Articles:
O'HARA: A history of who's been available at 3: https://www.detroitlions.com/news/o-hara-a-history-of-who-s-been-available-at-3
NFL draft analyst: Why the Lions should consider Tua Tagovailoa, ultimately take Jeff Okudah: https://www.mlive.com/lions/2020/01/nfl-draft-analyst-why-the-lions-should-consider-tua-tagovailoa-ultimately-take-jeff-okudah.html
Barnwell picks next season's 49ers: Five teams that have ingredients for a rapid rise (Detroit Lions (3-12-1): Similarity: They spent most of 2019 without their starting quarterback. Matthew Stafford was playing arguably the best football of his career before missing the final eight games with a fractured back. The Lions then spent the rest of the season with a pair of replacement-level backups in David Blough and Jeff Driskel, who went 0-8 while averaging just 1.4 points per drive, the second-worst rate in football. Stafford had trouble staying healthy early in his career, but he had made 136 consecutive starts before suffering the back injury, so he should be projected for a full return to health in 2020. It's not quite as easy to project a 16-game season from running back Kerryon Johnson, who has now missed 14 games over his first two seasons, but the Lions will hope to get more than eight games out of their promising lead rusher in 2020. Similarity: They didn't rack up many interceptions. While the Lions recorded more than the NFL record-low two interceptions that the 49ers generated in 2018, Darius Slay & Co. finished the season with just seven picks across 611 pass attempts, which resulted in a league-low interception rate of 1.1%. The Lions forced just six turnovers during their eight-game losing streak to end the season despite playing teams like the Bears, Broncos and Buccaneers. Interception rate on a team basis tends to be inconsistent from year to year. Over the past decade, 20 teams have posted an interception rate under 1.5%. The following year, their average interception rate was 2.6%. On the other end of the spectrum, the 20 teams that posted an interception rate over 4% during that time frame fell to 3% the following year. The Lions should intercept more passes by sheer chance alone in 2020. Similarity: They have an X's-and-O's genius on staff. Shanahan is regarded as one of the NFL's brightest offensive minds, and though the Niners didn't show that frequently while Jimmy Garoppolo was out injured, they have been brilliant on offense in 2019. Matt Patricia's first two years as Lions coach have fairly been panned. Detroit hired him after a season in which he oversaw the league's second-worst defense by DVOA. Patricia inherited a Lions defense that finished 19th in the same statistic and led them to finishes of 27th and 28th in his first two seasons. The unit was supposed to see marked improvement this season after the Lions added Patricia-approved pieces like Trey Flowers, Justin Coleman and Jahlani Tavai, but they instead remained as one of the league's worst defenses while posting the second-worst adjusted sack rate in football. But if you ask around the league, Patricia is regarded as a bright defensive mind. He was the one who initially tried to stop the Rams in 2018 with a 6-1 front, a move the Bears and Patriots emulated with better personnel to shut down the Sean McVay offense before the rest of the league followed suit in 2019. This season, Patricia altered his game plan against the Chiefs to play more man coverage and try to win with four-man rushes, and while the Chiefs still scored 27 points, the Colts used a similar philosophy to upset Kansas City the following week. Even that stat sells the Lions short. They lost or tied three games they were winning with one minute to go and lost a fourth that was tied in the final minute. Three of those four games were against teams that made it to conference title games. Both the 2018 Colts and 2019 49ers have gone from blowing the most fourth-quarter leads in football to righting the ship and making it to the postseason the following year. Difference: Their coach doesn't have a track record of success in multiple places. While Shanahan succeeded as an offensive coordinator with the Texans, Washington and Falcons before getting his head-coaching opportunity in San Francisco, Patricia spent his entire NFL coaching career before Detroit with the Patriots. It's unclear whether he can succeed without working alongside arguably the best coach in NFL history, and the early returns haven't been impressive.): https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28563798/five-teams-the-49ers-2020-all-similarities
Lions the only NFL team to post a losing record when leading after 3 quarters: https://lionswire.usatoday.com/2020/01/27/lions-the-only-nfl-team-to-post-a-losing-record-when-leading-after-3-quarters/
10 Pro Bowlers who are also potential 2020 free agents: https://lionswire.usatoday.com/2020/01/26/10-pro-bowlers-who-are-also-potential-2020-free-agents/
Chargers moving on from Philip Rivers and how it impacts the Lions draft: https://lionswire.usatoday.com/2020/01/27/chargers-moving-on-from-philip-rivers-and-how-it-impacts-the-lions-draft/
PFF Rankings: The NFL's top quarterbacks heading into Super Bowl LIV (8. MATTHEW STAFFORD, DETROIT LIONS: In one of the biggest single-year transformations in recent memory, Stafford briefly returned to his best in 2019 before he lost his season due to injury. Stafford increased his average depth of target by over four yards per attempt, a massive improvement in offensive aggressiveness that led to the most efficient year of his career and the league’s highest percentage of big-time throws. He also saw the biggest jump in the percentage of positively graded throws outside of Ryan Tannehill, which led to the league’s sixth-most efficient passing attack while Stafford was on the field. He had fallen into more of a game manager mode in recent seasons, but Stafford and the Lions embraced a high-risk, high-reward style that led to more explosive plays but also a few more misses down the field. And if they continue down that path, the payout could be massive. Key Stat from QB Annual: Twenty-seven percent of Stafford’s targets were into tight windows, eight percentage points higher than the league average.): https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-best-quarterbacks-ahead-of-super-bowl-liv
2020 Senior Bowl:
Making money: 12 NFL draft prospects who boosted their stock most at the Senior Bowl: https://sports.yahoo.com/making-money-12-nfl-draft-prospects-who-boosted-their-stock-most-at-the-senior-bowl-170546233.html
2020 Senior Bowl Recap: http://walterfootball.com/draft2020seniorbowlrecap.php
2020 NFL Draft:
2020 NFL Draft: PFF Top 100 Big Board Post Senior Bowl: https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2020-nfl-draft-pff-top-100-big-board-update
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