Lions To Make NFC Championship Game in 5 years

This may sound bold or outlandish, but, I'm going to say it anyway. I saw Michelle Beadle on SportsNation predict a Super Bowl appearance for the Lions in 2 years but that seems impossible.

The Detroit Lions will make the NFC Championship game in 5 years.

I think that the Lions are easily in the top 5 for 2011 draft grades and with a couple of additions to the o-line, receivers, and a good DB and RB I really think they can be a challenger in the next few years. Obviously this depends on certain guys staying fit and performing at a top level, they weren't too far off last season and should of won in week 1 vs the Bears, and could of developed a good run if they did win.

What do you guys think?

2011 draft grades are the most irrelevant thing ever conceived.

The whole process of grading drafts immediately after they happen is one of the dumbest concepts I've ever seen.

I agree it's too early still to grade but you can still say they had one of the best.

I definitely think they are a team on the upswing and this draft is going to give them a ferocious pass rush.

But they don't have a stud tackle to stop matt stafford getting injured for the 3rd season running

simonhufc wrote:But they don't have a stud tackle to stop matt stafford getting injured for the 3rd season running

I mentioned that in the original post, they're just a few players short of being a genuine contender.

i dont think its that bold a statement. IMO if stafford stays healthy they will beat the packers and take the division this year. I mean they went 5-11 or 6-10 this year playing well over half the season with reserve and even the 3rd qbs. Tthey also could have easily beat the bears twice had it not been for questionable calls (Suhs push in the back on cutler, and megatrons none td). I think they could easily have a 10 win season with a health stafford and maybe some help in the secondary.

A bold prediction, they play in a pretty strong division they have got some good players, but do they have the depth an injury to the likes of Suh and Johnson, plus a key O line man then they will struggle, the other teams have a little more depth.

I find the Stafford needs a LT a bit of a myth. He is just injury prone, not the lines fault. Rodgers as an example got sacked 81 times in 31 games last year, that 2.6 sacks a game. Stafford got sacked 28 tims in 13 games, thats 2.2 a game. Now they are fairly close, but the amount more rodgers got hit you would of thought he would of missed more games, but he doesnt as he isnt as injury prone as Stafford.

Maybe he just needed the surgery he got in the off season (not sure if he got some the season before that, and maybe that was still not repaired)

They play in a very strong division which if Stafford stays healthy for the whole season, it could easily be very close between the Lions, Bears and Packers for who wins it, and who knows how the Vikings will be doing in a few years times.

AdZacO - You could say he is injury prone, but I don't think he was injured once in his college career (may not be true.) Also if he is injury prone then improving the O-line should mean he gets sacked/hit less which should then reduce the number of injuries sustained.

Some interesting comments here.
I get what M2M is trying to say, Lions appear to have drafted well, will be stronger next season and could easily have won more games in 2010.
Problems as I see it are that they have to keep Stafford healthy for a full season and they play in a tough division - Packers and Bears will be tough to beat in any game and whilst I think the Vikes are heading towards a tough period they still have potential game winners in their team.
Overall I'd say the NFC is weaker than AFC which will help Lions in 2011/2012, but Packers are the best in the entire league and there are a one or two who seem to have invested heavily in immediate success....

Also worth noting is that the Lions play in a division which has some of the best pass rushes in the game today. Green Bay and Chicago both have fierce rushes and although Jared Allen had a tough year last season, the Vikes are a team that can maul opposing QBs.

It's all well and good drafting a good rotational DT project, but when you have a QB with problems staying healthy, having a capable and strong offensive line is more important in my opinion, given the division that the Lions play in.

Give me a solid reason why the Lions had a good draft. Every player could conceivably bust.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Give me a solid reason why the Lions had a good draft. Every player could conceivably bust.

I think people are trying to say they like who the Lions have taken and expect them to do well. Every player ever taken could become a bust, maybe we shouldn't be able to talk about drafts until a time which pleases Graeme Swann's Cat has passed so we can see who actually did well. How many years will do? Should we start a discussion on the 2006 draft? Or have they not had enough time yet, or have other more recent draft classes had enough time?

