Letting Fans Call the Shots

As ESPN is wont to do, they had a serious of polls on their web site this week. One of them asked fans of the Detroit Lions if rookie QB Matt Stafford should start as soon as the season began. Nearly 80% of them said "Yes." I guess the Detroit fans have become so used to losing that they have forgotten what is required to win.

I understand their enthusiasm. They have labeled Stafford as the team's savior. However, that doesn't guarantee success. The Lions have had previous "saviors", and look at the condition of the team now. The last player who truly lived up to the label "savior" was Barry Sanders, and he retired prematurely due to the pressure of living up to that title.

Besides, I don't think Stafford is good enough to be Detroit's savior. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a fair quarterback who will be a great asset in the future, but I emphasize the future -- he's not good enough to start right away.

Just look at last season at Georgia. Prior to the start of the college football season, he was hyped as one of the top quarterbacks in the country. Many experts that, between him and RB Knowshon Moreno, the Bulldogs would end up one of the top teams in the country. Moreno lived up to his hype, but Stafford stumbled. He couldn't manage being one of the top five quarterbacks in ANY of the crucial categories: passing efficiency percentage, yards completed, or TD-to-INT reception. He was stable, but he wasn't outstanding.

That'll get worse in the NFL. Let's face it, Stafford really doesn't have a good feel of what's happening on the field, and he doesn't anticipate well. Things are worse considering that he really hasn't seen the types of tough defenses he'll encounter in the NFL, and practicing with the Lions' D won't help him any. Stafford at least has one advantage over Matt Leinhart, another highly-hyped rookie who has turned out to be mediocre (at best) - he did face SOME tough defenses. After all, the SEC has Auburn and LSU, two tough defenses. Leinhart came from the offensive-heavy Pac-10, so Leinhart couldn't figure out NFL defenses AT ALL. That's one reason why Leinhart lost the starting job to a physically-battered veteran more than 10 years older, who was originally brought to Arizona with the intention of tutoring the young QB.

Stafford has a chance to be better than Leinhart, but he's not in the same category as Atlanta's Matt Ryan, who was a powerful rookie starter last year. Ryan repeatedly carried his team to victory in college, while Stafford relied too much on the system. Stafford is intelligent, but it takes him a while to become comfortable with new schemes. He won't be ready to run Detroit's offense on Week 1. The team would be better to have him observe and practice, and maybe bring him in around Week 10 or 11. They should handle him like the Giants handled Eli Manning; look how that turned out.