MichiganCardinal

2 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

I don't see the difference, with regards to the current admin (both coaches and Admin). I don't agree with this.

IMO, regardless of the record, even if 0-17... both coaches and admin will get a couple of years to (A) fix the talent level of the team and (B) Coach them up.

I watched Sundays game (as much as I could stomach) and Goff's plentiful errors shouldn't land on the coaches; Swift lining up on the line instead of off... is that coaching, or Swift making a mental error? Same with 10 men on the field: coaches, or did a player screw up? A lot of the mental errors or hitting the wrong gap, etc.: coaches, or inferior players making mistakes? And to someone else's point: Campbell feels like he has to take extra aggressive measures (all the 4th down attempts, instead of a few that should have been points (FG's) taken) due to the inferior roster.

There are some mental or other coaching errors... but I think they get the same two years to fix all of those as the Admin gets to fix the roster.

IMO.

I think at the end of the day, whether we finish 3-14 or 0-17, the regime will be given a couple of years. I just think it's hard to justify an 0-17 season to either the fans or free agents you are trying to court. Sure you inherited nothing, sure you are devoid of talent, sure you were a properly called delay of game penalty from a win, etc. etc.... But you couldn't muster one win in a 17-game season?

Maybe I am making too much out of it, but I just think the mark of a winless season is a hard pill to swallow and recover from. If you hire a Hue Jackson (which I don't think Dan Campbell is), you need to be able to recognize it before he's 3-36-1.

6 hours ago, Hongbit said:

I don’t recall any games where they went 60 minutes punch for punch with anyone.    They have played well at times but haven’t come close to putting together a full game.    

My personal expectations of this team were very low and have only gotten worse.  The talent was never there and this was always going to a rebuild.  As for Campbell, this didn’t mean a free pass, it meant that I wasn’t going to judge him on W-L record.  He is essentially a first time head coach and there were big questions how he was going to handle preparation and game day.  I am growing concerned that he makes poor decisions and continues to double down on them even when they don't work.   He has literally been doing the same things and hoping for a different result.  
 

There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for why he goes for it or not on 4th down.   This seems to be based on his gut feel. He also continues to try and go quick, up tempo whenever they get into a 3rd or 4th and short with the hope that it will confuse the other team and instead it is the Lions that get confused and don’t convert.  This has happened multiple times this season and there is still no adjustment.    There have also been some horrible clock management at the end of half and games.   The drive before halftime was another example of huge gaffes with playcall and TO management in a 17-0 game.  
 

I like his attitude and I haven’t given up but there still needs to be some coaching acumen no matter how much the players and fans love his rah rah.  We saw how this combination worked before with Rod Marinelli and nobody wants a repeat of that.  

That's fair - I'm distinguishing between the Ravens/Vikings games where they never gave in, and the Bengals/Eagles games where they were disinterested from the opening kickoff.

I agree that Campbell hasn't been perfect, but I think his mistakes are not on par with those made by his predecessors in Detroit, and I think they are more aligned with being correctable in time than his predecessors as well. Or at the very least, he is deserving of more time than they were when they left.

5 hours ago, KL2 said:

The odds we lose the next nine games remains less than us finishing 1-16 or 2-15. Regardless of how poor we looked yesterday.

Steelers, Bears, Vikings, and Falcons are all winnable games if the Lions team that went 60 minutes punch for punch returns instead of the team that rolls over and dies at the first sign of adversity.

5 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I said at the start of the season that I wasn't going to be hard or overly critical on Campbell or this regime because of how new everyone was and how awful this roster was. That said, Campbell has made a number of troubling coaching mistakes and outright blunders. Anyone beginning to question his coaching IQ isn't really wrong because he hasn't given fans a whole lot of reason to think otherwise.

Right now my concern (and I am sure their concern as well) is finding that win. 3-14, 2-15, even 1-16 (given the nature of the early losses to the Ravens and Vikings) is forgivable, and an acceptable start to the regime given how completely devoid of talent the roster is, combined with the injuries to their best players.

