Power Ranking the Top 10 Players on the Detroit Lions' Roster

The Detroit Lions, not so long ago, would have been hard-pressed to find 10 guys who belonged on an NFL roster.

In 2012, they will have a difficult time narrowing it to 53. And I am having even more trouble narrowing the list further to the 10 best.

But that's just what I'm going to do, and you, being the opinionated and informed reader that you are, will (hopefully) take to the comment box to tell me why I'm wrong.

Here's the best part: You will probably be right. At the very least, you won't be wrong. Not only are lists like this highly subjective in the first place, but the fact is the Lions are so loaded down with talent, any number of players could fit in the top 10.

That's a good problem to have, both for me and the Lions. Of course, there are very few top 10 "locks," and most of the guys in the top 10 have some sort of flaw somewhere. But so what? They're human...big deal. They're still great football players.

And here are (arguably) the 10 greatest players currently with the Lions, (arguably) in order.

10. Jeff Backus

Sure, I don't mind starting off with some controversy.

I know I probably just lost a good portion of you, because Backus is one of those highly polarizing players.

It's understandable why. When he's good, he's invisible. When he screws up, it's in a big, bad way and everybody knows about it.

To an extent, this is the nature of the offensive lineman. Like long-snappers, their names tend to stay hidden unless they screw up. So it's their job to be invisible.

Backus takes this to extremes. He goes for weeks at a time without anyone bringing his name up. And then he goes out and gives up three sacks and a couple false starts. Or he whiffs on a block and gets his quarterback destroyed.

But while Backus' mistakes are highly visible, they are also highly rare. People kill him for bad games against Jared Allen and Julius Peppers, but ignore the fact that he wins those matchups a lot more often than he loses them.

And while Backus may be, overall, no more than solid, you can at least always depend on him being there.

9. Louis Delmas

Louis Delmas is a solid safety, but he has the potential to be much higher on this list.

Delmas' game is full of both bright spots and holes. The bright spots (hitting ability, run coverage, vocal leadership, athleticism) make him a very good player. The holes (pass coverage, scheme discipline, reliable tackling, durability) keep him from being great.

Still, Delmas has a knack for the big play and has consistently been a leading tackler for the Lions, despite a down year in 2011.

One of the biggest problems for Delmas is his ability to stay on the field. In his first three seasons, he has yet to play in all 16 games. And in the games he has played, he is often hobbled by some sort of injury.

That, in large part, is why he has avoided some criticism for not becoming quite the all-around playmaker he was billed as. But he's still an effective playmaker when healthy, and his upside is still very much present.

8. Jahvid Best

This is more speculative than analytic.

Jahvid Best could be one of the best players on the team. But first he has to actually stay ON the team. On the field, anyway.

Best's health issues are well documented, and I won't go into detail about them here, but suffice to say, when Best plays, he gives the offense something they can't get anywhere else.

Best may not be much of a downhill, between-the-tackles runner, but he does give the Lions the ability to score a touchdown on a screen pass. If he stays healthy this year (and beyond), he moves into the top five with ease.

But as it is, Best has played less games fully healthy than perhaps even Matthew Stafford through his first two seasons. And unlike Stafford, Best has suffered concussions which are long-term, cumulative injuries.

It's going to be both exciting and scary to watch the rest of Best's career, but if he can keep his head safe, he'll be one of the most explosive weapons in football.

7. Chris Houston

Lost in the talk about Detroit's weak secondary is the fact that Chris Houston has put together a couple of fine individual performances in his two seasons in Detroit.

He's not elite-tier or anything, but he more than doubled his career interception total with five in 2011, and he racked up two touchdowns and over 200 yards returning those picks.

And these weren't garbage-time touchdowns. They came at key moments (one against Dallas as part of a 23-point comeback victory, one against Denver from goal-line to goal-line), and sparked the team to victories both times. That's very good for a guy whose ball skills have been a concern.

The most encouraging thing is that Houston, once considered no better than a solid No. 2 corner, appears to be improving year over year and settling into the Lions' defense as a legitimate No. 1 guy.

Though the Lions' secondary did make a lot of mistakes in 2011, you can trace relatively few of them back to Houston. The only problem now is that his contract is up (again) in 2013, and this time he might be worth more than a middling two-year contract.

6. Stephen Tulloch

I sure am glad I get to put Stephen Tulloch on this list.

With all the news about the Detroit Lions' difficult cap situation, I had just sort of assumed Tulloch would be worth more money than the Lions had to give, and that he would end up chasing greener pastures.

