Detroit Lions: 7 Starters Who Must Step Up in the Team's 3rd Preseason Game

Well, at least the Detroit Lions can't complain about a lack of home field advantage.

Detroit Lions fans, crazy fanatics that they are, have today sold out a preseason game and a game that isn't happening for a month-and-a-half (hint: it happens on a Monday).

The Monday night game I can understand, but a preseason game against the Patriots? Madness.

Still, I have to give credit where due. The Lions' fanbase has stepped up and proven that they are loyal, dedicated and will go all-out cheering for their home team if you give them even the slightest reason.

And so the third preseason game, the one that most resembles an actual football game, will feel like an actual football game, with crowd noise and everything.

A lot more home fans will get to see a lot more of the starting lineup than in any other preseason game. Which means the criticism will be on. I'm already starting.

Better yet, this test comes against the New England Patriots, a team that beat down the Lions on Thanksgiving last year.

This will be the Lions' biggest test of the preseason (with all due respect to the Browns, and much less to the Bengals), and if the Lions show well in the first half of this game, there might be some hard evidence that this really is a good team.

It still doesn't count for anything, but it's a valuable chance to shine (or perhaps for redemption) for these seven players.

Aaron Brown

Jahvid Best suffered a mild concussion against the Cleveland Browns, and while he's been technically cleared to play medically, there is no reason to believe he will.

Remember, a severe concussion suffered in Best's junior year at Cal is the primary reason his stock fell far enough for the Lions to get him at the bottom of the first round in 2010. It would be silly for them to not be extra careful with him now, especially in a meaningless game against a hard-hitting defense.

Mikel Leshoure, last I checked, is still on IR, and Maurice Morris is still nursing a hand injury. Moving down the depth chart, that would seem to line up Aaron Brown as the likely starter against New England (if you go by who came in last week when Best went down).

This is a golden opportunity for Brown to show he belongs on the team, but he needs to do much better than he has. Brown looks a little more like he knows what he's doing than he has in years past, but he clearly has no interest in running between the tackles. I'm not sure I've ever seen him hit a hole hard.

Brown is good at bouncing the run outside. Once he gets out there, he lets his speed take over and can beat people to the edge. But that's not what the Lions want him to do, that's the problem. The Lions are looking, desperately, for a back who can run north and south. That's what Leshoure was supposed to bring, but that's off the table.

I don't mean Brown has to lower the shoulder and show power; he doesn't have any. But even a scat back has to know how to follow a blocker once in a while. He can't just leave it all up to his quickness in the open field, because Patriot defenders are quick, too. Jerod Mayo can match him step-for-step if Brown ends up isolated on him.

Of course, it's not all on Brown. He'll need some help from the next two people on the list.

Dominic Raiola and Stephen Peterman

I've been picking on these guys a lot this preseason (as recently as a couple days ago), and I've been grouping them in together because I expect them to act as a unit.

Also I can't decide which of them has been less effective, and they're the two players that need the most obvious upgrade on the line.

Peterman is the most likely to actually get upgraded, because it's easier to replace a right guard than it is to replace the guy who's been calling your team's protections for the last 10 years.

But this week, Raiola is the guy most likely to look like he needs an upgrade. Everybody in the NFL knows Raiola's weakness: Really big, strong nose tackles.

So who do you think Raiola will draw, Vince Wilfork or Albert Haynesworth?

On a related note, are you kidding me? This is the equivalent of putting someone with a fear of boats on a dingy in the Pacific Ocean and telling them to paddle 300 miles to the nearest island.

Of course, it's bad to set expectations so low, but if Raiola manages a performance that ends in anything other than him being destroyed on every single play, it will be a small victory.

Peterman at least weighs over 300 pounds, so he is in a slightly better position to step up, but he still has his work cut out for him. Since the Patriots appear to be shifting to a 4-3 scheme to better utilize their powerful defensive tackles, Peterman will probably be responsible for helping Raiola double either Wilfork or Haynesworth.

This could be a disaster, but it could also be a valuable learning experience. If Wilfork and Hayesworth are at their best, they could be the most dominant DT pairing in the NFL, even stronger than the guys on the other side of the field.

Certainly, they'll be stronger than the fronts employed by the Browns and Bengals. If the Lions get blown up all night up the middle, nobody can deny the need for an upgrade, even if it becomes impossible to obtain one before next season.

Justin Durant

Despite being the Detroit Lions' first of three major linebacker signings this offseason, Justin Durant has made perhaps the least impact of the three.

Stephen Tulloch hasn't been the standout playmaker many expected (yet), but he has done a decent job running a defense he has only been with for three weeks. Furthermore, the guy who is the greatest threat to replace him at middle linebacker is already in the lineup on his left side.

The greatest threat to replace Durant is Bobby Carpenter, arguably the best defender on the second string. In fact, Carpenter has been so good, people are starting to wonder if he should be on the second string at all.

This preseason game is an opportunity for Durant to show the difference between him and his competition.

Of course, Durant probably wishes the opportunity came against anybody other than the Patriots. Every time he draws a coverage assignment against Wes Welker, he's going to look foolish. Durant isn't exactly an immensely talented cover linebacker as it is, and he is now looking at going up against one of the biggest matchup nightmares in the NFL.