0-17 though is an absolute regime killer, right or wrong. It would just be so hard to come back from that. At the point we go 0-17, you have to consider replacing at least Campbell, whether the locker room wants to or not. Or at the very least keeping him on a short leash in year two if marked improvement is not seen with a second year of talent acquisition.

I think there are still wins to be had on the schedule, but the team cannot come out dead every other game.

2 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

So the game threads have activity.  Why would you quote all my posts instead of just ask?  How weird is that.  

It feels weirder to ruin a Sunday by watching something you clearly don’t enjoy than to perform an unconventional function in a message board.

I dunno, I’m not here to argue. A sport isn’t worth it. Just seems like if you don’t enjoy it, turn it off. YMMV.

22 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

Oh Goff.  What a statue he is.  It is so hard for this offense to get any yards.  Two straight drives that had great field position and Goff couldn’t get them past the 30. And the lions miss the FG, lol.  It’s all so bad.  

14 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

24 is a really bad CB.  The lions run defense is useless. 

12 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

They should just do the end around to Reagor every play, lions have no idea how to defend that.  

10 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

Yeah. That was decided at the coin toss.

7 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

Just ran it down our throat. DL is the worst unit on the team.  Somehow.  

3 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

Swift is so good at catching the ball out of the back field.  He is equally as bad at rushing out of the backfield.  

Legitimate question. Why do you watch.

5 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

Taking the ball when you win the coin toss is an automatic loss.  Lions will for sure lose. Thought this would be the one, ah well. 

But Goff is a Libra! Doesn’t that negate coin toss losses? Matters just as much…..

Happy Halloween everyone. Going today as a ghost. Wearing a Don Muhlbach jersey.

Lot of reasons to think this could be MCDC’s first win.

Eagles are depleted and ready to give up on their new head coach already. Their defense is trash and their offense is one-dimensional, especially without Miles Sanders.

If the Lions can contain Hurts how they did Lamar and don’t come out disinterested like they did against the Bengals, this game _might_ not even be all that close. Ready to eat this post in a few hours.

Lions: 27

Eagles: 16

23 hours ago, buddha said:

the last time the lions bottomed out they went from 0-16 to 2-14 to 6-10.  i suspect this is our equivalent of 0-16 and i think next year will be our 2-14 season.

too many misses from quinn and a roster full of ordinary players.  

as for a qb, you just cant miss if you take one in round one.  if they really think a pickett, or ridder or willis is worthy of a #1 pick, then by all means do it.  but as of right now, it doesnt seem like anyone thinks that way.

while we are early in the process, you usually start to hear a lot if hype by this point about top qb prospects being in the top pick conversations and youre just not hearing it this year.

The last time they bottomed out though they didn't fully clear house until after the 0-16 season. I think this is our 2-14 season and we should be looking for 4-8 wins next year.

On 10/20/2021 at 11:49 AM, Stanley70 said:

Goff is playing without the best two players on offense, both offensive lineman. Plus they are breaking a rookie at LT who is struggling. His top 2 receivers are also out and what is left at the WR group is waiver wire fodder. Plus it's a new offense for him and a new offensive coordinator for the entire team. He appears to be a QB who just can not function if he doesn't have pieces around him. 

Goff is probably a career back up from here on out but this is a horrible situation for any QB. My main criticism of the off season was that they didn't bring in enough at WR to give Goff someone to throw to so they could properly evaluate him.  Although most of the FO came from the Rams so they should have known what they were getting. If they have already given up on him then acquiring him has to be considered a mistake, given that there were other offers out there that didn't include taking on a QB with 100 million left on his contract. Plus they passed on Fields and Jones at 7.

