What do the Lions have to do to earn respect in the NFL?

It remains a big question.

Cris Carter disrespected Calvin Johnson during the season saying he wasn’t one of the top five wide receivers in the NFL.

Now Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk, an NFL Network analyst, is dumping on Matthew Stafford’s achievement of passing for 5,038 yards last season. He is in elite company, one of only four quarterbacks to reach the 5,000-yard mark— Drew Brees (twice), Tom Brady and Dan Marino.

Yet Faulk is not impressed.

“Throwing for 5,000 yards in the NFL right now is nothing,” Faulk said per Mlive.com. “I don’t want to take anything away from it. As much as people throw the football now, you better have 5,000 if you have Calvin Johnson.”

Johnson, who proved Carter wrong, led the league with 1,681 receiving yards and was second in touchdown catches. He was elected to the Pro Bowl.

Stafford was forced to pass more often because the Lions’ running game was a problem area. That didn’t make it easy, it made it tougher and still he succeeded and was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year.

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Going into this year’s NFL Combine and NFL draft is a little different for the Lions and not only because their first pick doesn’t fall until 23rd.

Three years ago they couldn’t make a mistake deciding which position to bolster through the draft because the roster was like Swiss cheese, full of holes.

Now the Lions’ needs are more specific.

Still their draft philosophy is basically taking the best player available from their draft board. (Note, their draft board while a secret doesn’t necessarily match any of the mock drafts you may see.)

Picking the best available player is within reason, though. Lions president Tom Lewand confirmed this week that they will not draft a quarterback with the 23rd pick in the first round.

“It was good to see Matthew Stafford stay healthy and a lot of young players starting to develop,’’ ESPN analyst Todd McShay said in a conference call on Thursday. “There’s a lot to build around there really is, they’ve drafted very well in the last few years. Running back is one position they’ve had some problems with, for the most part they’ve drafted well.’’

The Lions drafted Jahvid Best late in the first round of 2010 even though he had a history of concussions. He missed the final 10 games plus the playoff game this past season with concussion issues that may or may not be related to his past. The only problem with drafting Mikel Leshoure last year in the second round is that they didn’t project he would tear his Achilles on a fluke play during training camp.

Like most football folks, McShay sees the Lions needs at cornerback, offensive line and linebacker.

Left tackle Jeff Backus is expected to return, but he is 34 and has played a ton of football, 176 games over 11 years without missing a start.

At linebacker Stephen Tulloch, one of the Lions’ best defensive players last season, is a free agent as is Bobby Carpenter, a solid backup linebacker.

The NFL Combine is next week with the NFL Draft held April 26-28.

For Lions fans this used to be like Christmas, the best time of the year. Now that the Lions are winning it’s a little different. Important, but different.

For more on potential first-round cornerbacks Janoris Jenkins and Dre Kirkpatrick, see TheOaklandPress.com.

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It’s almost funny how the NFL lockout is rarely discussed. A year ago at this time we were hanging on every word from both sides.

Now it’s clear that rookies were the biggest victims of the lockout which left them with no off-season work with coaches and teammates.

One of those was Lions wide receiver Titus Young. He got injured in training camp, but his development and contributions to the team early on would have likely been better with some off-season work.

“He’s a guy at a position that’s really one of the toughest for a rookie to play, wide receiver in the NFL. You don’t just go out there and run routes, they have to learn all the adjustments , they’ve got to learn how to play more physical than they don in college. That’s generally a tough adjustment that first year,’’ Lions president Tom Lewand said this week.

“Titus in the final part of the season, November and December, he really started to come along, he really started to establish a rapport with Matthew (Stafford) and was starting to emerge as a weapon when we were going to the postseason.’’

Lewand said he expects Young to have a big offseason getting in more work with Stafford, offensive coordinator Scott Linehan and wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson.

Lewand said they expect Young to be a more critical part of the offensive equation.

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Jeff Backus, the Lions’ ironman left tackle, is expected to be ready for training camp after undergoing surgery at the end of the season. The veteran, who could become an unrestricted free agent, tore a biceps muscle in the playoff game at New Orleans.

“He has been recovering incredibly well. It was a longer term recovery but fortunately that longer term involved the offseason,’’ team president Tom Lewand said in a conference call with season ticket holders.

“We feel he’s a guy who can be healthy in time for training camp and certainly he’s a guy who is somebody we’ve had discussions about him returning.’’

Backus was drafted in the first round in 2001 out of Michigan (18th overall) and has never missed a game or a start which puts him at 176 straight.

“Jeff has been a warrior for us his entire career, he holds the marks for us for consecutive starts and now that we’ve got things going we’d like Jeff to be a part of some of these successes,’’ Lewand said.

