Lions rookie QB costs them a win at Seattle

NFL fans expect rookie QB’s to struggle, as they get use to the speed of the NFL game. However most NFL fans also expect an overall number one draft pick to come in and produce for their teams. For the Detroit Lions who draft Matthew Stafford with the first pick in the 2009 draft, and paid him 41 million dollars guaranteed, that simply is not the case. In fact Stafford, who skipped his senior year in college, doesn’t appear anywhere near ready to lead a NFL offense.

This last Sunday Stafford turned in a pitiful performance filled with 5 interceptions. If that wasn’t bad enough the number of balls either under thrown or overthrown either Sunday or throughout the 2009 season are almost to numerous to count. If one watched the Detroit Lions sideline one can see the amount of frustration Stafford’s teammates have with his inability to pick up the NFL game.

This is the main problem with the NFL draft system; it gives the worst teams in the league the chance to make huge mistakes in the draft. How many times have we seen truly awful football teams draft a QB with the number one pick? More often than not these picks do not work out because the people making the picks are the same people who cannot figure out how to build a winning football team. That is the case for the pathetic Detroit Lions.

On a team that went 0-16 in 2008, a team that has made countless bad draft picks, and started 2009 by handing an under classman QB a 41 million dollar guaranteed contract is ridiculous! We could make the argument, beyond the win against the Washington Redskins, that the Lions are a worse team this year than the winless team of 2008. This is a team going nowhere and no amount of high first round draft picks can make up for the incompetence of their front office.