MichiganCardinal

I expect we will see Hall in week 18 as well, barring injury.

That game would almost certainly get slotted to Monday Night too, which I don’t love for the winner to have a short week leading to the divisional round.

I don't really get Payton. He was worshipped in New Orleans. The franchise had gone to the playoffs five times and won only a single playoff game in its 39-year history prior to his hiring. He went to the playoffs nine times and won the Super Bowl with them, never winning less than seven games. He wasn't untouchable, but I think he would have survived a rebuild. He didn't want to rebuild from ground zero in New Orleans though, so he just up and left in the middle of a contract, and then a year later gets bored with broadcasting (?), so he goes to Denver, where instead he can rebuild from ground negative one, on a team with $85MM invested into a sunk cost quarterback that is missing future picks because they valued him more than the picks. It doesn't make much sense. From Campbell's POV I understand the mentorship angle. Campbell's playing career ended with a training camp injury on the Saints and Payton is who encouraged him to get into coaching, vouched for him to get the gig in Miami, and gave him a job when the Miami staff got fired. He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Payton, but he's also definitely not Payton. Payton is obviously a good coach, but Campbell I think is a much more calm and collected presence on the sideline than Payton, and I think the players like him more... You would never see Campbell yell at a quarterback how Payton did Russell Wilson. Even the officials, I've never seen Campbell lose his mind on the officials. Payton earned himself stupid 15-yard penalties with the Saints, one of which I remember costing him the game. And BountyGate? I couldn't even imagine a former NFL player like Campbell entertaining the possibility.

Suspending him is absolutely the right call there, and a pretty obvious decision too. What he did there was totally disrespectful to both the coaches and those who were named captains, and then to mess it up too?! He's lucky the official didn't just f*** him over and let his mistake be, giving Carolina the ball to start both halves. And then a total lack of accountability after the fact, telling the media that LaFleur didn't know he was from Carolina, implying it wasn't his fault? To not suspend him would risk completely losing the locker room.

It's just coach talk but high praise

The price schedule has them charging me $186 for the wildcard, $199 for the divisional, and $239 for an NFC Championship Game. Extremely reasonable. Each of those would probably re-sell near the thousands on the second market.

Im trying to be kind. But yeah.

That wasn’t the issue with the halftime show. They were a rap group but they were just mumbling.

Quality of play has something to do with that. A state champion high school boys basketball team probably beats the WNBA champion.

I’m shocked by how loud LCA is. It’s lively here.

Cost me $186/ticket as a season ticket holder. Makes the 73% rise in prices for next season more bearable.

That would be my guess too

I took a trip around LCA and tried a different beer for every quadrant so if the messages become less coherent or I can’t pay my WiFi bill you’ll know why.

Whatever you imagine as the worst possible halftime show… tonight’s was worse. I did not understand a single word spoken.

I’d be surprised if they don’t hire from within for OC. DC is the gig they might look elsewhere for.

That’s what I said too! He billed it as witnessing history, can you tell he’s in sales?

My buddy who I brought to a Lions game brought me to this ones I think I got the raw end of the deal.

I’ve never been so happy to get a large charge alert from my bank as I was this afternoon when the Lions withdrew money my wildcard tickets.

I saw a lot of Vikings fans complaining about the hit that knocked him out. It’s a violent league and injuries happen. It looked like he braced himself and straightened the knee before contact which really probably did as much damage as the hit itself.

They'll have options. Ideally, someone could take over opposite Sutton. Neither Jacobs nor Vildor are one of the best 11 players on the defense, but we might just be stuck with one of them at corner, because you don't want to force a square peg into a round hole... Iffy was originally a corner and they moved him to safety, maybe he could be a press corner? But you don't want to undo the progress made towards making him a quality player. If it's working, don't fix it and all that... You can also run more multi-safety looks on obvious passing downs and take Campbell/Barnes off the field. If I had to guess though it will be rotational. I don't have the stats in front of me, but intuitively it feels like Branch is better against the run but a little weaker in coverage. CJGJ has (historically at least) been a ball hawk against the pass and less dominant against the run.

Him and CJGJ. The two weakest position groups on this Lions team are about to be infused with the 2022 NFL leader in interceptions and the 2022 NFL leader in sacks per games played, just in time for the playoffs. We don't even need Houston to continue the ridiculous tear he was on to close the season last year. If he just generates some amount of pressure from the opposite side of Hutch.... causes attention to be devoted to him... If he's just half the player Charles Harris was supposed to be and never was... it will be a game changer on the defense.

Maybe if KC trades him to the Rams for Matt Stafford he can prove it there.

I think the NFC Champion will be one of the 49ers, Eagles, or Lions. Whichever team gets hot at the right time and gets the breaks to go their way in the playoff matchups against each other will come out of it. All three of them are beatable and have their weaknesses to exploit, but I don't see any of the other NFC playoff teams (NFC South, Rams, Seahawks, Vikings, or Packers) pulling off three in a row against them to go to Vegas. I would put the Cowboys as a distant 4th because I think it's plausible it finally happens, but they are poorly coached, and I don't see them going on the road against any of those three teams and winning, let alone doing it twice. They might even lose to the NFC South Champion if they have to go to Tampa, Atlanta, or NOLA as a 5-seed. I think the AFC playoffs are wide open. Baltimore has been the best team and has likely earned the #1 seed. But head-to-head any given Sunday? I think any of Baltimore, Miami, Kansas City, Cleveland, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, or Cincinnati could win three in a row and advance to the Super Bowl. And not all seven of those teams will even make the playoffs!