MichiganCardinal

vs. Setting: 11/05/2023, All Day Long Site: Living Rooms Across America Weather: Whatever the wife sets the thermostat to Opening Spread: Lions -1.5 All-Time Series Record: Bye leads, 39-18 Last Meeting: 10/16/2022, Lions won 3-2 Bye Week (5-3) Head Coach: Chris Kirkpatrick Projected Starting QB: J̶u̶s̶t̶i̶n̶ ̶T̶i̶m̶b̶e̶r̶l̶a̶k̶e̶ Joey Fatone(?) Last Week: 42-10 W @ Providence Steam Rollers (Exhibition) Looking Ahead to Week #10: Sunday v. Chiefs, Rams, Dolphins, and Eagles Your Detroit Lions (6-2) Head Coach: Dan Campbell (3rd Season: 18-23-1) Projected Starting QB: Jared Goff (8th Season: 60-47-1) Last Week: 26-14 W v. Las Vegas Raiders (3-5) Looking Ahead to Week #10: Sunday @ Los Angeles Chargers (3-4) Elsewhere in the NFL Primetime: Titans @ Steelers (TNF), Bills @ Bengals (SNF), Chargers @ Jets (MNF) 9:30am: Dolphins @ Chiefs (in Frankfurt, Germany) 1:00pm: Seahawks @ Ravens, Vikings @ Falcons, Cardinals @ Browns, Rams @ Packers, Bucs @ Texans, Commanders @ Patriots, Bears @ Saints 4:05/4:25pm: Colts @ Panthers, Giants @ Raiders, Cowboys @ Eagles BYE: Broncos, Jaguars, and 49ers Memory Lane "I think I got probably one of the biggest plays in the fourth quarter in the history of the NFL." - Matt Patricia "When you think of Detroit, you're not thinking of wine and cheese. You're closer to the bratwurst market up here... There's enough white-collar stuff up here, but even the white collars have dirt under their collars. That's the way it's supposed to be." - Matt Millen "Put in Shaun Hill!" - my drunk uncle at the slightest Lions inconvenience on every Thanksgiving from 2011-2013.

At the end of the day a win is a win. This sure felt like one that should have been 42-10 or so though. I sure would like to see what this team could really do. What’s our A-game? What does mistake free football look like from this squad? I think we saw a glimpse against the Packers, I want more of THAT. You can get away with doing turning the ball over three times against the Raiders. You can’t against the Seahawks, Cowboys, Niners, or Eagles. Ben Johnson isn’t one to get scorn from me often. I think he’s doing a good job in the position of professional scapegoat. Some of those calls were puzzling though. I’m not sure why we are getting cute against the Raiders on 2nd and 1 in the red zone when they can’t stop the run up the middle. We don’t need to empty the play book here, just make them stop you. Lets get healthy and get ready for LA.

Literally might be the worst play he’s had in two years.

That just can’t happen from Goff. Row 7 me said to throw it away before he threw the pick.

The dreaded run up the middle??

I’m not one to bitch about play calling but what are we doing. Stop getting cute, move the damn ball.

I want to see the injury report but I’m not as confident as I as a couple days ago if we’ll be missing ASB and three linemen. I still think our defense will bounce back in a big way, but I’m not as convinced in the offense.

I really think it's as simple as we brought our D-game or F-game while Baltimore brought their A-game. We have talked in weeks prior, against the Chiefs, Falcons, and Bucs particularly, about how we won despite playing our B-game or C-game. Baltimore probably played their C-game against Arizona, whose A-game still isn't good enough to beat half the league. It's an any given Sunday thing more so than pointing to any one reason.

Is the sky falling in SF yet?

I feel a little bad for Cousins. He gets a bad rap out there but you can’t deny he puts his heart and soul into the game. Probably was his last snap as a Viking too.

Made that big 4th down TFL in the Chiefs game.

Agreed. There is they should win this game, which I've felt against the Falcons and Panthers, and there is they will win this game. This is the first time this season I've felt the latter.

I don't remember the last time I was this confident coming into a game that the Lions would win. Everything from the last three years tells me this will be a convincing win. I was pretty confident last year against the Bears in Week 17, for similar reasons, but this Lions team is better than that team was, has done this before, and is playing an equally bad team. Surely I won't look back on this post in regret on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Tampa makes a 57-yarder early in the 2nd but then won’t try a 59-yarder with 19 seconds in the half. Make it make sense.

I feel bad for the Bills. That city deserves a champion, but it sure looks like something is just not working right now.

My season ticket rep called me and offered me free VIP tailgate tickets for Monday's game. Open bar and all-you-can-eat buffet. Um.... yes please.

If you draft Trey Lance that’s your own damn fault.

I thought about this this morning. I sincerely doubt they're related. All the information I've heard on the hack leans towards that being an incredibly sophisticated foreign hack. In the most recent correspondence sent on it, it said that certain information for certain people was compromised and that they would be contacted. That said, this turning on its head and some low-level staffer at Ohio State getting charged with felony computer crimes over this would be the greatest plot twist since The Sixth Sense.

