Welcome in to another edition of the Under Center podcast. I'm J.J. Stankiewicz.

Over the last few months, we've checked in with the Green Bay Packers with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jim Ozarsky and the Minnesota Vikings with the Minneapolis Star Tribunes, Andrew Kramer.

So I wanted to finish off our look at

the NFC North with Mike Rothstein. It does a tremendous job covering the Detroit Lions for ESPN.

Mike also co-authored a fascinating look into the rise and fall of the AAF with Seth Wickersham.

That's well worth your time to read if you haven't already. You can follow Mike on Twitter at Mike

Rothstein, which is all

one word. And Mike, thanks for taking the time today and welcome to the podcast. Oh, thanks for having

me. It's been one for a while now. Hey, that's more than a lot of guests can say. That's a very nice

thing. I want to start with this. How desperately do the Lions need to win this year for Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn to keep their jobs? I mean, could we conceivably see a house cleaning in Detroit if they finished last in the NFC North again, even after only two years, under Matt Patricia?

I mean, it depends on what last looks like. If last is 8 and 8 or 7 and 9, I don't know if I have 7 and 9, I think maybe it would be a little bit questionable.

8 and 8, I can't see them making a complete change, but I think year 3 would be very much a, hey, make theoff swing of division type thing or bust year.

If it doesn't go well, if they're sitting at 6 and 10, 5 and 11, 4 and 12,

barring some massive injury situation like Matthew Stafford goes down or they lose their

entire offensive line, something big like that,

I think it gets pretty dicey.

I absolutely believe that both of them are on some level coaching for coaching and general managering for their jobs this year.

I don't think it's quite as dire as maybe some people on the outside would look just because

the Lions have historically

been a very patient organization.

Now, Martha Ford has shown less patience than her late husband in that regard.

And I think that they really need to do something this year in order to kind of keep Martha

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