Detroit Lions: A Continual Slide

This past stretch of four games could not have gone worse. It is bad enough to lose all four games, but losing to an underwhelming Chicago Bears team twice, the 1-9 Washington Redskins, and the Dallas Cowboys is really rock bottom. Now, I know, Matthew Stafford has been injured and we have had a pair of inexperienced quarterbacks at the helm (who I will talk about in a bit), but the games have been there for the taking, our other players just have not gotten the job done. In fact, we lost every game by a single score. Sitting at 3-8-1, the Lions are basically playing for draft position at this point. Naturally, that means they will probably finish strong and go 4-0 or 3-1 in their last four games, thus securing a middle-of-the-pack draft slot.

Albeit disappointing to fall so far after the strong start the Lions had to start the season, it certainly is not all that surprising. The struggles they showed early on have continued throughout the year, they have just not quite been able to overcome them as well as they did in the first four games of the year. Sadly, in close games like the Lions have had, the smallest mistake can be the difference, and the Lions have just had more of those than their opponents. Again, I point out that we have only lost one game this year by more than one score. We have been in every game but have just not been able to pull out the wins.

I will now present some more detailed thoughts of mine about this past stretch of games:

Sorting Through the Quarterbacks

I credit Jeff Driskel and David Blough a lot. They both came in without a lot of time to prepare due to the suddenness of Stafford’s injury, which is not easy to do. Despite this, they still came in and played moderately well, with Driskel making plays with his legs and Blough also putting up some numbers. It has been exciting in a way to watch a young quarterback on Sundays. Even though Driskel and Blough did not look horrible, they are far from the answer at the quarterback position. Every pass Driskel completed seemed to come off of a broken play where he was just running around. While it is fun to actually have a quarterback that can do that effectively, it tells me that he is just frantic and cannot sit in the pocket and complete passes. Blough looked better as a passer, but he does not seem to have a very strong arm, and I would say he is average at best for a backup. I assume he will be our starter moving forward, so he will be interesting to watch. It would be far more exciting if the Lions were playing a young draft pick of their own instead of a castoff from the San Francisco 49ers and Cincinnati Bengals and an undrafted free agent initially signed by the Cleveland Browns. I really do not understand why the front office has been so persistent about not spending meaningful draft capital on a quarterback. We have drafted two quarterbacks since Bob Quinn came into town, Michigan Wolverine Jake Rudock and Miami Hurricane Brad Kaaya, and both of them were sixth-round picks. It is also notable that both of those players are now far out of any sort of relevance. I have to believe that Quinn took Stafford’s durability as a given, and had we drafted a young quarterback recently that actually was worth anything, I would argue we may have won a few of the past four games. Let us not forget that we were still very much in the playoff hunt before this four-game stretch, and because we have not invested anything into the backup quarterback slot, we have fallen far out of that race. I am calling for Quinn to do his due diligence this year and take a quarterback in the third round or earlier.

Bo Scarbrough is a Diamond in the Rough

Ever since Kerryon Johnson went down with another injury, we have had an endless cycle of running backs. It appears we have found our interim “lead back” in Scarbrough. It was very surprising as in his first game on the team he assumed that role right from the beginning. It was also frustrating to me because I had picked up Ty Johnson on my fantasy team. I like Scarbrough a lot, personally, he runs hard and with a lot of power. He has been impressive against defenses that surely have been at least a little keyed in on the run given the quarterbacks we have had under center. He lacks the elite breakaway speed that I love to see in running backs, however, and he is not great at making guys miss, but he is respectably fast for his size. I think he really has the potential to be a solid rotational guy for us for years to come, especially in the old-school “big back” role.

The Defense is Awful

Seemingly every week the defense looks a little bit worse. This is really disappointing because if you recall from my post about the Lions’ first four games, the defense looked solid. Or at the very least, they made big plays when they needed to. Ultimately this defense has given up an absurd number of yards, nearly 400 yards per game to be exact, good for the fourth worst in the league. Given that the worst three teams in that category are the Arizona Cardinals, Cincinnati Bengals, and the Miami Dolphins, that really leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Top to bottom, this defense just cannot stop anyone, and it is unfortunate because as I mentioned we have lost every game except one by a single score. That is one series where the defense steps up away from us being able to put the game in the win column. Those are the types of things that win you lots of games and get you a division title. A big part of the struggles on defense has been the lack of pass rush but having guys like Jarrad Davis be completely incompetent in pass coverage is also not helping. This lack of production on defense is inexcusable, especially with the talent we have and the fact that Matt Patricia is supposed to be a defensive-minded coach.

Rookie Updates

T.J. Hockenson is now on IR for the remainder of the season with an ankle injury. Let’s take a look at his production from this season. He finished with a line of 32 catches for 367 yards and 2 touchdowns. Now, if you take away his “breakout” Week 1 performance of 6-131-1 against the Arizona Cardinals, that leaves him with a mere 26-236-1 over the other 11 games, which included one game with zero catches and four games with only one catch. That is sad production for a player picked at #8 overall. That is not even accounting for his drops and whiffed blocks that happened throughout the season. After actually being a little optimistic about his future following that strong performance in the first week, but after the past 11 weeks I really see no reason to expect him to ever play up to his draft slot. As far as I am concerned, this is a fire-able offense for Bob Quinn. I tried to give him at least a little benefit of the doubt given the talent he has been able to bring in through the draft, but I am far beyond that at this point. I have been on the train that he would be a bust since Roger Goodell read that card on draft night, and I am still firmly sticking to it.

Jahlani Tavai has been quiet in recent weeks. He has also been disappointing from a draft slot perspective. Being taken in the second round I hoped he would be more of a difference maker. The fact that he is already starting and a major part of the rotation is of course a good sign, but I just wish he could play every down rather than have to be subbed out in passing situations.

Will Harris has continued his solid production up to this point, including a few nice pass breakups. He was the guy I was the highest on after the draft, and he has shown quite a bit of promise. The safety position on this team is crowded, but Harris has slowly worked his way into a bigger role. Granted, injuries have really helped with that, but nonetheless he has performed well when called upon.

Austin Bryant has still yet to play. Hopefully we at least get to see a glimpse of him before this season is over.

Amani Oruwariye has really played well in his three games since fully recovering from his injury. He had five tackles and two pass breakups against the Dallas Cowboys and had seven tackles against the Chicago Bears. He has worked his way well into the rotation and it is very encouraging to see that kind of instant progress from a fifth-round pick. Oruwariye is certainly a name to watch even in the immediate future.

Ty Johnson has been strangely uninvolved since the Kerryon Johnson injury. Bo Scarbrough and J.D. McKissic have been soaking up the vast majority of touches in the backfield. As much as I like those two, I really want to see Ty get some work in, especially in a season where we obviously are not going anywhere. All we have to do is get the guy some reps, then he will be better prepared for the future when we really need him. The few times he has touched the ball he has looked an ankle tackle away from breaking off a long touchdown run, and we need more of that from this offense.

At this point, it is clearly a season where we are playing for draft position. It was fun having hope while it lasted but, wow, has that ever faded away. It is disappointing to say the least, but far from foreign for those of us who have been Lions fans for a long time. Knowing the Lions, I would not put it past them to somehow win three of the final four games to stick us right in the middle of the first round where we cannot get a real home run draft pick. I hope that does not happen, given the state of the team, and I hope we end up with a really good draft slot. Although, who knows, we will probably just take another tight end with it.