The theory was road-tested from time to time throughout the Lions' offseason, through training camp and into the regular season … and it was greeted with howls of laughter every time.
Can the Lions, and their offense, and their passing game, and Matthew Stafford, be as good without Megatron? Could they somehow survive the retirement of Calvin Johnson and — never mind stay the same — avoid being catastrophically worse?
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Stafford himself said last summer, sure, why not? "We're probably just going to spread the ball around a bunch, and a bunch of guys will get a ton of catches and we'll be all right," he told SiriusXM radio.