Thanks to some unselfish restructuring by Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh and Nate Burleson, as well as some shrewd moves by team president Tom Lewand, Tulloch got rightfully paid and the Lions got one of the best young MIKE linebackers in the game.

Tulloch's contract comes in at a hair over $5 million a year, which is a hefty—but not unreasonable—sum for a guy who led the Lions' defense in tackles after just one year in the system. If he plays at this level (or perhaps even better) over the length of that deal, he will turn out to be a bargain.

5. Jason Hanson

It might be sacrilege to some of you to put a kicker on a "top players" list, but I wouldn't do it for anyone but Jason Hanson (or Sebastian Janikowski).

This isn't a "lifetime achievement" kind of thing, either. Hanson is still nailing 50-yard field goals with regularity as he creeps further and further up the all-time scoring list.

He scored 126 points for the Lions in 2011 with a FG percentage over 82.

And percentage-wise, that was a down year for him.

The really scary thing now is that the Lions' offense is clicking and Hanson is not slowing down at the rate you would expect from a 42-year-old. If Hanson plays as long as Morten Andersen did (age 47) and keeps scoring at this kind of clip, Andersen's all-time scoring record could very well be within reach.

Surely, Hanson is going to start wearing down at some point in the next couple of years and transition to being a short-yardage field-goal specialist. But right now, Thunderfoot is thundering field goals from 52 yards the same as he ever was.

4. Ndamukong Suh

Down year? Sure, maybe.

Statistically and emotionally, Suh had a sophomore slump in 2011 after being one of the most dominant defensive linemen in football in his rookie season.

There is no doubt he needs to grow as a person and a player, but he was still an absolute force on the defensive line. It just didn't show up as much in the stat sheet.

Suh has had his share of troubles (and I won't recount them, because we all already know), but by all accounts, he's a smart, grounded kid who won't stay down for long (if he was at all).

He also gets an implicit boost to his reputation, since everybody got a much better idea this offseason of where to draw the line between "hard-nosed" and "dirty."

3. Cliff Avril

You say no? You say Avril is only successful because of the scheme and the players around him?

That makes no sense at all. Isn't the point of building a football team to find players who work well in a scheme with their teammates?

Avril is that guy, and whether you think he's worth $10 million a year or not, you can't deny that he's one of the most effective young pass-rushers in the league.

The equation is simple. The Lions value the pass rush on defense above all else. Avril is the Lions' best pass rusher, in terms of production if not overall skill level. Therefore, Avril is the Lions' most valuable defender, period.

Of course, it isn't just Avril's sack numbers that make him valuable. It's the number of those sacks that result in fumbles. In his first four years as a pro, Avril has 30 sacks. But he also has 14 forced fumbles in that time frame. Most of those came on sacks, and several were returned for touchdowns.

Avril is a technical master when it comes to the fumble-sack (see the arm positioning in this picture), and since turnovers are the most important statistic in football, that just speaks even more highly of Avril's value.

2. Calvin Johnson

Certainly, on the last slide, you knew who the top two players on this list were going to be. The only question was the order.

Well, here it is. If I have to explain why Johnson is on this list, allow me to welcome you to world of the NFL. I hope you find your time as a Lions fan enjoyable and exciting.

Seriously, Johnson was just playing out his rookie contract, and already he's re-writing the Lions' record books. He was, for a time, on pace to break some NFL marks as well, and those are still very much on the table for him as he approaches (!!!) the prime of his career.

But despite some very strong years earlier in his career, he didn't really explode statistically until 2011, and there's a very good reason for that...

1. Matthew Stafford

Matthew Stafford played his first full season in 2011.

Calvin Johnson (and the rest of the Lions' offense) had a career year in 2011.

The Lions made the playoffs for the first time in over a decade in 2011.

Coincidence? Of course not. You need only look at the difference between 2010 and 2011 to see that as Stafford goes, so go the Lions. Sure the Lions made some improvements in other areas in 2011, particularly on defense.

But the defense wasn't the unit that made bounding improvement in 2011. The passing game was.

Stafford was the driving, steadying force behind a team that went from finding ways to lose to finding ways to erase 20-point deficits.

Would Stafford be a whole lot worse off without Johnson? That's a stupid question, of course he would. But if Johnson were talented enough to carry the offense (and the team) to victory with only average quarterback play, he would have done it in one of his first four years.

He had some fantastic individual performances from 2007-2010, for sure, and he does make he quarterbacks look better. But both he and the team improved significantly from Stafford's great year, and that simply cannot be overlooked.

It may be positional bias from a guy who has literally never seen a talented quarterback with the Lions until now, but that's what the comment box is for. Stafford is more important to the team than Johnson is. Discuss.