Football analysts say weird things all the time and what NFL on Fox analyst Jimmy Johnson said on Sunday about the Detroit Lions was no exception. In a discussion about the NFC playoff picture, Johnson said this about the Detroit Lions, who would go on to lose to the Philadelphia Eagles to drop to 7-6 on the season…
“Seattle is going to have home field advantage throughout the playoffs. New Orleans is going to be the No. 2 seed – all they need to do is split the two games with Carolina. The third seed is going to be Detroit – they’ve got the best team and could win it all. Dallas is going to take the fourth seed. If they stumble, Philadelphia could take it over by winning that last ball game then San Francisco and Carolina will be the two wild cards.”
Best team??? The Detroit Lions??? The same team that's slugging it out to win an NFC North with three teams barely floating above .500? The same team that lost at home to the hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers? Those Lions?
Yes!
More from the former Cowboys head coach:
“Detroit might be the most talented team in the entire league. They’ve got enough talent to win it all if they weren’t a sloppy team. They’re undisciplined. They turn it over, 25 turnovers, 80 penalties and a sloppy, undisciplined team is easily distracted.”
In the NFL rankings, Detroit is 2nd in Total Offense, but 17th in Total Defense. And yes, they're totally undisciplined, but doesn't that factor into being a good team as well? Do they really have more talent than the Seahawks or Broncos? Both Seattle and Denver have the best record in the NFL at 11-2 and this isn't college football where RESUMES are suddenly mattering more than wins and losses. A four win gap is pretty large.
Sure, the Lions do have a lot of talented players, but are they really more talented than Seattle, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Carolina, Arizona, San Francisco, Denver, New England, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Indianapolis? Because all of those teams have a better record than the Lions at the moment. You might be able to say the Lions' record doesn't match their talent level, but there's about a dozen teams around the league that would beg to differ with this assessment.
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