Darkhorse Lion: Willie Young

With organized team activities beginning around the NFL, which leads up into training camp, it is time to look at three players on the Lions roster who fans should expect to step up and contribute to the team in the upcoming season.  These players will be known as "darkhorse players" because they will not be the stars on the team such as Matthew Stafford or Calvin Johnson or Ndamukong Suh, but rather they will be big contributors to the Lions this season.  There is no promise as to these players that will be mentioned in this three-part series as to being on the roster come September because anything can happen, but these players are of whom I expect to make an impact for the Lions.  The first player I will focus on is defensive end Willie Young.

The Lions defense will need to have Willie Young to step up
to be successful.

Young is a former 7th round pick of the Lions back in 2010 out of North Carolina State and spent his rookie year on the team's practice squad.  Young then made the active 53-man roster in his second year in the league, recording 3 sacks in 16 games played on the Lions highly touted defensive line, and also recorded a sack and forced fumble in the Wildcard Round game against the Saints.  Now with age concerns to Kyle Vanden Bosch and contract concerns to Cliff Avril, there might be more chances for Young.
The defensive backfield has been highly scrutinized this offseason thanks to the final two games at Green Bay and New Orleans in which Packers backup quarterback Matt Flynn threw for over 400 yards and 6 touchdowns, while Drew Brees the next week in the playoff game put up similar numbers.
In all fairness to the secondary, the defensive line did not help them out at all.  An old NFL adage (or one I just made up, either way, it is a true statement) is that your defensive backfield is only as good as the pass rushers allow you to be.  With that being said, the secondary did have their problems, but they were also more of a scapegoat too with the pass rush not performing well either.
It is hard to get a consistent pass rush in the NFL, but with the constant substitution the Lions perform on the defensive line, that means fresh guys will be on the line every down, making it easier for the pass rush to stay consistent.  Another way to keep that consistency is to have the guys coming fresh off the bench to perform well, and one of those bench players is Willie Young.
For the Lions to be successful, they will need to prove that they found a 7th round gem in Willie Young and he will need to prove that he can get to the quarterback consistently.