Matthew Stafford trade rumors: Are the Detroit Lions really clueless?
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia were given the mandate to win now. But with rumors of a Matthew Stafford trade, that muddies the water.
Detroit Lions general manager Bob Quinn and head coach Matt Patricia have been given the mandate to win next season. Or so we thought.
Patricia’s two-season reign has been about as underwhelming as possible. After Quinn fired former head coach Jim Caldwell saying that 9-7 wasn’t good enough, he replaced Caldwell with Patricia who has gone 9-22-1.
If nine wins in a season aren’t good enough how can nine wins in two seasons combined be alright? Yet Quinn has decided that Patricia will be his last stand and after another putrid season it might just be that.
Now with the offseason is full progress, Quinn and Patricia are working on their strategy to turn this abysmal team into winners. Which quite frankly seems like a lot to do in one offseason given how they played this past season. Especially on defense.
Yet, conventional wisdom says that if the Lions can actually improve their defense enough to at least have a pulse and some semblance of a pass-rush, then the possibility of a bounce-back year becomes fairly realistic.
After all, the Lions offense was pretty potent, despite the ground game coming along slowly. Running back Kerryon Johnson‘s second major injury in as many seasons was a major blow to the Lions’ ability to run the ball.
But the passing game was very good, mostly due to the MVP like performance of quarterback Matthew Stafford until his back injury against the Oakland Raiders. Stafford was putting together the best season of his career, but even with how well he was playing the Lions were still only 3-4-1 before his injury.
That record isn’t an indictment of Stafford , it actually directly condemns how poorly the Lions defense played. As in so bad that even with their quarterback playing incredibly well, they still couldn’t even get one or two stops to win more games.
But now with the mandate to win next year, the rumors are circulating that the Lions are trying to trade Matthew Stafford. How will they win more games without him?