When teams don't have a QB they get desperate and the Lions will turn over as many leaves as it takes this off season to find one. Punting the QB situation another year to wait for a better draft seems about as much of a long shot as acquiring Watson. Especially since they will certainly expect to improve and not be one of the worst 2-3 teams in the league again.

I agree the first part of this. I don't think Goff is a QB who can be expected to make an offense good. He can work with good pieces and lead a team to wins, but if you ask him to try to be one of the top three players on offense, you will wind up 0-7 seven weeks into the season. Even with one of the top five QBs in the league I don't think this team posts a .500 record.

That said, I don't think acquiring him was a mistake. Even without him included, the Rams offer was arguably better than any other. Two 1sts and a 3rd is hard to match on its own. I also don't think the FO has given up on him. I think it was already pretty well known the day he arrived that he likely wasn't the QB of the next decade in Detroit. It's perhaps fair to say that they could have hoped for better performance as a stopgap, but I don't think seven games in Holmes and Campbell are going frantic thinking about who will be under center in 22. If I had to bet who it would be right now, I would still say Goff.

I don't the Lions are even close to desperation, or that they will approach it this offseason. Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell were given five- and six-year deals for a reason. They inherited a dumpster fire and are still working on extinguishing the flames and seeing if anything is salvageable. We will likely finish around 2-15 this year and enter 2022 hoping if things go our way to be flirting with .500. That will give us a pick in 2023 around 8-16, another with the Rams around 20-30, in position to move where needed to get the QB we want and plug him into an exciting situation. It won't be until 2023 or 2024 that we could see a desperate front office if we are still floundering without any sense of direction.

35 minutes ago, buddha said:

michigan 7-0

michigan state 7-0

u$c 3-4

its amazing that a program that so blatantly cheats can STILL suck so bad in the worst power 5 conference in the ncaa.

I think the Big 12 is worse top to bottom than the Pac 12. The Pac 12 is just more evenly distributed in talent level than any other conference, so they perpetually beat themselves out of contending for anything.

But please, don't let that stop your U$C hate. I'm always here for it. 🍿

1 hour ago, buddha said:

hockey was never going to overtake basketball.  half the country couldnt care less about hockey and college basketball is still big on the east coast and in the south and midwest.  that was never, ever going to happen.

and hockey eventually got to nbc, which was decent for it, while the nba went to tnt/tbs.

it would have been better on espn, but im not sure that was because of the work stoppage.  hockey is - and will likely alway be - a niche sport.  the nba is the second most popular sport in the world behind soccer and (maybe) formula 1.  that wasnt because of hockey not being on espn, its because of michael jordan and the dream team.

I had originally typed that hockey was never going to become the #3 sport in the US and then backtracked and put that it could have in its hay-day. I tend to agree with you, I think my hopes for the sport were more personal than practical, as I really don't like basketball much, particularly the NBA, and I think that playoff hockey is one of the best offerings of any sport.

Hockey is working from behind as it is given that half the country can't easily access it, the half of the country that can is only able to easily access it 4-6 months of the year, and it's a sport of immense privilege given the exorbitant costs associated with playing even recreational hockey (let alone travel). My point is I don't think the NHL in the last 10-15 years has done enough (or much of anything) to broaden their horizons to kids and families that wouldn't otherwise blink twice about hockey. If I am a family in suburban Phoenix or Miami, what about the NHL makes me want to spend a couple hundred bucks after tickets, parking, and food to go to a Coyotes or Panthers game?

3 hours ago, buddha said:

why do you think the nhl hasnt?  i think nhl ratings are pretty steady from the 90s until now.  and they've successfully expanded multiple times since then.

i dont think people even remember those stoppages anymore.  baseball has inherent problems to the game that prevent it from gaining tv viewers (imo) and younger fans, but the work stoppage 25 years ago has very little to do with it.

I think the work stoppage and the nonsensical decision around the same time for the NHL to not ensure the renewal of their contract with ESPN (in addition to the last 15 years of doubling down on this stupidity) all combined to set the sport back. When ESPN stopped caring about hockey (what little they did then), it caused the sport to stagnate. When they said “we want games on Versus instead of ESPN2”, they may as well have been saying they’re not even going to try to expand their fanbase.

