To quote the very quotable Denny Green, THEY WERE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE! Going into the season, I thought we had a very mediocre Lions team on our hands. I figured we were looking at a 7-9 team, unless we were very fortunate. Well, we were kind of fortunate. The Lions were a 7-9 team in a 9-7 team's body. The pythagorean win expectation was 7.7W and 8.3L, so basically 8-8. Additionally, the Lions had a weaker schedule, so the win total was inflated a bit. The Lions were at 9-4 with 3 games remaining, needing one to clinch a home playoff game. Going winless would likely keep the Lions out of the playoffs and put Jim Caldwell on the hot seat, if not cost him his job outright. Fortunately for him, Washington lost 2 out of their last 3 and gifted Detroit a playoff spot.
The playoffs were really pointless, though. Stafford was still at less than 100% with his finger issue, a number of key players were missing, and the receivers left their hands on the plane. Every pass catcher had at least 1 drop, many of which essentially traded 1st & 10 for a punt. As a team, the Lions had the 3rd most dropped passes in the NFL and were 5th in drop %. This confuses me. Other than Ebron, the rest of our receiving corps had a sure-handed rep. The playoff loss was a pretty typical Lions performance - they dropped a bunch of passes, committed some crucial roughness penalties that either stalled offensive drives (thanks, Boldin) or gifted a TD to the opponent.
I say "typical Lions" because this is what I've come to expect after decades of Lions fandom, but it was actually atypical of the year they'd been having. At least until the last 4 games, when they played some real teams.
One of the better stats for evaluating the actual quality of a team is Toxic Differential, which is a ratio that measures a team's tendency to give up big plays and turnovers vs. their ability to create big plays and turnovers. A positive number would mean the Lions had more big plays and turnovers than their opponents did, a negative number would mean the opposite. The Lions, being the Lions, spent almost the entirety of the 2000s in the negative, managing only a meager +8 in 2011 (finished 10-6, got bounced by the Saints in the first round of the playoffs) and a solid +28 in 2014 (finished 11-5, lost a heartbreaker in Dallas). So what was the toxic differential this year? The Lions finished with a -9. Lower than the 7-9 2013 Lions and only slightly better than the 2010 team that finished 6-10. That -9 ties them with the Vikings and the Texans at 22nd in the league, and behind the Eagles, Chargers and Bengals. All this to say that the Lions may have made the playoffs, but they were more like a bottom-third team.
So, what is the state of this team? What's next?
Starting at the top, Caldwell is keeping his job through the end of his contract, which expires next year. This was disappointing, but inevitable. He did enough not to get fired. He's not a good coach. It looks like he's breathing, but it's really his coordinators that are maintaining his life functions. Without JB Cooter and Teryl Austin, Caldwell is flatlined. We know Martha Ford loves Caldwell, but I remain skeptical as to whether or not GM Bob Quinn will keep him on unless something miraculous happens next season.
Stafford was having a Pro Bowl year, until the last 5 games, when he hurt his finger (and started playing much better teams). His completion % plummeted from 67% to a mediocre 59%, he doubled his INTs while only producing 3 TD passes, and of course barely managed a single win against the lowly Bears. We could chalk this up to injury, or perhaps the competition suddenly became legit (except vs. the Bears) and Stafford's record vs. winning teams is well-known. But the reality is the Lions are in a position where they will probably have to pay him in the neighborhood of $25M/yr, making Matt Stafford, a QB that I wouldn't rank in the top 10 in the NFL at this point, the highest paid player in the NFL.
Is he worth it? Well, no. But the problem is this - what do you do if you don't sign him? It's too late in the game to trade him, so you'd have to buy a band-aid in free agency and hope you net a decent replacement in the draft... The problem is you can't just pick up a decent QB in FA, and the draft is such a crapshoot even if you have a top pick (and Stafford was the #1 overall pick, remember). To give you an idea, the QBs available in FA in 2018 are Brees, Kaepernick, Bradford, McCown, Henne, Stanton, Derek Anderson, Brandon Weeden, Nick Foles... Basically you've got Brees, who will be 39 and likely wants to retire in New Orleans, and a bunch of career backups who are backups for a very good reason. You might be able to wring a decent season out of one of them with the right supporting cast, but the Lions don't have the right supporting cast.
So you keep him, pay him $3M more per year than you're paying him now, and you get cheaper elsewhere. Keep in mind that Riley Rieff, Ezekiel Ansah, Glover Quinn, Haloti Ngata, and almost the entire rest of the offense AND defense have to either be extended or replaced in the next two years.
On a side note, I'm not exactly sure how to separate JB Cooter and Stafford in my evaluations, so I'll just throw this in here. I thought the play-calling was better than under Lombardi, but still left much to be desired. I also thought that Cooter tended to stick too closely to the original game plan and didn't vary up the running game or take shots downfield when it started to open up. If the plan is to be a slightly lesser version of Tom Brady, Cooter needs to know when to take his shots.
Last thing I'll say before I move on - Stafford used his feet better in 2016 than he ever had before in his career. He extended plays, avoided sacks, and rushed for first downs when in the past he'd have thrown it away (or thrown a pick), or spun directly into a sack. He's not one of the top rushing QBs - for one thing, the Lions almost never call his number on a running play unless it's short yardage - but he ran for about 13 yards a game, good for 9th in the NFL among QBs, behind Russell Wilson who ran for 16 ypg and ahead of Tannehill, who ran for 12.
Running backs... This was a problem area once again, this year due to injuries across the board. Honestly, I think we're ok here and can't see the rationale in spending at this position. If healthy, Abdullah, Riddick, Washington and Zenner should prove to be a decent stable of backs. Riddick is the best receiving RB in football, and Abdullah looked like he was going to provide the Lions with some semblance of a running game, before he went down. Washington was decent as a backup and a returner, and even Zenner had a couple of nice games. Now, RB is in fact considered a "position of need", but it's not as high a need as anything on the defensive side, or any of the receiving positions. Also, and I'd forgotten this, Ameer Abdullah was a pretty good kick returner.
Which brings us to the receiving corps. Going into the 2016 season, I predicted a deeper position group than Stafford had ever had. Not as star-studded, obviously, but Tate-Jones-Boldin-Roberts was definitely more diversely talented than the next best group Stafford ever threw to, which consisted of CJ, Tate, and a bunch of scrubs. Yes, they were better, so let's get that out of the way. It's still an area that needs improvement. Tate is getting on in years, and there's no real #1 option on this team. Jones was supposed to grow into that role, but he finished the year as a bit of a disappointment. Boldin was a solid pickup that reminded me of something that the Patriots might do. Now, these guys had a lot more drops, and that's troubling. I expect that should improve as the newer additions get more familiar with Stafford. Anyway, WR remains a need for next year, and I'm hoping for another Boldin-like signing, and maybe take a couple flyers late in the draft.
I won't spend much time on TE. Ebron took a big step forward this year, although his blocking and his hands remain unreliable. We'll say goodbye to Pettigrew, and I'm hoping we can bolster this position on the cheap.
Lastly, the O-line. I figured this position group would start out a bit rocky and improve as the year went on. Largely, that was the case. The run blocking isn't there yet but it's improving, and having the top backs healthy would help as well. This is a really young group of linemen, and they were pretty banged up this year, but Pro Football Focus ranked them 19th overall. Taylor Decker struggled earlier in the season, as expected from a rookie starting at LT, but overall had a pretty strong year (again, PFF liked him). The Lions will need to re-up with Riley Rieff this offseason, but other than that they shouldn't need to make any major moves other than adding depth.
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