Former Lions DE Lawrence Jackson: ‘If any fan base should be excited about the future it should be the Lions’

Former Detroit Lions defensive end Lawrence Jackson has never been afraid to speak his mind about his former team or anything else. He once said he didn’t have much respect for his former head coach Jim Schwartz. He opened up to the Detroit Free Press about his depression and suicidal thoughts. While some have criticized Jackson for being overly critical of the team that decided not to re-sign him in 2013, other have praised him for his transparency and honesty, a rare thing among NFL athletes taught to always toe the line and keep things bottled up.

Now that the Lions have moved on from the Schwartz era and have become a somewhat competitive team, Jackson sees the franchise much differently. On Tuesday morning, he took to Twitter to express his excitement over the perceived turnaround. Specifically, Jackson wanted to point out how it is clear Matthew Stafford has taken a new step in his career.

But Jackson doesn’t think the improvement stops with Stafford, he sees this entire franchise set in the right direction after wasting so many years on failed management.

Of course, it needs to be pointed out that Jackson never appeared to get along with head coach Schwartz. Though he never went public with his discontent during his time with the Lions, Jackson never felt he got respect from Schwartz and even called him a liar the year after leaving Detroit. So it makes sense that Jackson is happy the Lions have a new regime in place. That being said, not many opposed the firing of Schwartz when it happened, and by the middle of the season in 2015, most agreed that the promotion of Millen-hangovers Martin Mayhew and Tom Lewand were bad mistakes from the Lions.

Jackson also gave his thoughts on DeAndre Levy, the state of the Lions’ defense, Jim Caldwell and Stafford in the locker room. Check out all of his tweets and follow him at @LoJackson94.