3-12-1.
That, unfortunately, was the Detroit Lions record in 2019.
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The San Francisco 49ers, on the other hand, finished with a 13-3 record and they are headed to the Super Bowl.
What makes this interesting is that the 49ers finished the 2018 season with a 4-12 record, yet they managed to completely turn things around just one year later.
The question is, can the Lions make a similar turnaround in 2020? Could the Lions actually go from 3-12-1 to a contender?
According to Bill Barnwell of ESPN, the Lions are one of five teams who could be the 49ers of 2020.
Here is what Barnwell has to say about the Lions.
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.
With better personnel, Shanahan was able to show off just how creative of a playcaller and tactician he can be on the offensive side of the ball. Patricia is probably not on Shanahan’s level, but he’s clearly somebody who can come up with creative game plans. If Detroit can upgrade its defensive talent this offseason, Patricia might be the one directly benefiting from his ideas.
Difference: They (probably) won’t be able to use their high draft pick to add the draft’s best pass-rusher. Things fell perfectly for the 49ers in the 2019 draft, as they were able to use the second overall pick on Ohio State pass-rusher Nick Bosa after the Cardinals took Kyler Murray first. Bosa was an immediate difference-maker along a defensive line that morphed into one of the league’s best in 2019.
The Lions would likely love to grab another stud pass-rusher out of Ohio State, Chase Young, at No. 3, but he’s likely to come off the board at No. 2 to Washington. The Lions could get lucky if a team trades up with Washington to draft one of the quarterbacks, but they probably shouldn’t print any Young jerseys in Honolulu blue just yet.
Similarity: They could use a high draft pick to address a key defensive point of weakness. Even without adding Young, the Lions should be able to nab somebody who will make a significant difference on the defensive side of the ball. Early mock drafts have the Lions opting for Ohio State corner Jeff Okudah, which would give Detroit the outside corner it has long lacked across from Slay. With Slay, Okudah and Coleman, the Lions would have a cornerback trio with top-10 upside.
Similarity: They blew a lot of games late. The 2018 49ers lost four games in which they had a lead at some point during the fourth quarter, ranking among the worst in the NFL. The 2019 Lions are in a similar space, as they were the only team in the league to post a losing record in games in which they led heading into the fourth quarter. Detroit was 2-4-1 when it held a lead with 15 minutes to go; the rest of the league was 198-33.
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.
