Editor's note: This is an opinion piece by MLive.com's Kyle Meinke.

ALLEN PARK -- You'd be hard pressed to find a bigger weakness in Detroit than defending the run. You'd also be hard pressed to find a better interior defender against the run than Snacks Harrison.

On Wednesday, Lions general manager Bob Quinn landed Snacks Harrison in a trade with the Giants.

Hey, that's pretty good.

And it gets better.

All Quinn had to give up to acquire one of the league's best run-stuffers was a fifth-round pick -- and he had an extra fifth-round pick laying around anyway, after dealing Laken Tomlinson to San Francisco last year.

For those scoring at home, Quinn effectively flipped a first-round bust into an All-Pro run-stuffer.

Pretty good, indeed.

"Snacks has been a big-timer for a long time," Seahawks coach Pete Carrol said. "We caught him back in the Jets days when he was unheralded and he came to the surface as a playmaker. Then, of course he went to the Giants and carried it on there. He's a good football player. Big presence, really good in the running game and disruptive in the pass rush, too. So, it's a great get for them."

The Detroit Lions are still just 3-3, so it's important not to get carried away heading into Sunday's game against Seattle. This is a .500 team that hasn't won anything -- a playoff game, a division championship, not anything -- since 1993. So nobody's throwing ticker-tape yet.

Having said that, the Lions are picking up steam in a hurry. They've won three of their last four games, two of which came against the Patriots and Packers, perhaps the best two teams they've faced. They also beat the then-division leading Dolphins, and came within a play of making it four straight with a win in Dallas.

And Quinn's fingerprints are all over it.

Kerryon Johnson, this year's second-round pick, is averaging the second-most yards per carry in the league. He leads all rookies in rushing yards, ranks second overall in yards per carry and has become a legitimate rookie of the year candidate. Simply put, he has made Detroit's running game good again.

In the passing game, Kenny Golladay, last year's third-round pick, has had moments of absolute brilliance. He has 29 catches for 465 yards and three touchdowns, which is pretty good, and the only reason it's not better is because he also plays with Golden Tate and Marvin Jones, the latter of whom was Quinn's first big free-agent signing.

None of Detroit's receivers is better than Calvin Johnson, but top to bottom, that trio is better than any Detroit deployed during the Calvin years. That's helped the offense transition smoothly into the post-Calvin era -- so smoothly, people take it for granted. Detroit's passing game should have suffered with the sudden retirement of the franchise's best receiver ever, and instead, they've actually improved.

In the blocking game, Frank Ragnow looks like the real deal as the final piece to Quinn's two-plus year project up front. He's replaced every offensive lineman he inherited in 2016, plus installed Jeff Davidson as the position coach. Now no quarterback in the NFL is being pressured less often than Matthew Stafford (19.7 percent of dropbacks), a massive improvement from the last four years, when Stafford was sacked more times than any other quarterback in the league.

And that line has also helped make Johnson one of the most effective backs in the league.

"When you're 8 yards a carry, that means your life is pretty easy," Johnson said after the Dolphins win on Sunday. "I ran through open holes, and once you get past that, you know, you have to do a little something. But (if) you (are) getting 8 yards a carry, that's just .. I'm going to get all the credit, blah, blah, blah, good for me. But that's them."

With the running game humming, and the protection better than ever, it's no wonder Stafford is riding one of the hottest stretches of his career. His passer rating has cracked triple-digits in five straight games, a franchise record and the longest active streak in the league.

Quinn's biggest personnel moves have come on that side of the ball, and the Lions now possess one of the more dangerous offenses in the league because of it. Their defense has received fewer resources in free agency and the draft, and their results have been more mixed, though improving.

The secondary has been especially good, led by Darius Slay, Glover Quin and Quandre Diggs, all of whom were inherited by Quinn. But the front seven has played increasingly well, led entirely by Quinn moves.

Devon Kennard, signed away from the Giants in free agency, leads the way with five sacks. That's already a career high. Romeo Okwara, another Giants cast-off who was scooped up off waivers, has four. That's already a career high. Eli Harold, acquired for a conditional seventh-round pick, has three. That's already a career high.

Jarrad Davis, Quinn's first-round pick last year, also has three sacks. That's also a career high.

Sensing a theme?

And now the Lions have soared from 25th in sacks last year, to fourth this year because of it. Despite playing all but 19 of their snaps without top edge rusher Ezekiel Ansah. Hey, pretty good again!

Of course, Detroit has also been abysmal against the run. They're allowing the 30th most yards per game, nobody is allowing more yards per carry and Quinn's personnel moves have certainly contributed to it. But things are looking up there too.

Da'Shawn Hand, this year's fourth-round pick, is a serious bright spot on the interior. There were 113 players taken before him in this year's draft, and none of them is graded more highly by ProFootballFocus. He's the top defensive rookie in the game, according to the advanced metrics site, and a top-10 interior player overall.

The only reason you don't hear more about Hand as a defensive rookie of the year is because of the position he plays, and the city he plays it in.

"Good young talent," safety Glover Quin said. "Made a lot of big plays for us. He's good, man. I like him."

After that woeful 0-2 start, things are trending seriously up in Detroit. Simply put, Quinn, while certainly not perfect -- see: Tabor, Teez; or Ansah, Ziggy -- has hit a lot lately in the middle rounds of the draft and the lower rungs of free agency for players who could make a difference for a flawed team. And now heading into Week 8, he's addressed his biggest flaw with a Pro Bowl-caliber player -- and did so for the price of a Laken Tomlinson.

Yup. Pretty damn good.

"You always see him on the phone, you know he up to something," defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois said. "He's gonna try to make his team better. He's not gonna get into that phase of rebuilding, you'll never hear him say nothing like that.

"He's just into the phase of, 'We gotta win now.'"