Jason_R

20 hours ago, Motown Bombers said:

Dre Bly out after only one year. 

 

He should have coached Vildor to catch the ball with his hands and not his face mask. 

But seriously, this is a pretty extensive rebuilding of the defensive staff. 

NFL dot com ranks the Lions as having the second-biggest Super Bowl window, right behind KC. https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-s-eight-biggest-super-bowl-windows-right-now-chiefs-lions-and-ravens-top-list-don-t-sleep-on-jets

Quote

Dan Campbell has Detroit poised to take the next step as a title contender after guiding the Lions to the NFC Championship Game in his third season. Despite their epic meltdown on Championship Sunday, the Lions are set to return an experienced and resilient squad with a collection of blue-chip playmakers. 

From QB Jared Goff to WR Amon-Ra St. Brown to TE Sam LaPorta to RB Jahmyr Gibbsto an ultra-physical offensive line led by Frank Ragnow, Penei Sewell and Taylor Decker, the Lions' offense can turn any game into a lopsided affair, blending a fast-break approach with a smash-mouth mentality. With offensive coordinator Ben Johnson staying put to dial up the plays, Detroit's ready to seize control of the NFC as one of the best squads in the entire league.

As defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn continues to build up his unit behind a collection of youngsters occupying key roles, the Lions are poised to join the league's true heavyweights as perennial contenders.

Maybe Newmark had a GM finally come in to pick his players and then immediately decided to bolt. Or maybe he was just a guy on the staff and this will mean nothing to the team going forward. 

Well, Sorsdal did not get the nod at the end of the year when Jackson was out. This is not promising but clearly Sorsdal was drafted as a project. 

Jackson is better than he is being credited for here but with his injury history he does not merit a big multi-year deal. 

There was a big drop off from Jackson. I think Awosika improved during his stint replacing Jackson but there is still a marked difference. 

That said, there are several other guards in line to get paid. I don’t know their injury history, but Jackson has missed nine games over two seasons. That will not help his market. Also, as someone pointed out (MB?) Detroit will give him his best chance at a Super Bowl.

This article (take it for what it’s worth) suggests a one year prove it deal, $3.5 million, $2 million guaranteed. Thid might not be the year Jonah breaks the bank.  https://atozsports.com/detroit/can-lions-keep-jonah-jackson/#gid=ci02d58c194000278d&pid=usatsi_20838711 

20 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

yeah; most boring 1st half ever

and if fix was in for Chiefs, why did the refs 3 times in the 4th quarter spot the ball the short?

Mahomes is a killer

Yeah, he was running for his life all night. He, Kelce, and the defense made plays all night. 

Uhh… did I miss a blown call? SF missed a PAT in regulation then missed a chance to take it down the field and walk off in OT. They couldn’t score the TD and settled for the FG. Reid is a great coach. Mahomes is a great QB. Maybe Shanahan should have gone for it instead of kick the FG. 

It’s the special teams bowl. 

1 hour ago, lordstanley said:

Chiefs have done absolutely nothing except for…

…the stellar play by their DBs stifling SF’s explosive passing game. 

On the other side of the spectrum is the guy I just saw in the grocery store parking lot wearing a Carolina Panthers #80 jersey. I guess he is still holding on to hope that their 2007 second round pick Dwayne Jarrett will pan out. 

20 hours ago, MichiganCardinal said:

I've got Brad Holmes on line two saying something about Matthew Stafford?

😉

Funny, but had you heard Stafford demanded to be traded? 

I recall chatter that if the Raiders didn’t retain Pierce, Crosby would consider demanding a trade. But they did retain Pierce and nobody has said a word about Crosby wanting out. 

If Crosby actually did want out, and if the only way anyone knew was to call Tom Telesco, well, that would mean Crosby has a pretty bad agent. 

Holmes swinging a trade for Crosby is Madden-tier fanfic. 

Every GM is going to pick up the phone if any other GM calls. But no, a brand new GM of a team with a new head coach is not going to trade away his team’s leader, its best player, and one of the best players in the league, who is in his prime and under contract, to take a flyer on a trade package anchored on pick number 29. 

21 minutes ago, holygoat said:

I wonder if Telesco could swing a deal for Penei Sewell?

Well played. 

22 hours ago, Hongbit said:

Notice who this letter is signed by?   She is no longer Sheila Ford Hamp.  She dropped the Ford from her name on official team business sometime last year and look what’s happened.   This was Shiela’s best move to date narrowly beating out letting Chris Spielman hire MCDC and Brad. 

I love Hamp. 

3 hours ago, Longgone said:

No one said Detroit had the better roster. Does the team with the better roster always win? What is said is it took a series of improbable events and uncharacteristic play by Detroit for San Fran to win and that is the essence of luck. If you replay the Aiyuk scenario 100 times, Vildor makes the interception about 50 times and it falls incomplete about 49. That, sir, is luck.

