Analysts: ‘No Brainer’ Predicting Lions 2020 Resurgence

The Detroit Lions haven’t earned a ton of credit for what they’ve been able to do on the field and off in recent years, but heading into a new season, some folks are incredibly enthusiastic about what the team could accomplish.

Pro Football Focus recently took a look at predicting which teams could make the leap from worst to first during the 2020 NFL season. The Lions came up as one such team, and it was due to the possibility of them to have a solid offseason as well as benefit from their schedule.

“If there’s a team that’s gonna go from the bottom to the top, maybe it’s a team that has a decent situation and also a lot of draft capitol,” the analysts say to start the video.

Who is such a team? The answer was a quick one, and it was the Lions.

“It’s Detroit,” it was said. “Detroit’s a team, you look at the 49ers formula last season, it was get your quarterback healthy, improve defensively, get more turnovers, which is sort of like the reverse noise of the previous season and capitalize on a third or fourth place schedule. That’s Detroit.”

Additionally, if the Lions manage to make a bold draft move such as selecting a quarterback high, it might only improve their standing.

“If they take Tua (Tagovailoa) at No. 3, they have unequivocally the best quarterback situation in that entire division. The three other teams in their division all in the bottom end of draft capital, some in the bottom end in cap space, it’s Detroit. It’s a no-brainer.”

Typically, the terms “no-brainer” and “Lions” tend to go together in other ways, but it’s interesting to hear some love for the team in terms of what they could become moving forward in 2020.

Analyst Also Sees Lions Surging During 2020

Ahead of next season, hope has come in the form of the San Francisco 49ers, a team which went 4-12 a year ago, but surged to the top in 2019 and is now in the Super Bowl after a great run through the playoffs. Thanks to some of the parallels, many have begun to dream

On the Pat McAfee Show, contributor Evan Fox is a noted Lions fan. He spent some time hyping Detroit up this week as the next team to potentially follow in the footsteps of the 49ers and go worst to first, perhaps even worst to the Super Bowl in 2021.

Here’s a look at what he said on the show as to why that could be the case:

“Don’t sleep on the Lions,” Fox says to laughter. You got Jimmy Garoppolo going down, lose every game. Matthew Stafford goes down, lose every game. That allows them to get Nick Bosa. Lions are sitting there at No. 3, could get Chase Young. Kyle Shanahan’s third year as head coach, Matt Patricia’s third year as head coach.”

At the end of the clip, McAfee said he respects Fox for having such faith in the Lions. That’s true no matter how blind it might seem.

Even Matt Patricia isn’t sure he can predict such a fast turnaround for the team in 2020, but that won’t stop many from believing it is possible.

The Lions have plenty of work to do this offseason in order to try and make this the case moving forward, but obviously, multiple folks can see a potential miracle playing out next year.

Parallels Between 49ers and Lions

Though many Detroit fans likely won’t let bygones be bygones with several of the players, executives and coaches they used to have, it’s probably a good time to do just that in time for the Super Bowl. San Francisco offers Detroit hope that one day, the Lions could be in their shoes. Just a year ago, the 49ers were coming off a dreadful 4-12 season, picking high in the draft and looking like they were in trouble from the front office down. Now, they are being celebrated as one of the better up and coming franchises in football. It merely goes to show how quickly things can and do change in football with health, good drafting and savvy executive work.

The Lions have a long way to go before qualifying as such a team, but if San Francisco can put the pieces together and go worst to first, there’s no reason teams in a similar boat can’t put it together to do it too.

That’s something that even the analysts are beginning to see.

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