Detroit Lions: It’s time to execute or face the music
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions had a season to forget last year, but a very positive offseason means that Matt Patricia had better get results or else.
The Detroit Lions will face a crossroads with the 2020 season. It’s time for this regime to prove they can win or pack their bags.
In professional sports, anything shy of being champions isn’t good enough. However, for a losing franchise like the Lions have been for the past 60 years, improvement means a great deal. It is the consolation prize for a team legitimately not good enough to win it all.
Yet that improvement has to be commensurate with the cards you hold. On offense, the Detroit Lions look very good on paper. Reality sometimes tells us a different story, but on paper, this appears to be a team that could be very productive.
The biggest question mark will be the offensive line. The additions of guards Jonah Jackson and Logan Stenberg bring some promising young talent to the interior of the line while free-agent signee Halapoulivaati Vaitai played well in the opportunities given to him in Philadelphia, but must now prove he can be an upgrade at right tackle from Rick Wagner.
There is enough legitimate talent in the offensive trenches for the line to be pretty good. Cohesiveness will be the biggest question. Mistakes and breakdowns happen to the best offensive lines in NFL at times, but being consistently good is what makes the best lines the best and allows their offenses to be effective.
So the pressure is on the line to be pretty good at their job. Because if they are, then Kerryon Johnson and D’Andre Swift will be able to truly put their talent on display and Matthew Stafford will again resume one of the most dangerous passing attacks in the NFL.
It will also mean that the entirety of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s scheme will be able to do as it pleases and that will lead to Lions fans everywhere being very pleased. The problem is how many questions there are on defense to be answered.