3 years at a minimum.

Or should we just accept the hype about the players coming out as solid proof as to how they will do in the NFL.

Raiders got a franchise QB in 2007, that immediately bumps their draft up to a B+ for me.

So are you saying you've not made a single judgement regarding any of the drafts that have happened within the last 3 years?

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Give me a solid reason why the Lions had a good draft. Every player could conceivably bust.

Every single player in the draft (well high rounds) could "conceivably bust". I remember ready about Robert Gallery and how he was safest pick in that draft and would walk straight in and be a Pro Bowler.

And thus why rating any team's draft is irrelevant and an exercise in futility. A good pick is a player that produces in the NFL. Thus at this point it is impossible to know whether its good pick or an all around good draft. Its common sense.

And are people not allowed to predict who will be good picks, and who will be poor ones? Or comment on how these players have been rated by talent evaluators, and where they have seen them go in mock drafts?

Derbyblue you beat me to it. Sure you cant know if the draft class is a success. Will usually take between 3-5 years. But there is no harm in in guessing (or valuating with limitted knowledge) about which players will fit into their system and thus be a success. It is not saying it for a fact, it is saying that people beleive he is. So GSC take a chill pill.

Show we now ban talking about who might win the superbowl next year, as tht would involve knowing about the new players in a team, and if they will work out in that system. Even though some of them will have been in the NFL for a while, teams might use the player differently, so we can guess how well they will do?

Lets not talk about about who will make pro bowl unless the players have no new rookies in that position, as then we would be judging how good the rookie is, as the player would get less touches.

Or we could have fun and speculate, about how well the rookies could or couldn't do in the NFL.

As we all know the off season is so long in NFL that speculation is all we have for 31 weeks of the year....

exactly Grizzly.

GSC - In-house party-pooper

Think the painters must be in

Now, now, let's not gang up. It seems that the Lions got a few players who were valued highly at positions considered to be of good value.

My worry, as mentioned before, is that considering they have a QB who is prone to injury, why the didn't address the glaring need at tackle.

Well technically they did adress the need at tackle by taking Johnny Culbreath in the 7th round, but as he's a player who the on the NFL site doesn't even have an analysis something makes me think he's probably not starting for a while.

According to the NFL draft tracker the Lions had needs at CB, LB, S, OL, RB, WR which when you only have 5 picks is a big problem and a problem made worse when you choose a player in a position you aren't needing. They probably weren't expecting the lock out to be reinstated so soon and may have been hoping that they would have been able to trade one of their other DT's for an OT?

1st point - will people please stop referring to Megatron's non-catch as a dubious call. It was totally correct as per the rules, and the rule committee has reviewed it and said there is no reason to change it. He was the dumb ass who put the ball down before he got up, not the official who called it. Cut out dumb mistakes, and the Lions would be in a better position already.

As to whether they can be competitive soon, this may be sooner than you think. If Stafford is 100% this season and they can pick up a solid LT in FA (there are 1 or 2 likely) then I think they could compete for the division next year. The Vikes are reliant upon a rookie QB, the Bears are still reliant on choker Cutler, and I don't see the Packers as repeat material, though they offer the best bet right now for the division.

Pr4wn wrote:Now, now, let's not gang up. It seems that the Lions got a few players who were valued highly at positions considered to be of good value.

My worry, as mentioned before, is that considering they have a QB who is prone to injury, why the didn't address the glaring need at tackle.

Made this point on earlier thread, or was it this one? Anyway, Lions line needs help for running backs, not for defending Stafford. Lions QBs got sacked less than Rodgers, super bowl champ and Freeman same class and he looked good. If he is injury prone he will get injured. You can't create a line that will allow 0 sacks a year. They allowed about the same as Brady, and people always say he has so much time.

