4 Detroit LIONS
AFTER SIGNING a free-agent contract with the Lions last March, Nate Burleson and his wife, Atoya, sat down their six-year-old son, Nathaniel, to play a little game. Burleson, a wideout who had scored 15 touchdowns over the previous four seasons in Seattle, wanted to see if Nathaniel could guess his father's new football home. Two dozen teams came out of little Nathaniel's mouth—Super Bowl champions, playoff regulars, marquee franchises—but no mention of a club that has won a total of two games the past two seasons.
"Finally, I said, 'No, son, I'm playing for the Detroit Lions,'" says Burleson, recalling his boy's wide-eyed stare. "He looks at me and, with a high-pitched voice, goes, 'Detroit?'"
Nathaniel's shock was understandable considering the Lions' dismal decade, but the outlook in Detroit is sunnier in coach Jim Schwartz's second season. An influx of new players hit the Motor City during the off-season, and after years of misbegotten personnel moves, the Lions have built from the top of their last two drafts—quarterback Matthew Stafford, tight end Brandon Pettigrew and safety Louis Delmas in 2009; defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and running back Jahvid Best in 2010—the engine that could ultimately lift them out of the NFC North cellar.
Is Detroit about to become an NFL destination?
"When people ask me with a negative connotation about going to Detroit—the city, the economy, the team—I say what about New Orleans?" says Burleson, who signed a five-year, $25 million deal. "After [Hurricane] Katrina nobody wanted to be there, the locals or the players getting drafted or traded there. All of a sudden New Orleans is a place to go. The Saints revived the city. I honestly believe if we continue to work hard and bring the right guys in, we can turn around the organization and help revive [this] city."
The turnaround will have to begin on the field, where the Lions have so often looked overmatched. Schwartz and general manager Martin Mayhew addressed several deficiencies through aggressive off-season moves: signing Burleson and defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch (who played under Schwartz in Tennessee) and trading for tight end Tony Scheffler, cornerback Chris Houston and defensive tackle Corey Williams.
Burleson and Scheffler should help draw attention from go-to receiver Calvin Johnson, who has faced double and triple teams since his rookie season in 2007. And if the talented Suh can adapt quickly to the Lions scheme, Detroit should be able to create pressure on the passer with only four linemen, much like Schwartz's defenses did in Tennessee.
"We took a different approach to free agency," Schwartz says. "Instead of trying to get a lot, we targeted two guys, Nate and Kyle, and went all in. But we were also able to supplement that through trades. What may turn out to be the key was picking up those other players. I think we're in a much better place than we were last year."
Stafford, to be sure, is in a better place. After splitting reps last summer with Daunte Culpepper and fighting through injury during his rookie season, Stafford enters 2010 in good health and as the unquestioned starting quarterback, if not a fully formed one. He and Johnson have been logging extra practice time on the field and occasionally hanging out away from the facility, trying to build the kind of relationship between a quarterback and a top receiver that has defined winning teams in the past.
Stafford impressed observers by playing through knee and shoulder injuries as a rookie, but he also missed six games.
"I was pretty much playing hurt the whole year," says Stafford. "Your best asset is being available. It kills me to be injured, and I'll try to play through just about anything to be out there."
Stafford stands to gain the most from the Lions' influx of players, a point he clearly recognizes. "We don't want it to be like it has been," Stafford says of the losing. "We do have a lot of weapons, but it's up to us to get some rhythm and get it going and move it forward. Come the first Sunday, Week One, it's, 'Go out there and prove it.'"
To themselves, to the city of Detroit and to little Nathaniel Burleson.
