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Sunday open thread: What is the best Lions prediction you’ve ever made?

You’ve repented, now claim your reward.

By Jeremy Reisman
Detroit Lions v Indianapolis Colts Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images

On Saturday, I asked all of you to be a little humble. We all discussed times we were very wrong about our Detroit Lions, and we had a ton of opportunities to choose from. Whether it was the large majority of the fanbase that thought Aaron Curry was the can’t-miss prospect in the 2009 draft over Matthew Stafford or us all getting caught up in the hype of the previous 4-0 preseason, thinking 2008 could actually be a decent year for the Lions—like DetroitLions.com writer Mike O’Hara, who shared his worst Lions prediction with us:

Now that you’ve all confessed to your worst moment as a prognosticator, now it’s time to reap the rewards and brag a little. Today’s Question of the Day is:

What is the best Lions prediction you’ve ever made?

My answer: I feel pretty good with the way I predicted Matthew Stafford’s career to take off. While in 2015 Stafford’s career had already been well-established, there were plenty of doubters both in Detroit and around the league. After the Lions’ disappointing 7-9 season, many believed Stafford would never be able to carry the team or effectively win any big games. In effect, he was nothing more than a flawed, slightly above-average quarterback. Nothing more, nothing less.

So going into the 2016 season, we kicked off what would become a staple of our offseason PODcasts: The ListCast. We simply started ranking our top 10 players at every position, and I was the only one to place Stafford in the top 10. Here was my list from two years ago:

  1. Aaron Rodgers
  2. Tom Brady
  3. Drew Brees
  4. Russell Wilson
  5. Cam Newton
  6. Ben Roethlisberger
  7. Carson Palmer
  8. Andrew Luck
  9. Derek Carr
  10. Matthew Stafford

While my list would definitely look a little different now (I jumped a little too early on the Derek Carr hype train, and then there’s Andrew Luck), I think that still stands up pretty well from top to bottom.

There’s nothing particularly bold about my list, but in a time in which there were a ton of Stafford doubters, I saw through the fog and knew he was (and had been) a top-10 quarterback for some time prior to 2016.

Your turn.

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