Madden 21: Best teams to rebuild in franchise mode

Find Stafford’s replacement in Detroit

Detroit either puts up big points with Matthew Stafford (83) healthy, or it crashes and burns when he gets injured. The fun in this rebuild would be to commit to moving on from Stafford and finding his replacement. You can do this two ways — move on from a lot of their best players to move them for draft picks and young players you want to trade for, or keep the better moves the Lions have made with the hope you can find a QB in the draft. I think the blow it all up route would be more fun, but it’s your choice.

On offense, you have some really good weapons to work with:

• WR Kenny Golladay – 86 OVR
• WR Marvin Jones Jr. – 85 OVR
• HB Kerryon Johnson – 82 OVR
• WR Danny Amendola – 80 OVR (TRADE HIM)
• TE T.J. Hockenson (77 OVR)
• HB D’Andre Swift (74 OVR)

The problem with this offense is that there’s not a lot of speed, so that should be a priority in any Lions rebuild — adding more speed. To get some of that speed, you could trade Stafford (83 OVR) for a QB needy team. The C and LT on the Lions are rated 83 and 74, so your o-line needs help. Meanwhile, the defense could hold their own, but in a tough NFC North, the Lions could also use more speed on that side of the ball. Some highlights on defense include:

• RE Trey Flowers – 86 OVR
• CB Justin Coleman – 84 OVR
• CB Desmond Trufant – 83 OVR
• LOLB Jamie Collins –  83 OVR
• 2020 1st round pick CB Jeff Okudah – 76 OVR

If you’re not planning on competing right away, which you shouldn’t if you commit to this rebuild, trading Trufant (29 years old) is obvious to get Okudah more playing time. Either way, this rebuild is solely on the premise of moving on from Stafford and rebuilding that offense around a new QB.