Detroit Lions player stock: Who’s trending up versus who’s trending down

Detroit Lions players whose stock is trending down

Defensive Line (Besides Nick Williams)

The defensive line is definitely the strength of the Lions defense with highly paid veterans in Trey Flowers and Romeo Okwara plus young talents Alim McNeil and Levi Onwuzurike. The line did not perform poorly necessarily, but the Lions needed more if they wanted to win.

With the Lions plan of running two high safeties most of the game, the defensive line needed to stuff the run to allow everyone else to focus on stopping the passing attack. This was definitely a tall task, but it was the only realistic opportunity the Lions had to stop the Packers offense. The game plan was unsuccessful, and the Lions were forced to start bringing safeties down, which opened up the deep passing attack.

In the passing game, the defensive line was equally ineffective. Rodgers looked comfortable in the pocket all game as the front four was not able to get much of a rush. With the Lions weak linebackers and depleted secondary, the Lions need a good pass rush to try and masks the deficient back seven.  It may not be fair, but the Lions will need the defensive line to play great to cover up the rest of the defense.

With the lack of talent after the Bob Quinn era, the Lions have an incredibly small margin of error. The Lions are in dire need of a rebuild to increase their talent pool and increase their margin of error.

The win-loss record is going to be ugly, but instead of focusing on wins and losses, the front office and fans should focus on individual players performances to see who is worth keeping around in the long term.