RedRamage

Agreed on all points. I'm sure the NFL wants to spread the bye weeks out over as much of the season as possible to minimum weeks with too few games, but week five it too early. I know the NFL wants to go to an 18 game season, so let's just do that and have two bye weeks. Get rid of one of the preseason games which are more meaningless than they've ever been before. Increase the roster by a spot of two to allow teams to have more depth so teams can rotate more people in and out. The two bye weeks will also give the NFL more flexibility both in spreading out the byes without screwing a team with too early a bye or too late a bye as well as with international games.

This will be the three year in a row that we play the Rams, Bucs, and Cowboys.

So we all know that Holmes will go best player available (virtually) regardless of position... but where do we think this teams needs the most help? Assuming the starting DL is ready to go (Hutch, McNeill, Reader, Smith) I don't see a huge need there. We probably should be looking for a DE as Smith is getting pretty old. We could use more depth at LB, but we're decent there with Barns, Anzalone, Campbell, Rodrigo. At secondary I feel we're in very good shape with Arnold, Davis, Branch, Joseph and then Rakestraw, Robertson, the other Joseph at backups. On offense: RB? Good. WR? Maybe some depth, but otherwise good. TE? Good. QB? Good. I honestly think that OL is maybe the area of biggest concern -- which seems REALLY odd to say, but: LT Decker: 31 years old (rightnow) LG Glasgow: 32 C Ragnow: 28 RG Zeitler: 34 RT Sewell: 24 60% of the OL is on the wrong side of 30 right now.

I obviously wanted the home games as I do believe in the home field advantage (also good for Detroit economy of course). But imho the bye is far more important. A week to rest is huge, especially if Arnold needs to be out for a while. If we had to play Monday night and if Davis isn't ready to be back and if Arnold wasn't able to go... That could have been super rough.

For the record I thought the refs really didn't flag a lot of stuff and I mostly like that. I also felt like the non-calls were on both sides. I thought there were a number of times holding/PI could (Emphasis here on COULD, not SHOULD) have been called and it wasn't against the Lions. But there were a plenty of non-calls on the Vikings too. I thought I saw a handful of false starts and of course the 00's that weren't called. I saw a few helmet to helmet hits as well and some PI that could have been called on them. There was also the blatant push off on that one play where the Vikings receiver was so wild open.

Sucks for the Vikings. Here you have just an amazing season winning 14 games... but you happen to be in the same division at the 15 win Lions so you end up 5th seed and have to go on the road. 14 wins! My goodness... only two losses through much of the season and that happened when you faced the Lions and then had to go on the road to face the the Rams. Now your third loss comes at the end of the season facing the Lions and now you have go on the road and... um... oh no... ohhhh no.

I'm 100% with you here. I thought the injuries on defense would just going to be too much for them to overcome. I still felt the Lions could win, but only if the offense put up massive points. Very happy to be wrong.

After last week I 100% expected a high scoring game. Our defense was worse than a wet paper bag last week. I assumed it would be 30s or 40s for both teams. Seems pretty clear now that defensively they were preparing for the Vikings and viewed the 49ers game as just a pit stop. The defense showed up BIG time.

S.Tork

D'oh! I knew that too. I don't know why I got that mixed up.

The guy's a proven winner. He's shown he knows how to coach in the NFC North. He's made it to the Divisional round 4 times, to the Conference Champ round 3 other times, and even won a SB. He's posted double digit winning seasons 11 times and won his division 8 times. This is a guy who knows how to get the job done. What NFL team in their right mind is going to pick an unproven guy who just got lucky to be elevated under a great coach and handed an talent laden offensive line, a stellar QB, and awesome weapons in St. Brown, Williams, Gibbs, and LaPorta. Who knows what Johnson would do without all those stars on his roster and without the guidance of Campbell? You have an unknown who's always had an abundance of talent to work with vs. a proven commodity who's shown he can get the job done. This is an easy decision Bears. McCarthy all the way.

Age really isn't that huge of a factor as passing for big yards is really more of a new(ish) thing in the NFL. It only happened twice before 1980, 15 times in the 80s, and then started really picking up steam in the 90s. So being a team that goes back beyond the 80s doesn't really grant you a better shot of having a 4K passer vs. more recent teams. Still, you're right that you'd like they'd accidentally hit it at least once or twice. If Kitna could do it - twice even - with the Lions, someone from the Bears should have been able to hit that number some time. https://www.profootballhof.com/football-history/4000-yard-seasons-by-quarterback/

Man, that brings back memories. I remember too that it seems the Broncos just plugged-n-played with RBs back then. Just insert any ol' back and watch him rack up the yards. 1997: Davis - 1750 yards 1998: Davis - 2008 yards 1999: Gary - 1159 yards (in just 12 games) 2000: Anderson - 1487 yards 2001: Davis - 701 yards in 8 games (Anderson with 678 as primary backup) 2002: Portis - 1508 2003: Portis - 1591 2004: Droughns - 1240

