The only noticeable difference from the Lions team that went 7-9 in 2013 and the Lions team that went 11-5 in 2014 was that Calvin Johnson played hurt for most of the 2014 season and Golden Tate was there to get flagged for 12 taunting penalties every game.   It’s testament to how awful a coach Jim Schwartz was that all Jim Caldwell had to do was NOT psychologically abuse his players, and they won four more games. Caldwell didn’t really have to say anything, which is not a problem AT ALL.

Matt Stafford may be the StayPuft Marshmallow Man incarnate, but as long as he’s got a healthy Megatron to track down his overthrows, the Lions offense will hum along as usual. This year they also drafted RB Ameer Abdullah in the second round. So far in camp, Abdullah is looking like the dynamic playmaker that the Lions haven’t had in the backfield since Jahvid Best went all puddin’ brain, so there’s some hope that the offense will be more balanced this year. To Protect Abdullah and Stafford, the Lions wasted their first round pick on Right Guard Laken Tomlinson, who is probably too slow and doesn’t have good enough balance to compete at a high level in the NFL, particularly against the beefed up D-lines of the NFC North.

On defense, the biggest move of the offseason was not signing Ndamukong Suh to a long term contract, preferring to let him stomp on the heads and hands of players lying on the grass in Miami instead of the turf in Detroit. To ensure that they had at least one D-lineman with a counterintuitively pronounced name, the Lions signed Haloti Ngata from the Ravens. Ngata is definitely a small step down from Suh, but he’s probably got a year or two of high-level play left in him, so if you’re talking bang for the buck, the Lions probably did OK here. The linebackers and secondary are fairly average, and I don’t see much improvement there.

Overall, the Lions improved from last year, but with both Green Bay and Minnesota taking some leaps forward this year, I see the Lions settling in at 8-8 and possibly taking the wild card.

It’s too bad that an historically great player like Megatron is stuck on a team so firmly entrenched in mediocrity. For some reason, this sounds familiar.