Notes: Detroit Lions shut out of CBS Sports’ Top 100 players list

I’ve been coddling you, dear Detroit Lions fan, a little too much this offseason. Matthew Stafford is going to be amazing again this year. The Lions receiving corps is one of the best in the league. Austin Bryant is going to break out and surprise everyone. John Penisini is the perfect human being and will probably dominate at the next level.

Well, now let’s knock you down a peg a little, because obviously, not everyone is so rosy about the Lions’ roster right now. Nearing the top of that list of analysts is CBS’s Pete Prisco, who attempted the impossible by ranking the top 100 players in the NFL right now. As you probably know from reading the headline already, no Lions players made it onto Prisco’s list.

To further enrage you, I’ll point out that Aaron Rodgers not only made the list, but managed to crack Prisco’s top 10. Other notable quarterbacks who made the list include Dak Prescott (46), Deshaun Watson (62), Matt Ryan (70), Kirk Cousins (86), while Ben Roethlisberger and Carson Wentz were in the “Just Missed” category. Stafford didn’t even get that honorable mention.

To be fair, Prisco did have Kenny Golladay also in the Just Missed category, but, otherwise, there was no passing mention of the Lions.

And while you’d be within your legitimate rights to complain about this list, it does point to a larger issue: The Lions do not have a lot of—if any—star power on the team. Much of that simply comes with winning games and earning national attention, but it’s also hard to win said games without elite talents. Detroit may have a few young guys that could qualify, but until the team starts seeing success, don’t expect many to notice.

• Matt Patricia joined the Rich Eisen Show to talk about how COVID-19 is affecting Detroit’s offseason, why Matthew Stafford rumors keep coming up, and a movie that he embarrassingly hasn’t seen yet. (Interview starts at the 1:33:00 mark)

• Lions Wire’s Jeff Risdon has four bold predictions for the Lions’ 2020 draft class.

• On Tuesday, we notified you of Danny Shelton’s charitable efforts by selling t-shirts. Twenty-four hours later, sales are through the roof!

• The Draft Network’s Benjamin Solak has a nice summary of where the NFC North is at right now, and he believes it’s currently a three-team race. SPOILER: The Lions aren’t the one on outside of the race.

• Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm:

• All the SB Nation sites came together to re-do the 2017 NFL Draft. For the Lions pick, let’s just say I didn’t end up sticking with Jarrad Davis.