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Lions updates from Lions president Tom Lewand’s conference call with season ticket holders today (Valentine’s Day):

— Discussions have started with Cliff Avril, Eric Wright, Jeff Backus and Stephen Tulloch, all unrestricted free agents. NFL free agency opens on March 13.

— Running backs Jahvid Best (concussion) and Mikel Leshoure (Achilles) are rehabbing well and are expected to be able to participate in the offseason program which starts in April. At the same time Lewand said they will be on the lookout for running backs because they don’t want to put all their eggs in the basket of two guys coming back from injury.

— Jeff Backus is recovering incredibly well from surgery just after the season to repair a torn biceps which he injured in the playoff game.

— While Lewand applauds the NFL expansion to Europe, the Lions want no part of giving up a home game to play a game in London. They want eight home games for their fans. He didn’t say it, but of course they wouldn’t want to lose income from a home game either.

— If a quarterback is the best player available at the 23rd spot in the draft, the Lions will not draft him.

— Lewand said salary cap number is tough to explain. It’s a process, must keep within cap while projecting into future. Lions were one of 20 teams that borrowed from the cap in the 2011 season.

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We all knew that Ndamukong Suh’s reputation took a big hit when he stomped on Green Bay’s Evan Dietrich-Smith on Thanksgiving. Forbes magazine has the numbers to prove it.

Suh is fourth on the new list of most disliked athletes behind Michael Vick, Tiger Woods and Plaxico Burress according to surveys conducted by Nielsen and E-Poll Market Research that measures public attitudes toward pro athletes.

Oddly enough, last year Suh led the Nielsen-EPoll Survey of most liked players in the NFL. All that changed with The Stomp.

“He went from being so popular to being a pariah in one season,” Stephen Master, vice president of sports for Nielsen, said in the Forbes story.

Because he’s young Suh has plenty of time to improve his image.

Those on the list scored most responses from people who described them as athletes they dislike, dislike somewhat or dislike a lot.

One more odd note. To be in the survey athletes need at least 10 percent awareness with the public. As the article said, “Hence, no hockey players.”

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Of the 327 players invited to the NFL Combine today, 11 are from Michigan universities.

Michigan State had six: Kirk Cousins, Edwin Baker, B.J. Cunningham, Keshawn Martin, Trent Robinson and Jerel Worthy.

Surprisingly Michigan State starting left guard Joel Foreman (Milford High School), who was all Big Ten in his senior season, was not on the invitee list.

Michigan had three: Junior Hemingway, Michael Martin and David Molk.

Wayne State’s Jeremy Jones was invited along with and Western Michigan’s Jordan White.

The SEC has the most invitees with 53 while the Big Ten and Pac-12 each have 45.

Last year 327 players were invited to the Combine and 254 were drafted.

The NFL Combine will be held Feb. 22-28 at Lucas Oil Field in Indianapolis.

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In a quieter ceremony during Super Bowl week, Matthew Stafford won a prestigious honor when he was named Quarterback of the Year by the NFL Alumni Association. He beat out two elite quarterbacks — Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers — for the honor.

The show aired on the NFL Network on Monday night.

“Any time an award like this is given out it's an individual award, but really it’s won by the team. I couldn’t have done it without the teammates and the coaching staff in Detroit. I'm just happy to be part of that team and be part of this,’’ Stafford said when he accepted the award.

Calvin Johnson was nominated for wide receiver of the year but that was won by Hakeem Nicks.

Stafford, who became one of only four quarterbacks ever to pass for more than 5,000 yards in a season, was named the NFL’s Comeback Player of the Year on Saturday night. That's the award he's holding in the photo.

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This and that, tying up loose ends from the Super Bowl:

— Good to see Matthew Stafford get some recognition as Comeback Player of the Year. It’s not an award you aim to win, but it put him in the spotlight briefly which he deserved after a Pro Bowl snub.

— Not a huge Madonna fan, but thought she was awesome. In interviews on Friday and Saturday she was legitimately nervous about pulling everything off. No wonder, it was such a spectacle. Hope “the finger incident” doesn’t take away from such a tremendous show. It shouldn’t. She’s 53 and, as my friend Jennifer Hammond pointed out, after 30 year she’s still relevant.

— Don’t blame Gisele Bundchen for standing up for her hubby, Tom Brady. it’s not like she initiated it. She was provoked and it was the heat of the moment. Give the super model a break.

— Don’t count out Tom Brady. The Patriots are the favorites at 11-2 odds to win Super Bowl XLVII.

(In photo, Matthew Stafford with girlfriend Kelly Hall at NFL awards show on Saturday.)

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