Of the premier defensive talents, Maxx Crosby is the only one I think I'd want based on culture and positional fit, and I doubt the Raiders are trading him. Maybe a 40-point win on Monday Night will lead them to fire McDaniels and blow it all up, and Holmes won't let Crosby get on the plane back to Vegas? One can dream.

Counterargument - you don't want to be the Browns. The Browns thought they saw their window, sold the farm with three firsts to get Deshaun Watson, sold their morals and any good feelings they had with the rest of the NFL by giving him a fully guaranteed contract, and ended up with a worse QB than they had before him. Obviously QB is not a defensive talent, and no one (at least hopefully no one) is advocating for giving a defensive talent a fully guaranteed franchise dependent contract... but I think if the last 2 1/2 years have taught us anything, it's that Holmes has a plan. It would just be very uncharacteristic for him to break that and go "all in" on someone. Now, if we are sitting five years from now, with an aging Goff and a couple OGs like Hutch and ASB looking for third contracts, and we've been spinning our wheels with early exits in the playoffs. Then, the writing might be on the wall to give it one more Rams-like shove. As of now though, I think this is only year three of Holmes' plan and I doubt year three involves the step "after a 5-2 start abandon your master plan to add a single defensive talent". I think the Lions have been set up masterfully by Holmes and Co. to have sustained success. I don't care about the Packers, Bears, or Vikings - if we can win 10 games a year, we will make the playoffs. And if you make the playoffs, you're only a short winning streak away from pay dirt.

An analysis of the inner mechanisms of Jim Harbaugh, and the Harbaugh family at large, would be a case study worthy of federal funding. I don't think the things you're describing are specific to Michigan though. If in 2015, Mark Dantonio was accused of the things Jim Harbaugh is accused of now, MSU supporters would bend over backwards to spin their own excuses. Ohio State did with Jim Tressel and USC did with Reggie Bush. That's the case quite literally anywhere in D1 football. If any team goes 26-2 in the course of 28 games, they're going to support their team and their coach through hell or high water. Michigan and Jim are conjoined by now. They'll erect a statue of him before they fire him. There was a time when Michigan administration and trustees may have thought themselves to be "above" the rest of the B1G, and among some other academic class with the Ivys, Stanford, Cal, Duke, and Vanderbilt, but the last 5-10 years have demonstrated pretty soundly that they're a-ok diving head first into some mud... if it means beating Ohio State. The academic standards for transferring are a remnant I would expect to be "remedied" in the next 5 years. Like I said above, I don't think this is the regime-ending monstrosity that it's being made out to be on Twitter and Reddit, but it is another blow to Michigan's reputation, whatever the powers that be might imagine that to be. Whenever he does leave, whether by the NCAA forcing him out via a scandal that surpasses this one, or by his own accord to the NFL (his own gig or hanging out with John in Baltimore) or elsewhere (tell me you can't imagine him going and coaching his young boys at Pioneer HS), there will be some cleaning up to do with the program and making up to do with some people, I have no doubt.

I'd be surprised if there is any vacating of wins involved in the ultimate punishment and I'd be shocked if there is a postseason ban. Michigan won't look clean coming away from this and there will be a lot of pearl clutching in East Lansing and Columbus, but even if the worst case scenario comes to fruition (Harbaugh had knowledge and was using these signals), I think a show-cause of Stallions, a two-game suspension for Harbaugh to start 2024 (which would include the Texas game), and a hefty fine is about the most that will ultimately come of it... Assuming the school cooperates with the investigation and doesn't lie to investigators this time around. The NCAA - at least historically - cares far more about paying athletes and eligibility than they do about so-called competitive advantages. Notwithstanding the Penn State Jerry Sandusky scandal, I can't think of an extremely punitive outcome to an NCAA investigation (like vacating wins and postseason bans) for something other than boosters, paying athletes, and/or the use of ineligible players. And the Penn State victories were eventually reinstated. Even comparing this to SpyGate, Belichick was fined $500,000 and the Patriots lost a first-round draft pick for what - at least on the surface - seems to be far more involved than this. There was no talk of them losing wins or vacating their 2007 perfect season. That proposition would have been laughed at. Of course, it is Harbaugh and the NCAA doesn't exactly send him Christmas cards.

Part of me wondered when the news came out that he was out from Sunday's game for "personal reasons" if it was a kind way to make him a healthy scratch. This kind of follows that. I think the game passed him by, but the organization wanted him to be able to end it on his own terms. Classy move.

Had the Raiders beat the Bears, I would be even more confident in an incoming ass kicking. The Raiders also got embarrassed though, by a much worse team than the Ravens, and (should be) very motivated as well. That said, I also think the Lions offense, defense, special teams, and coaching are all better than the Raiders all things considered.