Back in the late 90s to early 00s, hockey had the opportunity to overtake basketball. Now I think it’s more likely for soccer to overtake hockey. The league may be expanding, but on the whole it’s not adding new viewers (or all that much money), just the same viewers in new areas. Hopefully that changes with the new ESPN contract.

12 hours ago, RandyMarsh said:

Going into the season I think most expected them to be about a 4-6 win team but that was with the expectations that they would have Decker, Okwara, Okudah, Ragnow for most of the season and that most importantly that Goff would be closer to average, not closer to worst in the league.  If we knew all of this before the season I think most would say that they would get blown out every week so the fact that they have been somewhat competitive most weeks is a feather in the coaches cap. It's hard to understate just how bad of a roster they are putting out there right now.

I agree. I think if you asked the board preseason what our record would be if Goff was out for the year and Blough started every game (to emulate having a 25-32 QB rather than the 16-25 QB we expected), most would have probably said around 2-15... Under those conditions, 0-7 shouldn't be a surprise, and honestly that we would be 2-5 if not for two walk off field goals speaks volumes to the team coming ready to play.

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

U-Chicago's essay question is pretty fun (paraphrased as):  "People say something is as easy as pie, is that so?"

Stanford had a few fun short response prompts too. One of them asked to name a historical event you would return to, one asked to describe yourself in five words, one asked what you did last summer, one just asked for favorite books and movies.

Their big essay though is "what matters to you and why?"

3 hours ago, romad1 said:

My wife is a sparty and highly accomplished in life.  I think the general quality of education she got plus her own native drive and intellect were fine. 

My interest in sending my son to a "good school" in the top 100 of whatever category is just scoreboard of his/our success raising him.  The ratings are likely just junk like you say.  We've been to a couple campuses on our tours.  Michigan is a very nice one.  UVA also very nice.  Some are just utilitarian.  

In my own story...my terrible HS grades (we are talking Blutarski level gpa here) were mitigated when I finally realized I needed to get going:  tested well on the ASVAB, joined the Air Force, got community college going, did well enough in University of Maryland overseas courses in the Air Force, got off active duty and applied for University of Michigan based on my CC and University of Maryland courses.  I never had to write any essays or do well on the SAT.  I showed up and worked hard because I gave a damn so it worked out for me. 

As long as one isn't going to a school that is for-profit (think the schools whose students were bailed out of their loans by the Biden admin), you will receive a roughly equal quality of education across the board. With rare exception, it's not like the information being taught about subject matter is fundamentally different between a HYPSM and a "lower tier" state school. Depending on what someone is interested in, any number of schools may make sense for any number of reasons. If you want to do research, a HYPSM is going to have money they don't know what to do with to fund whatever your little heart desires. At the same time, if you have specific interests and those interests are to a 't' met by a professor at Eastern Michigan, that may make more sense for you. This is even before financial considerations. Stanford would not be worth a $50,000 price tag if one is offered a full-ride to Michigan.

The ratings have more to do with donors and money (the first bucket I mentioned) than anything else.

My own story is that I was very middle-of-the-road in high school. Finished with a 3.2 GPA or so. Went to Oakland Community College and figured out how to do life and school. One Biology course I can remember clearly, I got a D on the first exam and said to myself I was going to apply myself, go get it, and see what happened. Got no less than a 93 on a test the rest of that semester. I applied to transfer to Michigan after a few semesters and they rejected me, citing I didn't have enough credits to say I was the near 4.0 CC student and not the near 3.0 HS student. The following year, 40 more credits under the belt, I applied to ten schools with a 3.95 GPA: Michigan, Michigan State, Harvard, Penn, Vanderbilt, NYU, Columbia, Cornell, Brown, and Stanford. All rejected me except Michigan, MSU, and Stanford, and I decided to go west of the Mississippi River for the first time in my life as I drove out for orientation. I was in a cohort of 26 transfers that class.