Of course, if DeAndre Levy ends up with the Welker assignment (which will probably also be passed to safeties Louis Delmas and Amari Spievey, as well as cycling nickel cornerbacks at times), he still faces the very real possibility that he's up against budding star TE Rob Gronkowski (brother of former Lions TE Dan Gronkowski).

In other words, Durant is likely to be getting some work in what most consider to be his weakest attribute.

What I would really like to see is Durant and Carpenter split time on the first string to see who steps up to the challenge. If Carpenter outplays Durant in this game, it's very possible he earns the inside track at starting the season in Durant's spot.

Derrick Williams

Is it a stretch to call Derrick Williams a "starter?" Probably.

But Calvin Johnson is likely to remain out with his shoulder bruise, Titus Young's hamstring is coming along but doesn't appear ready for game action, and Rashied Davis, who actually started last week's game, is also injured.

Even in the event that Nate Burleson and Maurice Stovall start the game on the wings, I'm still calling Williams the starting No. 3 WR. No, I don't care if that doesn't count. I have a point to make here.

And that point is that history tells us Williams drops the pass pictured here. And with the WR corps running thin in the preseason, this would be a pretty great time for him to show he can actually step up when his number is called.

Williams is already starting to look like a long shot to make the roster with second-round pick Titus Young, Maurice "Seriously, I'm not a UDFA"  Stovall and special teams lock Stefan Logan all increasingly likely to eat up a roster spot.

If Williams is going to make the roster this year, the only guy he has a chance to catch is Stovall. But Stovall has been a star in training camp and preseason, and has the build (though not the athletic ability) of Calvin Johnson. He has to be considered the runaway favorite to make the roster right now, unless Williams comes back with a monster game against New England.

And even if Williams performs well, there's no guarantee he'll overtake Stovall, who doesn't appear anxious to remit his potential spot on the roster.

If Williams' last hope is the outside shot that the Lions carry six WRs into the regular season, he's still in trouble. To this point, he hasn't even outperformed Rashied Davis, who is approximately Williams' equal as a receiver and far more valuable as a special teamer.

Louis Delmas

Louis Delmas has been anticipated as one of the most exciting potential breakout players of the 2011 season.

So far, the only thing that has "broken out" is running backs from his attempted tackles.

Now, the hard-hitting safety is an interesting NFL archetype. He tends to miss more tackles than your reliable wrap-up tackler, but when he lands one of his big hits, it fires up the team. Sometimes those hits jar balls loose, forcing an incompletion or fumble.

For Delmas, the problem is he's trying to deliver those big hits and he's just bouncing off guys. Even the biggest hitters know when it's best to just use the fundamentals and wrap a guy up. Delmas may just be trying to make a splash and throw a highlight reel play up to show everyone he's healthy, but it hasn't worked.

And New England isn't the team to try showboating against. This is Delmas' chance to show he's the best safety on the team (up to this point, it's been Amari Spievey) by just playing within himself and exhibiting fundamentally sound football. If he does that, he should have a big game.

If he doesn't, he ought to get an earful from Gunther Cunningham, who should be very close to his wits' end with Delmas' and his current "my talent will make up for my mental lapses" philosophy.

Delmas has also played some pretty lazy coverage thus far in the preseason, and he should draw an assignment or two on Wes Welker or Rob Gronkowski, as well as some deep coverage assignments on Chad Ochocinco.

None of these assignments will allow him to just sit back and take it easy in coverage. If he does, we'll all know about it, because he will leave the defense with a gigantic hole for one of the aforementioned Patriots to motor right through.

Matthew Stafford

Gasp! How dare I suggest that the savior of the Detroit Lions has somehow disappointed in his first two preseason games?

I'm not, actually. In fact, I will freely say that Stafford has been the sharpest player on the team, on any string. He doesn't look like he missed the majority of last season, he looks like he's been in midseason form for about two years straight.

If he plays 16 games at anywhere the level he has shown in preseason so far, Stafford should be a Pro Bowl lock. Not possibility. Not favorite. Lock.

Having said that, he is going to have to step it up against the Patriots' defense, because everyone has to step it up against the Patriots' defense. Even if they're not as talented as they have been in years past (though with the offseason they've had, they might be), the Patriots are still a force to be reckoned with, if only because Bill Belichick is still calling the shots.

This will actually be a fantastic test to see if the time Stafford has spent on the bench has yielded results. Since he has been unable to physically practice, he has had ample time to study game film and understand what he'll see when he gets out there.

Belichick is a master of creating confusing defensive fronts and confounding even veteran QBs. His players know how to disguise coverages, and his defensive line knows how to shrink (or eliminate) the pocket.

If Stafford is going to be successful in this game, it will have relatively little to do with anything going on between his shoulder and his fingertips, and everything to do with what goes on in his head. After all, a quarterback's main job is to read the defense, not throw the ball.

Reading the Patriots' defense is often like trying to decode a game plan written in Sanskrit. So if Stafford has success this weekend, it means he has made use of the time he has spent off the field to become better acclimated with the mental aspects of the game (not at all a bad use of a rookie QB's time, I mean, he already knows how to throw a football).

That would be a better sign for his development than any bullet pass he completes 30 yards downfield against the Browns.