Jason_R

It is not the play calling. It is that they are two-thirds of the way through the season and they don't know who their team is. They are on their ninth, possibly tenth, OL combination of the year, pending Decker's health. Goff doesn't trust them to protect him and he doesn't know where he can find room in the pocket. Also, the defense keeps putting him behind the 8-ball from the very first drive. Baltimore, GB, Chicago twice, so he is pressing from the very start. On defense, Campbell has now stooped to begging DL to step up and take a job. Nobody is doing it, so they are cycling through a different lineup every week, and maybe their second-best pass rusher is a 36-year old they signed off the couch. They've also demoted Tracy Walker and are in the process of demoting Jerry Jacobs for a guy they signed off a practice squad. Everyone is pressing, especially the team leaders on defense -- Hutch and Anzalone -- who made major mistakes to extend Chicago drives on Sunday. Maybe Irwin and Vildor, along with JRM, can give the defense a little shot in the arm until Houston and Ceedy Duce can return. And the offense, as bad as they played on Sunday, still had a lot of success on the ground. They just need to figure out how to get the ball to someone other than ARSB and Laporta. Two touches a game for Jamo is not a lot, but if they go for 50 yards and a TD, well....

That is an awfully expensive OL that can’t get on the field together. OTOH, Decker could probably not have played a worse game than he did on Sunday. Maybe he injured his back before/during the game.

🤌🏻🤌🏻

Tommy!!! 🤌🏻🤌🏻

Process of the catch was not completed.

What is with the NYG special teams tonight? Do they not know they can look at the football?

Man GB is trying hard to lose this game.

That’s a Love fumble.

Tonight we are all Tommy DeVito. 🤌🏻

PFF Rankings - Five highest-graded defenders (with enough snaps): DL John Cominsky (73.7), CB Kindle Vildor (68.0), DB Ifeatu Melifonwu (67.0), LB Jack Campbell (65.2), EDGE Julian Okwara (64.8%) Rotational DL, CB signed off practice squad, DB who has been buried on depth chart, someone who belongs among the top graded defenders, rotational DL. Five-lowest graded defenders (with enough snaps): LB Alex Anzalone (29.3), CB Jerry Jacobs (47.2), EDGE Josh Paschal (49.9), EDGE Aidan Hutchinson (52.7), S Kerby Joseph (53.1) Starting LB, starting CB, 2nd round draft pick, #2 draft pick, starting safety. Ouch.

I agree that Goff doesn't seem like the type to hold out, but he also doesn't seem like the type to negotiate in the media, which might explain why he hasn't talked about an extension. I get the sense that Goff genuinely likes being in Detroit, likes the fan base, likes Holmes for never treating him like a throw-in, likes Campbell and Johnson for trusting him, likes the offense, and likes the team. Detroit is also the only team he can sign his next contract with and maintain the narrative that McVay was wrong to discard him. If he ends up on a third team by his 30th birthday, he'll end up with the (dreaded) label of "journeyman." Goff is Jekyll and Hyde. He goes into slumps where he just looks like a turd out there. When he's in a slump, it's so ugly that it's hard to imagine that he can ever come out of it. He's in one now. He'll come out of it, but if Holmes gives him a new contract, it will be with the knowledge that he is a streaky player.

My point. There’s some stuff that is so egregious it deserves to get called out, in public.

I’m not saying I agree with Mahomes or Reid. I’m saying that other franchises make the NFL defend itself on pivotal calls. Detroit just lays there and takes it. Would Detroit continue to be the poster child for egregious missed or manufactured calls if the officials had to go to the podium and answer questions about these calls? Maybe, but maybe not, or maybe not as much. Remember, the NFL let KC get away with (IIRC) eleven illegal formation and false start penalties against Detroit before calling one. I don’t know why they feel entitled to avoiding flags, but I’d like my franchise to try what KC is trying for a change.

Hutch was not coached to go offsides. He jumped because he is pressing. They are all pressing because they don't trust one another. The coaches (Campbell) are pressing now because they don't trust the players, and are at the point where they are replacing players. Tracy Walker didn't get his number called yesterday. They picked up a new CB and gave him some of Jacobs's snaps. The players are all going to have to come together and decide who is on the ship and who is not and all pull in the same direction.

I'm still waiting for a Detroit coach to go up to the podium after one of these blown calls and simply point out that the officials had a bad day.

The players themselves said that discipline cost them. Hutch went offside on 4th and 13 and cost them a touchdown. He also apparently called his own stunt on another. The defense does not trust one another right now, the staff doesn't trust them, and the players don't trust the staff. There is more going on there than the public humiliation of AG would accomplish. My real question is why did Johnson/Goff keep trying to force the ball to ARSB and Laporta in the middle of the field when the Bears were clearly focusing on them?

It is interesting to see how teams who are used to getting calls go their way react when the calls don’t go their way. Queue up “First Time?” meme.

How do you know he’s not talking to the coordinators?

I need to push a little bit more. I’m just gonna need to be a little more irritable, which I can do that. --Detroit coach Dan Campbell, after the Lions lost their second of the last three at Chicago Sunday.

https://www.mlive.com/lions/2023/12/emotional-aidan-hutchinson-disgusted-at-crucial-penalty-in-loss-thats-on-me.html They are all pushing too hard.

ARSB: 9 targets, 3 receptions, 21 yards. (Two drops?) Laporta: 6 targets, 2 receptions, 23 yards. Took away Goff’s security blankets and he couldn’t get anything done.

Here’s the defense saying as much. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2023/12/10/detroit-lions-defense-has-officially-lost-our-confidence-and-swagger/71874273007/

He choked again. Sometimes his 4th down attempts are well timed to put pressure on the opponent. Sometimes they are when he feels pressure. Today's was the latter. It doesn't seem like anyone trusts anyone else right now. Everyone is pressing, and it all goes back to the Baltimore game when they could not do a thing to stop the Ravens. Well, they haven't been able to do much to stop anyone else since. I suspect that's what Campbell was talking about today when he blamed execution.

I haven't heard anyone say the Lions are better than SF or Philly. I have hoped they might end up with a better record than SF or Philly since those teams both had first place schedules and have tougher divisional opponents than Detroit. At the start of the season I had the Lions winning 11 games. With four games remaining, they are still on track to win 11. (I know there is a lot of handwringing, but I don't see them losing even one game to Minnesota, which struggled to muster three points against the Raiders today.) I don't see them being a threat to Dallas, but Denver is a tossup.

You just can’t come out every week and let the opposing team ram the ball down your throat. AG’s seat should be pretty hot right now. Jared Goff’s too. You can’t keep getting outplayed, badly, by QBs on their rookie contract.