Detroit Lions' Defense Fueling Team Drive with Personal Drives

Second-worst scoring defense of all time.

The 2008 Lions earned that distinction last year, and presumably will keep it until a Mike Martz-led expansion team in San Antonio rears its head.

The Lions allowed 517 points (16 points off the all-time record) and 16 wins to be tallied against them last year, and in the half-year since, the defensive side has been almost completely rebuilt.

Last week, I highlighted the Lions' offense, specifically which members were playing with a chip on their shoulder, something to prove.

One could argue that the entire Lions defense has a chip on its collective shoulder, given its last-place standing the last two years, but that would be a cop-out.

So here we go.

Gunther Cunningham

Perhaps this is a cop-out as well, but Cunningham has a lot to prove after his less-than-successful tenure with Kansas City.

On paper, the Lions replaced the coordinator of the worst defense in the league with the coordinator of the second-worst defense in the league.

We've heard the justifications. Cunningham was only running Herm Edwards' scheme, not his own. He has head coaching experience. He has been more successful in the past. Jim Schwartz believes in him. He wants to bring the blitz to Detroit.

That all sounds great, but without significant results, he'll just the guy brought in to move the Lions' defense from 32nd to 31st. Maybe.

Ernie Sims

Is he regressing when he should be approaching his peak? Can he be a leader for the defense as one of the only talented Lions holdovers this season? Does he have the talent to be a Pro Bowl linebacker, as his ninth overall selection would suggest?

The questions about Sims are to be answered this year, because his excuses are gone.

With a Pro Bowler on the strong side, and a world champion in the middle, he no longer has to pick up the slack for his inept linebacker corps.

With a defense now focused on blitzing and instinctive play, he no longer has the Tampa-Two system to blame, and he will be able to compile as many stats as he is able to.

This season will determine, definitively, which way Sims is going as a player, and he knows it.

Either he'll be an All-Pro, or another Roy Williams: A good player who showed a flash or two early on, but never quite lived up to his billing.

Daniel Bullocks

There are some who think Bullocks is destined to be a training camp casualty this year. Others project him to be a starter.

Which Bullocks is real?

If he plays well and stays healthy, he'll be a fixture next to Louis Delmas in the Lions' secondary for years.

If he doesn't, he'll just be another second-round bust, shipped off next year for a conditional seventh-round pick and a bag of tees, and he'll make a bad decade that much worse.

Larry Foote

The whole reason Larry is in Detroit is because he has something to prove.

In Pittsburgh, he was being limited to two-down linebacker duty, and he was starting to hear the footsteps of second-year man Lawrence Timmons, as he began to cut into Foote's playing time.

In Detroit, he wants to show that he is better than a 29-year-old linebacker playing to get replaced. He has a one-year contract, and has already playfully pointed out to Lions management that they should have signed him for longer, as he is going to be worth more next year.

Foote has set his own table here. He's sure to be a fan favorite, since he asked for a release from his contract with the team he won two Super Bowls with, specifically to play for the rebuilding worst team in NFL history.

He is from Detroit, he has expressed his desire to sign long-term and possibly retire there, and while he's not making guarantees, he is setting fairly high expectations for himself.

The bottom line?

Foote thinks he play better at this point in his career than the Steelers thought he could, or were allowing him to do. Now he has his chance. Is he right?

Sammie Lee Hill

Sammie Lee Hill is from a small school called Stillman College. He is the first man ever drafted into the NFL from the liberal arts college in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

There, I said it. We're gotten it out of the way, so the tags generally attached to Hill since he was drafted are right there in the first paragraph. Let's move on.

Hill is drawing some insanely premature comparisons to the NFL's newest hundred- millionaire, Albert Haynesworth. Most of us know it's way too early for such lavish comparisons. Let's see him play an NFL game, first.

But that name has been tossed out there, and there's no taking it back, now. He is admittedly built like Haynesworth, and obviously made a huge, perhaps even Haynesworthian impact at Stillman, but that's a lot of pressure to put on a kid who hasn't even played against middle-tier college talent.

Even if Hill turns out to make the roster and be average, he will still be considered a disappointment to some (perhaps the casual fan), even as a fourth-round pick, because of that ill-advised comparison.

Hill may have the kind of potential to make him the NFL's next defensive tackle superstar, but he might have some trouble reaching the lofty goals some have set for him before his first NFL training camp.

Keep an eye on him nonetheless.

Zack Follett

Speaking of unusually high expectations, here we have the most celebrated seventh-round draft selection, maybe ever.

Follett is the primary reason for this article in the first place. Nobody comes into this season feeling more slighted than Zack Follett. After all but accepting that he was going to go undrafted in 2009, the Lions picked him up in the seventh round, and in his excitement, he sent out his own personal "Prediction: Pain" to 31 other NFL teams.

Aside from his post-draft comments,  Follett's reputation as a hard hitter is well-recognized, and supported by a number of YouTube highlight reels featuring his play set to hip-hop music.

Of course, this is absurd. I played middle linebacker in junior high, and I was not very good. But if you created a montage of every decent play I ever made from multiple camera angles, I would look like a rock star on top of everybody's draft board.

The point is, much of the hype is fluff. Gunther Cunningham likes the kid, loves his "kill you every day" attitude on the field, but even he has said Follett hasn't looked great so far. He likely won't see any reps with the defense this year, and sad as it would be, he might not ever.

But then, I'm just the kind of guy he wants to shut up, along with 31 other teams that passed on him six times, and the 234 guys drafted before him.

Jason Hanson

Not a defensive player, but I didn't mention him last week, and special teams doesn't get its own article.

Besides, "Thunderfoot" deserves a nod from somebody.

Hanson, whether anybody outside Michigan knows it or not, has been one of the most reliable, consistent, and all-around best kickers in the league for the last 15 years.

Last year alone, he set an NFL record (50+ yard FGs made, career - 41), and tied another (50+ yard FGs made, single season - eight).

But on a winless team? Pro Bowl voting wouldn't go near him. And it hasn't, for almost 10 years.

Hanson has suffered from "bad team bias" for years when it comes to national recognition. Kicker isn't a position anybody looks at unless they're kicking game-winning field goals.

Unfortunately, that is something (perhaps the only thing) Hanson has had precious few of.

Hanson is 39 years old, is the leading scorer in Lions history, the eighth-leading scorer in NFL history, and will undoubtedly be the last No. 4 the Detroit Lions ever see.

Yet as he enters the first year of a four-year contract, possibly the last four of his career, he is playing for his legacy.

When Hanson hangs them up for good, will he have finally broken through? Will he be recognized as one of the finest kickers in the history of the sport? Or is he destined to remain the leading scorer on a punchline of a team?