowing them to finish as the number 10 overall defense in the entire NFL.

Matt Patricia’s initial campaign with the Lions didn’t ‘wow’ the fans, but the defensive turnaround was good, and the thought process was that it should only get better, especially with the added talent on the defensive line.

It seemed that it would be a foregone conclusion that the Lions would have a top 10 defense in 2019, if not top five. So much for that theory.