Go look at the Niners forum and see what they say about the first half. I’m sure their fans were talking about SF’s uncharacteristic defensive play, Purdy’s uncharacteristic interception, and how improbable it was that Detroit converted a 3rd and 9, 3rd and 10, and 3rd and 18. 

Detroit played a hell of a game, and yes, just like so many NFL games, a play here or there might have been the difference. Does that mean that every NFL season amounts to pure luck? No, the best teams have the skill to keep themselves in it and the best teams are more likely to make crucial plays that make the difference between winning and losing. That’s what happened in SF, just like everyone expected before the game and before the season.

You’re in denial if you attribute Detroit getting outscored by 20 points in the second half to luck. 

1 hour ago, Hongbit said:

Nobody denies the concept of skill exists.  There are plenty of people that don’t believe in luck.  

I have a friend who is an adamant luck denier.  We’ve debated it many times over beverages.  He makes some interesting points but has never been able to sway me.   Random luck definitely does exist.   I do agree that many things people view as luck are instead explained by skill, illusion, or most often, math  and science.

Of course luck exists. But it is silly to say that something almost everybody predicted from the beginning of the season was due to luck. 

And I agree with MB that the talent gap between Detroit and SF is smaller than many might have thought. Still, it’s hard to expect a defense that struggled against the pass all season to go to the Super Bowl.

Yes, probably a player like Sweat would have changed things but Holmes chose not to pay that price. I give him the benefit of the doubt.  

29 minutes ago, Longgone said:

Pure, unmitigated, flukey luck. 90% of the league's receivers could make that catch after it bounced right back to him. Vildor deflects it even slightly, or it misses or deflects obliquely off the helmet, and there's no chance.

Disagree. We see these kinds of plays all the time in the NFL. These guys are good. Beyond their natural talent, they have been practicing tip drills for years by the time they reach the pros. Maybe they can’t make that catch 100% of the time but just because we would make it 0% of the time doesn’t make it luck. But again, if Detroit has the better roster why didn’t our guy make the easy play when their guy made the hard play?

2 hours ago, Hongbit said:

Just curious, do you not believe in the concept of luck? 

The board has turned into this meme  😂

Do you not believe in the concept of skill? 

None of us has the skill that Jusczyk (a fullback!) had to haul in that tiptoe sideline catch, for example. (Can Detroit’s FB make a catch like that? Didn’t think so.)  

Just because we don’t have that kind of skill, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. SF made plays like that in the second half that Detroit didn’t make. Maybe it was bad luck that Gibbs fumbled. Or maybe holding onto the ball is a skill that Gibbs failed at in that instance  

The bigger point is that you don’t get to explain your own team’s success based on skill but the other team’s success based on luck. It is delusional and disrespectful to the opponent to say their victory in that game was pure luck when, over the course of the game and over the course of the season, SF did what just about everyone expected them to do — win the NFC. Did they get some lucky plays along the way? Sure. Did they get some unlucky plays, undoubtedly. But pretty much everyone agreed at the start of the season that they had the best roster in the NFC and that they were a or the leading candidate to win the NFC. They did it. Now that they did it, you can’t dismiss it as luck. They are a very good and resilient team. They did not quit when they got down early. They have the strongest roster in the NFC (though Detroit’s is suddenly very close). Hats off to them. 
 

16 hours ago, Longgone said:

If you call an errant pass that goes though a defenders hands, hits him in the helmet and ricochets perfectly into the receivers arms while in midair, skill, you're nuts. 

Who had the skill on that play, Aiyuk or Vildor? Vildor could have made a relatively easy play but blew it. Aiyuk had to make a relatively hard play and made it. That play really distilled the skill disparity between the teams that showed up throughout the game. 

Luck doesn’t explain anything but the inability to understand how talented and practiced a person has to be to make the play Aiyuk made. 

5 hours ago, NYLion said:

No doubt that San Francisco was the more talented team but talent isn't why they lost the game. The Lions completely gave it away combined with bad luck, they weren't overwhelmed by any means. A drop on 4th down, a bounce off the helmet right into Aiyuk's hands, a fumble on a botched hand off, a drop on 3rd and 10 at 24-24, that's your ballgame right there in 4 quick botched plays in a matter of a few minutes. The Lions handed it to them on a silver platter, a honolulu blue and silver platter. The Niners got extremely lucky, flat out. One of the luckier wins that I've ever seen in a big game.

With that said, there's some critical areas of the team that absolutely need a talent infusion so you don't have guys like Vildor in a position to not make a play on a ball, a #2 like Sutton getting shredded weekly by top receivers and no pass rush unless you're sending extra guys.