If the FA rules stay the same as those used in 2010 where you need 6 seasons experience to be a free agent then these are the available tackles:
Khalif Barnes Raiders
Alex Barron Cowboys
Jammal Brown Redskins
Kirk Chambers Bengals
Wayne Hunter Jets
Matt Light Patriots
Sean Locklear Seahawks
Chester Pitts Seahawks
Barry Sims 49ers
Langston Walker Raiders
Ray Willis Seahawks

AdZacO wrote:

Pr4wn wrote:Now, now, let's not gang up. It seems that the Lions got a few players who were valued highly at positions considered to be of good value.

My worry, as mentioned before, is that considering they have a QB who is prone to injury, why the didn't address the glaring need at tackle.

Made this point on earlier thread, or was it this one? Anyway, Lions line needs help for running backs, not for defending Stafford. Lions QBs got sacked less than Rodgers, super bowl champ and Freeman same class and he looked good. If he is injury prone he will get injured. You can't create a line that will allow 0 sacks a year. They allowed about the same as Brady, and people always say he has so much time.

You're right you can't build a line which will allow 0 sacks a year, but you can reduce the number of times Stafford gets hit, which if he is injury prone should at least help a little bit.

But the line is not a bad one for pass protection. One of the big myths of the NFL.

Feel free to predict it. Doesn't make it any less irrelevant and pointless

So using that logic, watching the sport in the first place is pointless.

We're only predicting for fun mate.

Graeme Swann's Cat wrote:Feel free to predict it. Doesn't make it any less irrelevant and pointless

Well the point is to have discussion there fore learning and fun. So it has a point.

On the grand scheme of it all, it is irrelevant. But it is relevant to the discussion on a discussion board. What new players your team has picked and how they might aafect the team.

You ok GSC? Or just hate after draft chat?

The whole concept is irritating. Plus this tends to be the dull part of the year.

That and my inability to force myself to work. Thats not helping.

I was over the top I guess, but its still total guess work. I prefer to stick to what I know.

On the Suh and Fairley partnership the Lions defensive coordinator Gunter Cunningham said "As far as Suh and Fairley playing together in the same front, [the offense] will have to make a decision on which way to slide the center and take the two to block one of them. We will have to figure out what the offense has in mind and work with the one that gets the single block from the guard. Cunningham also indicated he was considering rotating Suh and Fairley so that he would always have one of them at full strength on every play.

Suh played the highest percentage of his teams defensive plays compared to other DT's last season and won defensive rookie of the year, wouldn't make sense to have him only play about half of them.

If they are rotating then there are at least 3 who would be in the mix off the top of my head, Suh, Fairley and Corey Williams. Don't know if any of their other DTs are up to much but a fresh Suh could be even more of a beast than one who is in on every single play

As a Bears fan i will say now that the Packers win the division this year with the lions not far off them, Suh & Fairley will demolish a lot of o-lines this season, if Stafford can stay healthy i could see him (pushing it) making the pro bowl, good receiving core. If they could go out and grab the CB due to be a FA from the raiders they would be contenders in my eyes. There secondary is shocking and the only thing that lets them down in my eyes.

Anyone wanna jump on my prediction?

Was wondering when this would get brought up again!

I reckon they're in with a great shout of making the divisional round this year.

OK, given the following, I would say that they are the #3 team in the NFC:

1) Packers are #1 by a country mile.
2) 49ers D could be the best in the NFC and held the Lions in check 2nd half.
3) Who else would you seriously say could beat them out of the rest? Saints are probably #4 but they looked a bit weak against the Buccs and after Sunday, I don't think anyone in the NFC East is getting beyond round 1 of the playoffs. That leaves the Bears, and they will likely be 3rd behind the Lions and may not even make the playoffs.

Packers v Lions in the championship game would be interesting...

... consecutive NFC North championship games... i'd enjoy that, but its unlikely to happen two years in a row.

Lions are definitely very dangerous this year, although the current setback with Jahvid Best and concussions could affect them a bit and make them a little bit too one dimensional.

If the Lions can pick up a good RB from somewhere this week then I would say they are all but set for the playoffs. All they need is a solid workhorse who can do the hard yards, however if they lose any of their key players (Stafford, Megatron, Suh or Best) for more than a yew weeks they could find it difficult to win those hard games again just as they did last season