Detroit Lions Weblog

T-Minus 96 Hours Until Lion’s Season Begins

I have the great fortune of being able to attend Sunday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks. This game inaugurates the new coaching philosophy, schemes and personnel the Lions will feature for the 2006 season. The Seahawks, who lost the Super Bowl in Ford Field, will be looking to shake free from the letdown that often occurs for the team who is the Super Bowl runner-up the season after their Super Bowl loss. Hopefully, the perennial rebuilding project that the Lions have encumbered upon will allow them to be able to acquit themselves well and not be on the receiving end of Seattle exorcising some post-Super Bowl demons. I am not sure the team is yet strong enough to handle an opening game blood bath, which unfortunately is a distinct possibility.

The Lions enter this season with many obvious concerns. The ultimate concern is their inability to keep their linebackers and offensive line healthy. Neither unit has operated fully intact yet, and with the paradigm shifts that have occurred this year in the design of their playbook these two units may be an early liability. The team also has to be concerned that they have been unable to establish any sort of consistent ground attack or outside pass rush. Many believe that the Lions have been using vanilla schemes in the pre-season and the Lions will show a little more on offense and defense than they have up to this point. I am cautiously optimistic that they can perform better than they have up to this point, but am very concerned that it may take up to the midpoint of the season for the team to mesh the raw ability, understanding and execution necessary to be successful to any degree.

I believe that the team has made some excellent choices for it’s team leaders after seeing who they have selected for it’s captains. (C Dom Raiola, QB Jon Kitna, CB Dre Bly, DE James Hall, and LB Donte Curry) The captain who is most likely to have to excel if the team is likely to gain any measure of success is Kitna. Every move he makes will be under the microscope, since the Lion’s QB’s have faltered for so long. Kitna appears to have the character, make-up, and abilities to lead the team to improvement. I believe that Kitna at the very least can be an effective game manager who leads the team to a couple of grind-it-out victories and in a best case scenario, he will recapture some of his old form and really thrive in Mike Martz’s offense.

I feel strongly that Rod Marinelli is leading the team in the right direction. This team can be very competitive in a relatively weak (the weakest?) division in the NFL, in spite of it’s shortcomings. Obviously, the stars will have to align just right for the team to finish above .500. That being said, with all of the recent trials and travails the team (and fans) have suffered through ending the season in the ballpark of .500 may be acceptable.