HOW ABOUT THEM LIONS?

I know the season isn’t over yet, but seeing as how the Lions are 0-for-Brett Farve in Green Bay I’m going to get an early start.
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This season was amazingly frustrating, more so than any season I’ve recalled in my short 21 years of life. I know we’ve all been frustrated by the Lions before, but that’s usually because they either didn’t have the talent, the QB, or the coaching. This season they had all three of those things and still managed to blow it. I’m not being that picky, an 8-8 or 7-9 is technically “improvement” but there could have been so much more.
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After destroying what many felt to be a decent Broncos team at the time and reaching 6-2 Tony G called me and said “Ok, I’m a believer. They better not blow it.” Now I kid Tony that he’s always the pessimist, but tends to have bits of logic to back up his beliefs. I saw 6-2 and how the team was playing and thought of what could be: Success. But alas, we were all ahead of ourselves. We over looked one very important aspect: At 6-2 the Lions had yet to beat a GOOD football team. Wins over the Raiders and Bucs, a lucky win over a Vikings team which had lost it’s starting QB and missed a game winning field goal, and a Bears team with horrendous QB play and a banged up defense. There were your 6 wins. Followed promptly by 6 straight losses. We can argue about talent, but this years Lions team had enough on both sides of the ball to win. Yes the O-line has been terrible and the DB’s have been suspect but the Lions had chances to overcome those shortcomings but they didn’t.
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To completely abandon the running game was moronic. To not utilize the number 2 pick in the draft to the best of his abilities all season was moronic. To give up at LEAST 30 points in 5 of 7 road games is horrendous. The season was frustrating because we just saw T.J Duckett run for over 100 yards…and he’s been on the bench all year, healthy for the majority of the season. It was frustrating to see Calvin Johnson not make plays late in the season, but even more frustrating to wonder why he wasn’t given a chance to make plays earlier in the season. It was frustrating to watch dropped passes and missed tackles that were the difference between victory and defeat.
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We can blame Martz if we want for his bad schemes and lack of a run game. We can blame Marinelli for not getting his players prepared for road games. We can blame the O-line for not protecting or opening up running lanes. But ultimately, each loss after 6-2 was avoidable. Now we have to wonder if this is a team that needs a little tweaking, or a bigger change? Do Roy Williams and Shaun Rogers fit here long term? What happens to Tatum Bell after the K.J injury? How many O-lineman can we draft this summer? Who can we get to help Ernie Sims?
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The Lions raised the expectations with their strong start and now 8-8 isn’t good enough. It’ll be an interesting off-season but here’s hoping it’s not as frustrating as this season was. Â