The Detroit Lions: A Team in Transition

For the Detroit Lions, the new millennium has been anything but successful; they have yet to make the playoffs and became the laughingstock of the league under Matt Millen's Reign of Terror.  In contrast, the Lions appeared in one conference championship and five NFC wildcard games throughout the nineties.  Ultimately the new millennium marked a complete transition in the Detroit Lions as a franchise--a new era consisting of zero playoff berths, six coaching changes, and over a dozen starting quarterbacks.

However, I believe that the Lions' actions since the conclusion of the 2009 season are the beginning of a new transition within the franchise; a transition from self-defeating to self-improving front-office decisions.  The Lions' management is no longer operating under Matt Millen's theory that the free agency period is a means to free up money to spend on high-profile first-round quarterbacks and receivers in order to improve television ratings.  Instead, the Lions have decided to acquire players whose abilities will compliment the team's strengths in the passing game and offset the team's weaknesses on the defensive side of the ball.

Jim Schwartz--Detroit's current head coach--has recently signed two excellent, improvement-oriented free agents: Nate Burleson, who will cater to the Lions' potentially-prolific passing game by serving as both a decoy to Calvin Johnson and a compliment to Matthew Stafford, and Kyle Vanden Bosh, who will offset the Lions' weaknesses on defense by greatly aiding to the pass rush.  

The addition of Vanden Bosh with greatly aid to the Lions' defense because in a pass-heavy league the pass rush is a defense's most important weapon; a strong pass rush forces an offense to shorten its routes and its reads while a weak pass rush gives an offense enough time to run long, deep routes and make good reads.  In 2010 NFC North quarterbacks (with the exception of Brett Favre) tended to struggle under duress; Jay Cutler had his worst season yet and was sacked more than he had been in his entire career, five of the Packers' six losses last year constituted the five highest single-game sack totals for Aaron Rodgers, and the Lions gave up 43 sacks as three quarterbacks struggled all year.  While Vanden Bosh will not step into a Jared Allen sort of role for the Lions, if the Lions draft Ndamukong Suh or Gerald McCoy in the first round Vanden Bosh will be an excellent mentor for either rookie defensive lineman.  Ultimately, he will aid to the Lions' pass rush with both his play and his leadership of Suh or McCoy and, in turn, he will cause an improvement in the Lions' defense as a whole.

The addition of Burleson will force opposing defenses to shift coverages away from Calvin Johnson and give Matthew Stafford two legitimate deep threats to hit in stride.  In addition, because the Lions will have two deep threats, opposing defenses will most likely utilize a combination of man and deep zone coverages in order to defend against the deep ball, opening up short and mid-length crossing routes for former Penn State speedster Derrick Williams to run out of the slot.  Ultimately, the Lions' passing game has added a second dimension that will force defenses to "pick their poison" and give either Burleson or Johnson more opportunities to make plays.

Look for the Lions to improve their record by at least three wins in 2010.  The additions of Vanden Bosh and Burleson are excellent additions because Vanden Bosh will yield an improvement in the entire defense and Burleson will enable Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson to better fulfill their statistical potentialities.  I expect that the Lions will win five to six games this season under the leadership of Matthew Stafford, who will have a breakout season under center.

Rich Sayig

Expert Analyst

NFL Insider Today