PROJECTED STARTERS
WITH 2009 STATS
COACH JIM SCHWARTZ
OFFENSE
2009 Rank: 26
QB MATTHEW STAFFORD
G 10
ATT 377
COMP 201
PCT 53.3
YARDS 2,267
TD 13
INT 20
RATING 61.0
RB JAHVID BEST (R)
G 9
ATT 141
YARDS 867
AVG 6.1
REC 22
YARDS 213
AVG 9.7
TTD 16
FB JEROME FELTON
G 13
ATT 15
YARDS 46
AVG 3.1
REC 13
YARDS 133
AVG 10.2
TTD 0
WR CALVIN JOHNSON
G 14
REC 67
YARDS 984
TTD 5
WR NATE BURLESON
G 13
REC 63
YARDS 812
TTD 3
TE TONY SCHEFFLER
G 16
REC 31
YARDS 416
TTD 2
LT JEFF BACKUS
G 16
HT 6'5"
WT 305
LG ROB SIMS
G 14
HT 6'3"
WT 312
C DOMINIC RAIOLA
G 16
HT 6'1"
WT 295
RG STEPHEN PETERMAN
G 9
HT 6'4"
WT 323
RT GOSDER CHERILUS
G 15
HT 6'7"
WT 325
DEFENSE
2009 Rank: 32
DE CLIFF AVRIL
G 13
TACKLES 41
SACKS 5½
INT 0
DT NDAMUKONG SUH (R)
G 14
TACKLES 85
SACKS 12
INT 1
DT COREY WILLIAMS
G 16
TACKLES 31
SACKS 4
INT 0
DE KYLE VANDEN BOSCH
G 16
TACKLES 44
SACKS 3
INT 0
LB LANDON JOHNSON
G 10
TACKLES 20
SACKS 0
INT 0
LB DEANDRE LEVY
G 16
TACKLES 85
SACKS 0
INT 1
LB JULIAN PETERSON
G 16
TACKLES 76
SACKS 4½
INT 0
CB CHRIS HOUSTON
G 12
TACKLES 47
SACKS 0
INT 1
FS LOUIS DELMAS
G 15
TACKLES 94
SACKS 1
INT 2
SS C.C. BROWN
G 16
TACKLES 69
SACKS 0
INT 0
CB ERIC KING
G 4
TACKLES 7
SACKS 0
INT 0
SPECIAL TEAMS
P NICK HARRIS
PUNTS 74
AVG 42.9
NET 36.8
K JASON HANSON
FG 21--28
XP 25--25
POINTS 88
PR DENNIS NORTHCUTT
RET 22
AVG 8.6
TD 0
KR AARON BROWN
RET 42
AVG 22.6
TD 0
New acquisition
(R) Rookie: College stats
TTD: Total touchdowns
2010 SCHEDULE
2009 Record: 2--14
September
12 at Chicago
19 Philadelphia
26 at Minnesota
October
3 at Green Bay
10 St. Louis
17 at N.Y. Giants
24 BYE
31 Washington
November
7 N.Y. Jets
14 at Buffalo
21 at Dallas
25 New England (T)
December
5 Chicago
12 Green Bay
19 at Tampa Bay
26 at Miami
January
2 Minnesota
(T) Thursday
SCHEDULE STRENGTH
NFL Rank: T12
Opponents' 2009 winning percentage: .508
Games against 2009 playoff teams: 8
ANALYSIS
For a team desperate to build confidence, the Lions have a schedule designed to shake it. Not only do they face all three NFC North opponents, on the road, in the first four weeks, but they also have eight dates against teams from the powerful NFC East and AFC East. At least quartback Matthew Stafford faces only one potential cold-weather game—Week 10 against Buffalo.
SPOTLIGHT
Kyle Vanden Bosch, Defensive end
HE SPENT spent five seasons in Tennessee on one of the league's most feared defensive lines, suffocating offenses by rushing the quarterback, pinching in the running back and effectively shrinking the field. In Detroit, those objectives remain unchanged.
As does the defensive strategy. "It's the same scheme I played for the last five years," says Vanden Bosch, who signed a four-year, $26 million deal to play for Jim Schwartz, his former Titans defensive coordinator. "So it's been easy for me to come in and pick it up and help some of the younger guys new to the system. Nobody [around the league] expects much from us, and I think everybody here sees that as a challenge."
While Vanden Bosch is 31 and coming off a three-sack season, Schwartz says the defensive end looked as good on film as he did when he notched 12 sacks in 2007. "Sacks are a funny thing," Schwartz says. "Sometimes if [opponents] want to be able to take you out [of the play], they can. It was a dynamic change without Al [Haynesworth] next to him. I've heard people make the analogy in baseball—it's not so much what your batting average is, it's how you're hitting the ball. I have a lot of experience with Kyle, but I made sure that that didn't affect our judgment of him."
Schwartz let other members of the coaching staff and personnel department thoroughly evaluate Vanden Bosch independently before weighing in. "The last thing you want is to let you your past or your personal experience taint the judgment of others," Schwartz says. "When I saw that everybody felt the same way about him, then I said certain things about my history with him. Kyle's not here to do anything other than play football, sack the quarterback and be a marquee player."
PHOTO
SCOTT TERNA/CAL SPORT MEDIA
A MAN NAMED SUH Detroit is counting on pressure-packed play from the big rookie.
PHOTO
PETER READ MILLER