CLEVELAND — Let’s go through the Game 2 exhibition checklist, shall we?
Did the Lions’ first-unit defense rely on the opposing team stopping itself in the red zone because of its inherent incapacity to stop them?

Check.
Were the Lions’ special teams allergic to close contact with the opposing ballcarrier?
Check.
Did the Lions surrender a touchdown at least 80 yards long?
Check.
Were the Lions already down three scores before they registered their initial first down?
Check.
It looks like they’re already in regular-season form.
This is exactly why the Lions are certifiably nuts should quarterbacking savior du jour Matthew Stafford start when the March to 0-32 begins in earnest in New Orleans on Sept. 13. It’s counter-productive exposing a rookie quarterback to a team apparently still hell-bent on creating as insurmountable an early obstacle as possible. Nothing’s gained subjecting Stafford to scoreboard deficits requiring him to do more than what’s logically possible for a rookie quarterback.
It worked for Matt Ryan in Atlanta and Joe Flacco in Baltimore last year because both teams possessed strong running games and sound defenses, essential in establishing a physical tempo at the line of scrimmage and keeping games reasonably competitive. It also alleviated the pressure on a rookie quarterback adjusting to a higher level of competition played at hyperspeed.
It won’t work in Detroit.
Coach Jim Schwartz should immediately announce that Daunte Culpepper will be his No. 1 quarterback. End the competition. End the wishful thinking.
Significantly contributing to this franchise’s chronic culture of defeatism is telling people what they want to hear rather than telling them what they should know — beginning with delusional ownership. If attitudes are indeed changing and Schwartz is indeed the right messenger, he should quickly make it clear that these Lions remain too fundamentally weak defensively to needlessly risk sentencing the future face of this franchise to the football gallows.
If he caves and starts Stafford, barring a serious Culpepper injury, then he becomes nothing more than another puppet the Fords manipulate simply for the short-term purpose of selling a few more tickets.
Final scores are meaningless in the exhibition season. It’s merely a personnel evaluation. It’s hardly scientific because you must factor in if one team’s taking the “competition” more seriously than the other, and the Lions went to Cleveland with an absentee list that required an addendum. But it was hauntingly frightening how the first quarter against the Browns’ starters resembled that of so many excavation projects from 2008.
I understand that basic, vanilla defenses are standard operating procedure during the Meaningless Season. You don’t give away too much, but there’s no hiding the truth that the Lions still have trouble putting pressure on the quarterback from their down linemen.
If this were a real game and the Lions trailed, 20-0, after 10 minutes, offensive coordinator Scott Linehan would’ve ripped apart half of his playbook. Sustaining a ground game would be rendered useless, placing the quarterback in the unenviable prediction of mounting a comeback exclusively through the air and the defense knowing there is no alternative.
Do the Lions want to put Stafford through that torture before he has been properly desensitized?