Lions Joseph Fauria dances in the end zone.
Getting to the Super Bowl is about greatness.
It’s about excelling in a specific facet of the game. The Seahawks made their mark on defense, combining an unrelenting pass rush with a devastating secondary. The Broncos reached the season finale with an eye-popping passing game, racking up points like they were playing with two pinballs instead of one.
As is known by anyone that has ever spent even a minimal amount of time in Michigan, the Lions are one of the few franchises left never to have reached this point. They made it to the doorstep once, but were rudely turned away by the eventual champion Redskins.
The talking heads are always referring to the wealth of talent on this roster, but what will be the calling card of this team? What will be the overwhelming strength that takes this group of perennial misfits to conference (and league) champions?
The first thought would be the offense. The common refrain is, “With Calvin Johnson being one of the NFL’s all-time greats, any unit that he’s a part of has the potential of being explosive and Super Bowl-bound.”
It doesn’t quite work like that, though. Think of the last number of Super Bowl participants. Most of them featured an offense with an array of weapons, none of which were necessarily considered Hall of Fame worthy.
Eli Manning always had a nice group of targets. Same goes for Ben Roethlisberger. Many of Tom Brady’s henchmen were relative unknowns, save for the one year he had Randy Moss. The Lions cannot continue operating under the belief that Calvin Johnson is good enough to take a team to the Super Bowl.
Only One Star Receiver
It’s no knock on him; it’s the simple truth that one star receiver will never be enough to transform an average group to a title-winning one.
If it is the offensive side where the team’s strength will reside, the surrounding elements need to be improved dramatically. Enough with pizza-saving Nate Burleson. Kris Durham is serviceable but replaceable. Ryan Broyles tried, but it’s time to give him and his brittle knees a nice shove off into the sunset.
There needs to be two to three fleet-footed receivers (outside of Calvin) flying all over the field for this unit to become truly scary. Scary on the level of Drew Brees’ Saints or Aaron Rodgers’ Packers or Peyton Manning’s Broncos (or Colts).
The quarterback position is what it is. Matt Stafford has never really been anything but a big glob of possibilities, but maybe with this infused arsenal alongside him, he could make the engine go. The running game is not a worry.
With high-powered passing games (like the above mentioned groups), a top-shelf rushing attack is far from necessary. You hand it off every so often just to make the game look more traditional, but it’s the big-armed quarterback and stable of playmaking wideouts that can take a team all the way to the top.
It’s not really worth the time to discuss the possibility of a Lions’ defense becoming something that could one day be remembered alongside this year’s Seahawks or the Bears of ’85. It’s been eons since the Honolulu Blue and Silver possessed a mean streak on that side of the football, so I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it.
Sure, Ndamukong Suh makes lots of headlines (and the occasional quarterback pressure), but the defense as a whole has been piecemealed together for so long that it’s now just a part of the Detroit lifestyle, like wicked morning traffic on I-75 or corruption within the city’s government.
It's the Offense
If this current edition of the Lions is going to play on the season’s final Sunday any time in the near future, they will have to get there on the shoulders of their offense. They play in a climate-controlled, windless environment, the ground-tire fake grass makes speedy receivers even speedier, and the league continues to make life more difficult for defenders on a yearly basis.
The Lions could go ahead and select some top linebacker or corner with their first round pick in May’s draft, but that would merely be trying to patch a boulder-sized hole with a wadded-up stick of gum. I say it’s time to go all-in on the offense. Find a way to nab Clemson’s Sammy Watkins, the blur on cleats that popped Ohio State for 16 catches and 227 yards in this year’s Orange Bowl. Scour the free agent market for Dexter McCluster or someone of that ilk.
Calvin Johnson is 28 and he’s not getting any younger. Don’t let his career follow in the footsteps of Barry Sanders. Get the right pieces around him so as not to let his remaining years fritter away with mind-blowing stats and single-digit win totals.
This year’s playoffs proved that a team with dominance in one aspect of the game can be enough to take it to the mountaintop. The Lions have at least a piece or two on offense and a defense forever steeped in mediocrity. The much-maligned front office needs to take the ball and run with it, both literally and figuratively.
If you got your hands on an original Picasso, it wouldn’t go on the shelf next to the ceramic unicorn from Plaster Playhouse.
There’s a masterpiece in our midst, and he’s wasting away.
No more journeymen around #81.
