Glover Quin is at a loss for words over the state of the Detroit Lions after opening the season 0-5. The Arizona Cardinals came into Ford Field and dominated the Lions completely on Sunday, winning 42-17.
Things got so bad that quarterback Matthew Stafford was benched in the third quarter for poor performance after throwing his third interception. Head coach Jim Caldwell had warned Stafford that one more turnover would result in a timeout on the sideline, and when it happened the coach stuck to his word.
While the offense struggled, the defense was no help, either, allowing Carson Palmer to freely hit his playmakers for big gains and easy scores. After the secondary backed up, Chris Johnson and Andre Ellington went to work on the soft middle of Detroit’s defensive front.
Quin has been in the NFL for seven years, and he proved his worth many times over last season after signing a free-agent deal in 2014 coming over from Houston. He’s an outstanding player in his own right, and he brought a winning mentality to the Lions from his time with the Texans, who made the playoffs in his final two years with the club.
Yet Quin appeared defeated Sunday after the brutal loss to the Cardinals, and he didn’t have any encouraging words to say about the team moving forward.
“I mean, something’s not getting through,” he said, via Carlos Monarrez of the Detroit Free Press. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t know. I’m at a loss right now. I’m confused. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know if I’ve ever been a part of a game like that. I’m just — I don’t know. I’m just at a loss right now. We’ve got to figure it out, though. We’ve got to figure it out, because it’s not looking good.”
It’s truly puzzling to see this team fall apart so completely.
With the talent assembled, on both sides of the ball, the Lions should be at the least a .500 ball club. We all know Stafford isn’t ever going to be anything more than Jeff George, but he’s still managed to play at a high level while leading two successful 10-plus-win seasons, in 2011 and 2014.
Golden Tate and Calvin Johnson comprise one of the most exciting receiver duos in the league, and with Ameer Abdullah’s speed the offense could be unbelievably dynamic.
Defensively, losing Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley hurt, of that there is no doubt. However, Haloti Ngata and Ziggy Ansah are pretty dynamic in their own right. Missing DeAndre Levy in the middle also hurts. These holes haven’t been filled with talent to match the original, but Detroit’s defense should still be much better than it has been.
It seems like the problem in Detroit isn’t talent, or even scheme. The problem could very well be effort, or more specifically a lack of effort and focus.
“When people go home, I don’t know what they do,” Quin said. …I don’t know if guys are studying. I don’t know if guys are taking care of their bodies. I don’t know what people do inside their homes and things of that nature.
“There’s plenty of people that can come to work and act like everything’s fine and go home and turn into something. I don’t know. I don’t go home with everybody. But like I said, when you lose like this and it feels like this, it makes you wonder, like, why? I don’t know why. That’s a question that everybody has to ask themselves: Why? That’s something that we’ve got to figure out.”
Quin wonders if a “players-only” meeting might help, but at this point he seems at a complete loss for words or ideas about how to inspire Detroit’s locker room to do better — to be better.
At this point, the way things have gone, either Detroit will sink to the bottom of the heap like a rock or the Lions do just good enough to stay away from a top-5 pick in the NFL draft next year. In the same division as the undefeated Green Bay Packers, there isn’t much hope of making a playoff run, regardless.