Can Detroit Lions Be NFL’s Leicester City in 2016?

Those searching for America’s answer to Premier League champions Leicester City should look no further than the 2016 edition of the Detroit Lions.

The Detroit Lions can be our own version of Leicester City in 2016.

Unless you have been living in a cave or you go out of the way to avoid anything soccer related, you are probably at least somewhat familiar with the story of Leicester City. Leicester began the 2015-16 Premier League campaign as 5000-to-1 odds to win the league, and it was widely thought that Leicester would be candidates to drop down to the second division following a lackluster season.

One thing that’s fascinating about Leicester is that their story almost never happened. Leicester nearly dropped to the second division in the spring of 2015, but they pulled off a great escape that included a superb run late in the season to remain in the Premier League. The rest, as the saying goes, is history, and Leicester will enter the summer as champions of England.

What does any of this have to do with the Detroit Lions and the National Football League? Sports fans love an underdog story, particularly when that story includes a team and/or an athlete that is not predicted to win anything of merit. The similarities between the Lions and Leicester go beyond the letter “L” and the fact that the two teams are familiar with long title droughts.

Detroit is the closest thing the NFL could have to a Leicester City in 2016.

Leicester lost a lot of games in 2014-15 before the club found its positive form. The same can be said for the 2015 Lions, a club that dropped five straight games and seven of its first eight. Detroit eventually turned things around en route to six of the team’s last eight contest, giving fans at least some reason to smile and have hope for the future in early January 2016.

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Leicester were a 5000-to-1 longshot to win the Premier League. The Lions, per ESPN Senior Writer Michael Rothstein, were 60-to-1 odds to win Super Bowl 51 as of earlier this month.

Claudio Ranieri serves as the manager of Leicester. Before he became a beloved figure among the Leicester faithful, Ranieri failed to reach goals at Juventus, he was a flop at Roma and Inter Milan, and he had a disastrous stint as the manager of the Greece national team.

Jim Caldwell will enter the summer as head coach of the Detroit Lions. Caldwell failed to win a championship with Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts, and it was rumored last fall that he was on the hot seat after Detroit’s lackluster start. The Lions somewhat righted the ship, though, and Caldwell’s job was saved up through the 2016 NFL offseason.

Leicester have Jamie Vardy. Vardy was known among soccer fans last August, but nobody could have guessed at the time that Vardy would, during the first half of the campaign, go on a run that would make him the most prolific goal-scorer in England and a player capable of hitting wonder-volleys versus Liverpool.

Jan 3, 2016; Chicago, IL, USA; Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford (9) directs his offense against the Chicago Bears during the first half at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

The Lions have quarterback Matthew Stafford. Stafford possesses the physical tools to be an elite QB, but he has not yet taken that next figurative step to put him at the level of a Tom Brady, Cam Newton or Aaron Rodgers. Cory Bonini of USA Today recently wrote that Stafford could be considered a “fringe” fantasy football starter for 2016.

Attacking midfielder Riyad Mahrez was a revelation for Leicester in 2015-16. Mahrez was playing in France’s second division before he joined Leicester in the winter of 2014, and he was solid in his first full season with the club. Then came August 2015, when Mahrez began to evolve into one of the best attacking midfielders in England. It has been rumored that Spanish giants Real Madrid could be in for Mahrez during the summer transfer window.

Running back Theo Riddick could prove to be Detroit’s top offensive weapon in 2016. Riddick, as Scott Bischoff of Sidelion Report explained, has a history of making life easier for Stafford and lining up in the slot and creating nightmare match-ups for opposing defenses. Riddick turned 25-years-old earlier this month, and his best days in the Detroit offense could and should be ahead of him.

N’Golo Kante is one of the more under-appreciated players who helped guide Leicester to Premier League glory. Kante was arguably the best box-to-box midfielder in England this past season, routinely making plays at both ends of the pitch and doing the little things that do not always stand out on a stat sheet and that often go ignored by a commentary crew.

Wide receiver Golden Tate may be the most under-appreciated offensive player in the NFL. Tate reeled in 189 passes and scored 10 touchdowns in his first two seasons with the Lions, numbers that you may have missed before analysts, commentators and fans were often busy gushing over Calvin Johnson. That will no longer be the case, though, as Johnson has retired.

Leicester went 132 years before becoming champions of England. The Lions last won a NFL title in 1957. No respected analyst predicted that Leicester would finish ahead of the likes of Tottenham Hotspur, Aresnal, Manchester City and Chelsea. Odds are that preseason previews will prognosticate that the Lions will finish behind at least the Minnesota Vikings and Green Bay Packers in the division standings.

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Are the Lions going to win the Super Bowl in February 2017? Probably not. There is a lot going against the Lions, and there are, to put it bluntly, more talented teams in the NFC. If nothing else, though, Leicester can serve as an inspiration for a team such as the Lions.

Vardy, Mahrez, Kante and others in the Leicester team had dream seasons. Imagine what the Lions could be in 2016 if Stafford, Riddick, Tate and other members of the Detroit roster could do the same from September up through the end of the season.

Nobody outside of some Leicester fans who placed cheeky bets on the club winning the Premier League for a laugh before the season picked Leicester to win the league. By the time that this past March rolled around, though, even the most pessimistic Leicester supporter had to begin asking himself: “Why not us?”

That could be a fine mantra for the 2016 Detroit Lions.