Yes Detroit missed plays in the second half, but they missed plays because SF also has talent. If SF was not more talented they would not have been able to catch back up from such a large deficit.

The pinpoint first down pass to Jusczyk where he laid out on his tiptoes was not luck. That was pure skill, both from Purdy and the receiver. If Aiyuk was not highly skilled he would not have caught that ball on the deflection. CMC made a couple of outstanding plays in the second half. So did the defense to take away Detroit’s run game which had been  churning out big plays in the first half. You can’t chalk up their second half domination to luck. Yes, Detroit missed some plays but SF made them. 

1 hour ago, MichiganCardinal said:

I took a break too. Not so much due to the way things ended (though that probably made it a quicker exodus), but due to the fact that the amount of time I was spending here had led to deficiencies in my real life work product LOL. I'm caught up now, it's a weird feeling.

There is no reason to believe that this run isn't repeatable, and then some. They know what it takes and should only get better. The North goes through Detroit, and this team has their eyes set even further.

All season I assumed that SF would beat us by 20. The way Detroit ended the season, I talked myself into believing that they had all the momentum and SF had all the pressure, and the Lions really could go in there and pull it off. The first half made it seem like it really might happen. But the second half was more what might have been expected. 

On 1/28/2024 at 9:57 PM, AlaskanTigersFan said:

Feel free to post your reviews. Here's mine (please note I am probably the least experienced person to talk about this).......

1. Can't blame Campbell for this last loss. Too many dropped passes, flukes on plays, giving up a QB running for 75 yards up the middle when I'm faster than him.... Can't blame Campbell.  My wife came in all excited as halftime was starting saying "They are up 17 points?!?!?! WOW!". I replied, "It ain't over yet, unfortunately....."

2. Maybe blame Aaron Glenn? - I know a lot of people like him and he's well-respected around the league. Honestly, if he goes though, I wouldn't mind. I'm hoping a team snags him as their new Head Coach. 

3. The Lions need to invest in Cornerbacks. - Jerry Jacobs and Cam Sutton Blow.... Hard. I'm talking about the type of blowing you'd find on the corner of Woodward in a skirt. They both need to be cut. Each game has been more and more depressing to watch these two. 

4. Lions Draft - CB, CB, DL, OL, WR would be my preference. They need two high Defensive backs and another rusher. Their DB's are the 3rd worst in the league and it cost em.

 

Overall thoughts

- Love Campbell's aggressiveness going on 4th down. He's a players coach and I love that he goes for it more than anyone else.

- I'm still not sold on Goff being the QB of the future. I would love a more mobile guy and a QB that can actually throw a spiral. All of his throws are wobbly as all get out.

- Going into the draft the Lions HAVE to focus on their secondary. They need to cut Jacobs and Sutton. They also need to replenish their Dline and O-line. 

- The Lions won a lot of games this year they shouldn't have. I am VERY surprised they made it this far. It was fun and exciting. Now having said that, even if I think they are a lot worse than most, blowing a 17-point lead is inexcusable. I get that there were some fluke plays but still, that's nuts. Some players need some soul-searching..... 

- The Lions overachieved this year but I think next year they have a chance to end up right where they ended this year. They could be a Super Bowl team with a new secondary and some depth. They should have cap space to spend to shore up some things. Here's hoping for one more tremendous draft to get them where they need to be......

I took a break after the way things ended. Looking back, I don't think the Lions really overachieved. I think the Lions did what we expected them to do in the regular season -- win the NFC North. And if we had been told that our playoff opponents would be the Rams and the Buccaneers (rather than the Rams and the Cowboys or Eagles), I think most of us would have expected them to win playoff games against those teams. 

If they overachieved anywhere, it was in the first half of the SF game. They caught the home team flat-footed and raced out to an early lead. Some of this was aggressive coaching, some of it was converting on several 3rd and longs to keep drives alive. In the second half, the talent deficit caught up with them, and the game ended the way pretty much all of us expected it would, and the way we would have expected at the start of the season.

The fact that the NFC Championship game was as close as it was is a testament to Holmes's incredible drafting and Campbell's incredible coaching. Next season every player on that roster will show up to training camp expecting to play in the Super Bowl, and it will be a perfectly reasonable expectation. 

1 minute ago, Shinzaki said:

The drops killed us...and that lucky bounce off the blown OPI call

Yes. No guarantee on a 48 yard FG and MCDC has relied on his best players on 4th down all year. Reynolds should have caught two balls that hit him in the hands. 

Well fellas, it was a good nineteen and a half game run. Let’s draft some CBs and another pass rusher, shall we?

Well, nobody can doubt Jaymo after this game.