Its hard to blame Lions fans for fearing that crash though. We've be disappointed for decades... it takes a while to not wonder when the next shoe is dropping. And speaking specifically of coordinators... we have NO experience with having a successful coordinator getting poached by another team. I mean look at this list... I don't think there is a single name here who was hired away from the Lions: You have to go all the way back to 1962 when Shula was our DC and the Baltimore Colts hired him away as their HC. I dare say most of us weren't even alive back then, let alone avidly following the Lions. (In case you're curious: Since then the closest we came to losing a guy was Darrell Bevell who got hired as the Bills coach, but he wasn't really poached as he wasn't coming back to the Lions as OC after serving as interim HC after Patricia was fired. Correcting myself after Tater pointed out my error: Since then the closest we came was when our DC was was "Richard" Jauron. He was elevated to interim HC after Mariucci was fired and wasn't coming back.)

Honestly, if Darnold hasn't choked yet I don't think it's going to happen. Even if his two loses he didn't play bad. 22/27, 1 TD, 1 INT against the Lions and 18/25, 2 TD, 0 INT against the Rams. I don't think it's likely that our banged and bruised defense is going to get pressure on Darnold. This is going to be a high scoring game.

It depends on if you include interim HCs and if you include non-NFL HC jobs: Darrel Bevell was an Interim HC in '20 for the Lions and in '21 for the Jags. Matt Patricia hasn't been a HC since. Jim Caldwell hasn't been a HC since. Jim Schwartz hasn't been a HC since. Rod Marinelli hasn't been a HC since. **** Jauron was the intern head coach for the Lions for 5 games in 2005 and the Bills hired him as their HC in '06 - '09. Steve Mariucci hasn't been a HC since. Marty Mornhinweg hasn't been a HC since. Bobby Ross was hired as Army HC for 3 years after leaving the Lions. Wayne Fontes hasn't been a HC since. Darryl Rogers coached the Oklahoma City Twisters in '90 and the Winnipeg Blue Bombers (CFL) in '91. Tommy Hudspeth coached the Toronto Argonauts (CFL) for a few years after leaving Detroit. Rick Forzano hasn't been a HC since. Don McCafferty hasn't been a HC since. Joe Schmidt hasn't been a HC since. Harry Gilmer hasn't been a HC since. George Wilson went on to coach the Dolphins after leaving the Lions, but his last year there was 1969... 1970 is when the AFL and NFL merged so this wasn't, technically, and NFL team when Wilson was coaching it. And finally we get to Buddy Parker who coached the Pittsburgh Steelers from '57-'64. More than 60 years back until we get a hired Lions HC who was hired by another NFL team as their HC.

This seems like the ultimate in Cherry Picking. Keeping looking at stats until you find the right ones that line up. Rookie QBs for over 3300? Lots of them... But also with over 450 rushing? Still quite a few... hmm... what about 18 passing TDs? Okay... now we're cutting down the list, but we still have a few. Oh, what about 6 or fewer INTs? THERE WE GO!!

I thought it was them celebrating Darnold getting 4K passing yards.

I had to cut it off at 12 wins... it just got too crowded at that bottom. In case you're curious: 11 - Tommy Hudspeth 10 - Harry Gilmer & Rod Marinelli 6 - Gus Henderson & Don McCafferty 5 - Marty Mornhinweg 4 - Bill Edwards & Gary Moeller 1 - **** Jauron & Darrell Bevell 0 - John Karcis (coached 8 games, no wins.) & Robert Price Quick Edit to add: This is only regular season wins.

Lions made on Jomboy Media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwJF-y484DQ

Yeah, I thought the flag flew really early on that one. But we kinda sorta got it back when the ref flagged the Bear fro tipping the ball.

Stupid Seahawks!! So close! Ugh.

The ownership/front office would be my concern. I think Williams' problems are a product of the inept coaching there more than anything else. Obviously there is the concern that they "broke" him, but it's only one season. But if I was Ben I'd be much more worried about the front office and ownership.

I don't think they'd rest healthy players, but they may not play questionable players and/or they may start pulling players part way through the game... especially if they are winning or losing by a good bit. That said, I don't see a likely senario with the Lions have the #1 set no matter the outcome of the last game. It would require both the Vikings and the Eagles losing another game before week 18 (or possibly during week 18 for the Eagles depending on when all the games are played). It's certainly possible that the Eagles lose to the Commanders this Sunday (in order words: Root for the Commanders!) but I wouldn't bet on it. It's also possible that the Vikings lose the Seahawks and/or the Packers, but again that's not how I'd bet if I actually did any betting. I really think week 18 is going to be a 'must win' in order to get the #1 seed.