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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:
9-7. 2008. Took them 49 games to win 9 — against 40 losses.
— Mike O'Hara (@MikeOHaraNFL) June 2, 2018
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:
- Aaron Rodgers
- Tom Brady
- Drew Brees
- Russell Wilson
- Cam Newton
- Ben Roethlisberger
- Carson Palmer
- Andrew Luck
- Derek Carr
- 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.