Sunday open thread: How will Tim Boyle perform in his first NFL start?

The Detroit Lions are heading into a matchup against a Browns team that just gave up 45 points to a rookie quarterback, marking their fourth loss in their past six games. Cleveland got out to a hot start this year playing the Chiefs close on the road in Week 1 and winning the next three straight, but they find themselves at the bottom of their division heading into the second half of the season.

In the other corner, the Lions are coming off of their first non-loss of the season, though mostly due to a struggling Steelers team with an abundance of injuries. Still, that could have given the team enough confidence to potentially notch their first win of the year. If they do pull it off, they’ll mostly likely have to do it with their backup quarterback.

Jared Goff is listed as “Doubtful” with an oblique injury suffered last week, so it looks like Tim Boyle will start for the first time in his NFL career after coming off of IR.

That leads us to today’s Question of the Day...

How will Tim Boyle perform against the Browns on Sunday?

My answer: Not very good.

Despite putting up numbers with the Packers in previous preseasons, Tim Boyle did not look great in limited action with the Lions prior to his thumb injury. Obviously this was during the preseason and with a very small sample size, but I think the “anybody but Goff” crowd might be in for a rude awakening on Sunday.

It’s hard to perform worse than Goff has this year. He has struggled big time and there is no denying it. But I think there is simply a bigger underlying problem with this team with their lack of receivers and inconsistent protection on the offensive line. Boyle is likely going to see the same struggles that Goff has, but hopefully we at least see Boyle take some shots downfield and take some risks that Goff is unwilling to take.

If Boyle can get aggressive, then maybe the Lions have a shot, but it could get ugly if the Lions get down early and have to rely on Boyles arm too much.

Your turn.