I wouldn't change anything, I had a great time and did pretty well for myself, graduating with a BA and a 3.88 GPA. But I also believe that a lot of the hype around undergraduate education at those top US schools is just lore and toxic comparison of self vs others than anything else. I don't think I'm any smarter (however you choose to define the word) or better prepared than my colleagues who went to Oakland University or Wayne State. Part of that certainly has to do with my field (majored in Psychology and work in child welfare - if I was a Computer Science guy it would be a different story), but overall, if I were speaking to someone who was making a decision on colleges (for undergrad), fit and comfortability is much more important than pretty arbitrary rankings.

/soapbox

US News and World rankings are junk. Though I am intrigued by MSU's fall, they were around #50 ten years ago. Have to imagine it's related to the Nassar fallout.

UM 16 MSU 14

55 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Baseball Owners and Players need to understand that they don't hold as much power over the American public that they once did.   People like us will miss baseball if they strike or lockout, but most of America won't give a damn, which means all  you may accomplish is pissing off your "P1" fans.   Not good.  

I would hope they remember that MLB never truly bounced back from the work stoppage in 1994-95. Nor has the NHL from the work stoppage in 2004-2005. 

3 minutes ago, TP_Fan said:

3 points in the 2nd half.  Campbell loses the game by going for it again when he should have taken the points.  

Campbell was competitive in this game by continually making the risky move. I’m not sure what people expect out of this roster but the staff is making the most of it.

8 hours ago, TP_Fan said:

Can someone explain the rationale for illegal man down field?  Why is that on the rule book?  I literally don’t understand why it’s an issue. 

It's about two things - eligible receivers and blocking. Since linemen are ineligible receivers, you don't want teams sending their centers five yards down the field to just distract the DBs and LBs from their assignments. It also prevents a team from having linemen streak down the field at the snap to block for a single intended receiver. Otherwise teams could just design plays where they have their #1 wideout run a slant, catching a ball five or ten yards downfield surrounded by a convoy of three offensive linemen who are at that point going against DBs instead of guys their own size. Scoring would go way up if linemen were given free range.

These reasons are also why IDF is only a penalty if the pass actually happens, and if the pass crosses the line of scrimmage. On a screen pass behind the LOS, linemen can go downfield.

Is this how St. Louis feels?

1 hour ago, Stanley70 said:

They wait another year for a QB they are definitely writing off 2022. And if they improve just a little next year they will be picking out of the top 5. I would be against taking a guy later in the draft that they obviously don't believe in, and then having to give him a couple years.

DeShaun Watson will be available and the Lions would probably have the best set of draft picks to offer the Texans.

Or you wait another year 

No easy answers there.

 

I don't see any pathway over the next 8-10 months where the Lions are competitive in 2022. The ceiling for 22 as I see it now is 8-9 or so. Why sell out for 8-9 at the expense of 2023 and beyond? There is a reason MCDC got a six-year deal.

Watson is not the answer either. If we were the Broncos, Raiders, or mayybe Steelers, and could legitimately entertain a conversation that we are ONE PIECE - and ONLY that piece - away from contending for a Super Bowl, then and only then might Watson make sense. The amount of draft capital he would take to attain would absolutely force your hand into a win-now mode. If you plugged Watson on this team from week one, we are probably somewhere between 0-6 and 2-4. At that point you can't easily plug the holes you have because you don't have either the capital or the money to do so.

I’m not sure why people are acting like they expected Goff to be good. He is a 16-32 QB depending on the week, Stafford is a 5-16.

Neither Goff nor Stafford would be leading this team to the playoffs.

Just now, buddha said:

aaron glenn has been a miracle worker with this defense.

Hope our record will keep teams looking for a head coach next year away.