Can the Detroit Lions Be a Surprise Playoff Team in 2011?

There are only a few things you can count on in life.

You will have an interaction daily with someone who whines about how high gas prices are. You will be fed celebrity gossip just about every day that you do not really care about. You, or the people around you, will crack 40 Congressman Weiner or Jon Vessley jokes. You will have to lie at least once a year when a female asks you "Am I getting fat?" or "Isn't my baby the cutest little thing?" You will eventually grow old and die, and a team that was an NFL laughingstock one season will be a playoff team the next season.

You can count on this always happening because it is why we as fans love the National Football League. It is why this league is arguing over how to spend its billions of dollars in profit and disguising the argument as a hardship. It is why every Sunday in the fall has become such a patriotic event that every week can seemingly be compared to the Fourth of July. 

Football is American because America is parity.

We convinced ourselves that in America anyone can be rich, almost anyone can be successful and anyone can change the world if they are smart enough. Anyone can live the American dream, and if they cannot accomplish this dream, they can at least live it through the National Football League.

You cannot blame fans for having faith that this is somehow going to be the year for their team. 

The 2004 Buccaneers picked fifth in the 2005 NFL Draft and ended the 2005 season with an 11-5 record and a first place finish in the NFC South. The New Orleans Saints had their hurricane of a bad 2005 season turn into a cool Brees going into the playoffs in 2006, when they remarkably went from the second overall pick in the 2006 draft to a division championship in the same year. 

In 2007, it was once again the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who went from having a top five pick in the NFL draft to wearing "NFC South Champions" T-shirts. In 2008, it was the Atlanta Falcons who went from having a top five pick in the NFL Draft to making the playoffs with an 11-5 record. The 2009 New York Jets went from being the back page story in New York newspapers to an unbelievable and almost unfathomable playoff berth. The Kansas City Chiefs were one of the five worst teams in the NFL in the 2009 season and ended up winning the AFC West in 2010. 

These turnarounds allow for the parity that has made football America's pastime.

All these facts do is tell us what we already know: Parity exists in the NFL, and it is what makes the sport so popular. What may be a more interesting and original discussion though is "How do these teams keep turning it around?"

It is an interesting question because all of these teams that have turned it around in recent years seem to have a lot in common. All of these teams had great coaching staffs that were able to develop young talent. All of these teams drastically improved their defenses and developed skill players. All of these teams formed a clear identity based off the one clear strength on their team. All of these teams had a distinct home-field advantage that also helped improve their record. 

Using this criteria we can determine who this year's sleeper team is and not be shocked when they are in the playoffs next season.

Using the above criteria, the sleeper team in 2011 is going to be the Detroit Lions. The first thing that is going to make the Lions a sleeper team is their great coaching staff and how this staff develops young players. The Lions lost a ton of close games in 2010, but in these games the Lions were able to develop a lot of young players and give them a lot of key experience.

Even if that is not that impressive on paper, the Lions roster of young talent should be.

The 2011 Lions will feature Nick Fairley, Titus Young, Matthew Stafford, Jahvid Best, Calvin Johnson, Ndamukong Suh, Prince Miller and Brandon Pettigrew. This young team has also developed a lot of chemistry because of the work of the coaching staff. Jim Schwartz has improved the Lions' record every season he has been at the helm, and this is because he is a player's coach.

The Lions also have a great defensive coordinator in Gunther Cunningham, a great offensive coordinator in Scott Linehan and a great quarterbacks coach in Todd Downing.

The chemistry, the talent and the coaching on the Lions should enable them to be a surprise team in the 2011 season.

The 2011 Lions will also be a surprise playoff team because of the way they have developed talent on defense, and the talent of their skill players. Through draft picks and free agent accusations, the Lions may have the best defensive line in the entire NFL for the 2011 season. The talent of the young defensive tackles in Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley will lead to the Lions' talented linebackers finally being able to excel. This will allow the Lions to be one of the leagues most effective blitzing teams and allow them to cause a lot of turnovers based off this aggressive play. 

When you add all of this together, it becomes clear that the Lions—the freaking Lions—will have one of the best defenses in the National Football League.

In case you forgot, the Lions will also have an offense that has a "Pro Bowl if healthy" quarterback in Matthew Stafford, one of the leagues best receivers and premature touchdown celebrators in Calvin Johnson, one of the leagues best young running backs in Jahvid Best and an offensive line that can only get better. The Lions defense and skill players will allow them to be a surprise playoff team in 2011.

The 2011 Lions will be a surprise playoff team because they, unlike many teams in the NFL, have a clear identity. 

The 2011 Lions remind me a lot of my favorite NFL team in history: the 2003 Carolina Panthers. The 2003 Panthers, like the 2011 Lions, had one of the best defensive lines in all of football. This defensive line allowed the Panthers to blitz and force turnovers, and this is what the 2011 Lions should be able to do if they stay healthy. The identity of both of these teams was formed by their talented and mean defensive lines. This identity that will be formed on defense will also carry over to the offensive side of the ball.

In 2003, the identity the Panthers formed on defense allowed them to become a great running team and an opportunistic passing team. I can see the Lions being a great ground team like those Panthers, but I think they can be one of the best passing teams in the league. 

The nasty identity formed by the Lions defensive line will allow them to play with a swagger on both sides of the ball, which will lead them into the playoffs.

Even though Detroit has basically been talked about and referred to like it was a Third World country over the past few years, it is clear that Detroit still has some of the best fans in sports. We know this because whenever the Pistons were in their glory days of dropping magical ass whippings on the Lakers, the Pistons fans may have been the loudest in the entire league. This is when the Pistons were expected to be great.

Imagine how loud the fans are going to be for the Lions, a team that is not really expect to be good, and a team that is easy to root for. 

The Lions will also be a sign of hope to the Detroit community, and its ability to bounce back from whatever the recession throws at it. The Lions will give the fans the hope of the American Dream that seemed to be taken away at the strike of 2008, and with this the normal golf claps will turn into screams of complete jubilation.

These screams and energy will lead the Lions to becoming one of the best home teams during the 2011 season.

The 2008 Detroit Lions were arguably the worst team in the history of professional football. More fans were in masks than were in jerseys, more fans booed than even golf clapped, more players fumbled than even attempted to make forward progress, more tackles were missed than made and so much hope was lost with this season that it seemed that hope could never be recovered.

Fast forward to 2011, and not only is there an idea of hope for this year's Lions, but there could even be a new element of expectation. The Lions could be a playoff team in 2011 because of their coaching, talent, identity and fans, when they could not win a game just three years ago.

This year's Detroit Lions will define the reason we love professional football, the reason we love parity and hell, even the reason we love America and the cliché "American Dream."

The exciting thing for the Lions is that this is just the start of their dreams, and they should not plan to wake up to 2008-like circumstances any time soon.