RandyMarsh

Basically, it's just going to come down to their red zone defense. If they can hold teams to a 25% rate or less there is a good chance they win so long as the offense plays like it should. When you score 30+ a game and force teams to get 4+ TDs you can get by with a bad defense so long as you get fortunate in the red zone......and don't give up a long TD play. Make teams go all the way down the field and hope they either make a mistake or struggle once the field gets congested near the goal line.

If Michigan got Riley Leonard I wouldn't rule out them being in this spot. They still lose to Texas and likely Oregon but I think they have a real shot to win the rest of the games. If so having wins against USC, Washington, Indiana, Illinois and OSU with your only 2 losses being to top 5 teams probably gets you in the playoff.

BTW the game drew over 22 million viewers making it the most watched MNF game of the season and among the 5 most watched since 2006. Not bad for a "meaningless" game featuring a team that nobody outside of Detroit supposedly cares about.

Just saw a stat on X about Gibbs, through 2 seasons only 2 RBs in NFL history have averaged more yards per carry than Gibbs, Clinton Portis(on those unstoppable Denver rushing offenses at the time) and the one and only Jim Brown.

05-6 Pistons made it to 37-5, Cavs would have to go 8-1 next 9 to match it.

Matt Miller of Scouts inc.put up his article today on ESPN about what players he'd give 1st round grades to and he to didn't have any qbs. He said they'd all be behind Caleb, Daniels, Maye and "even McCarthy" if they were in last year's class.

I went on a tp style rant that night except it was on the officials and not so much the Lions coaches or players. I know this cause it showed up on "memories" feed on Facebook the other day. There were like 10 posts I made ranting about the officiating with a couple aimed at the Lions. Reading it back the other day and I was like "damn can't believe I used to get this riled up."

Just thinking that we had a very similar situation to this 10 years ago in Lambeau. I don't think it was for the 1 seed but the winner did get the division and a bye, where as the loser was forced to go on the road for the 1st round and likely entire playoffs. We of course lost and had to go to Dallas. This time the game is at our place though so hopefully the results will be different.

To be fair I don't think Michigan beat THIS OSU team, I think it did create it though. This is honestly the type of team I was expecting to see all season when you looked at their roster. It took us embarrassing them for it to come out.

Flores would be a fantastic hire for the Bears and absolutely the right pick.

Get the team to start playing better along with Ivey looking better then something like this happens. Kinda reminds me of Brandon Jennings like 10 years ago, I remember he was coming off a 20/20 game and it looked like he was turning the corner a bit and the team may actually have something with him only for him to then tear his Achilles and essentially end his career. Let's hope it isn't nearly as debilitating as that was.

Looking at the potential brackets and whomever loses next week may be better off if they were the 6th seed vs. 5th. With the 5th you're going on the road against either TB/LAR who are kinda a wash IMO, but then if you were to win that game you are guaranteed to play on the road against whoever wins next week. So you're playing a team for the 3rd time this year and 2nd time in 3 weeks but you know it's on the road. OTOH the 6 seed would either face Philly or get to host a home game against GB/Washington. To me just having the chance to host a playoff game would make the 6 seed more desirable.

Since that 5th INT against Houston Goff has thrown 22 TDs to 1 interception.

Last 13 games the Lions have scored 40+ in 6 of them.

That 2nd down throw to Williams had a chance to be big, unfortunately it was a rare bad throw by Goff.

Yeah even with all the injuries this is just pathetic, I don't expect them to even be average, hell even a little below average is ok but if not for the illegal pick play that wasn't needed you're probably looking at giving up 5 TDs on 5 drives. Just no excuse for that no matter how banged up you are.

When you can score like they can you will always have a puncher's chance in the NFL playoffs but they are obviously going to have to play near perfect on offense and just hope once the field gets condensed by the goal line they can hold the other team to a FG atleast a couple of times.

Dumb play design, have Laporta and St. Brown running routes right next to each other on the short side of the field.

They definitely have hurt but even our healthy players have fallen off notably Reader, Branch and Joseph. The latter two just aren't making the big plays the past month or so.

Even if I wasn't a QB any time I got in space like that I'd do a fake throw, doesn't matter if you're passed the line of scrimmage or not a defender's instincts always makes them freeze.

Reader seems to have fallen off a cliff the past 6 weeks or so, doesn't help that it coincides with McNeil getting injured.

Yeah dumb penalty, very well may have cost them 4 points. When you are as bad on defense as we have been you need to take advantage of possible mistakes by the oppponents and we had that chance but he negated that.

The defense just isn't good at all right now, blame it on injuries, Glenn or whatever but the fact is teams are just having their way with them. They are going to have to live and die with their RZ performance and just hope they can hold teams to FGs as much as possible.

QBR is better than raw QB rating but like all stats has it's flaws. For instance they put alot of weight on game situation, which is fair but also doesn't make it even across the board cause if your a QB that gets to play in more close games with more high leverage plays you're going to get rewarded more vs. a guy who's team plays in more blowouts(like Goff). Also it factors in strength of defense, which again is fair and again makes it hard to compare guys cause if you play well against a bad defense that doesn't mean that your performance wouldn't have been the same if the defense is better, and like game situation if you happen to be a QB who plays more games against tough defenses you are going to get rewarded more. To me though like all QB stats it doesn't account for the mental side of things like making the right reads. I know that is hard to quantify but just cause you completed a pass to an open receiver that physically didn't look that tough doesn't mean that it wasn't a good play. Lesser QBs may have completely missed the guy, or thrown too early/late to maximize the play but that doesn't show up in these stats, atleast to the best of my knowledge.

It's hard to say if Darnold would've developed if he stayed there but assuming he did the Jets have to be kicking themselves for not only giving up on him but doing so by drafting Alex Wilson in a stacked 2021 class. They could be looking at having Sewell, Chase, Parsons, Surtain on their roster along with a much better qb situation. Still not as big of blunder as the Browns with Mayfield for Watson though.