NYLion

When James The Shill Edwards III is criticizing you, you know you're doing an awful job...

https://theathletic.com/5294273/2024/02/23/pistons-loss-pacers-monty-williams-rotation/

35 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I think it just means Goff, St Brown, Sewell and Jackson just got more expensive. 

That's exactly why I wanted them to sign Goff to an extension sooner. I don't think the rising cap will make a massive difference (he would have gotten $45m+ even if signed earlier) but every dollar counts and now Goff will be $50m+.

On 2/20/2024 at 11:14 AM, Betrayer said:

Ku Kahil dropped a show today talking about the misuse of Ausar in this offense. Basically discussing the (false) idea that you always need 4 shooters on the court.

He mostly referenced a lot of JJ Redick's info, so I'll post one of JJ's pods below where he talks about this concept in reference to how Willie Green is using Zion and even how Ben Simmons was used when JJ played with him. On a previous pod he talked about this concept using some of the actions that Quin Snyder runs in Atlanta. And, of course, you've all heard me talk about how the Warriors use Draymond and Looney together with the other three guys running off-ball screens to free up shooters and otherwise bend the defense.

Nobody is saying that this core has the talent level of some of those other teams, but every time you see Ausar standing in the corner and the Pistons playing 4 on 5 offense, that's on Monty. The only thing worse than his lineups are his offensive sets and lack of creativity.

 

Monty is pure sabotage. This guy is just collecting fat paychecks, he had no interest in coaching this year until pathetic Gores begged him countless times to coach his poverty franchise so, lo and behold, he still has no interest in coaching even though he's getting paid many fat stacks to do so.

Yeah the roster has obvious flaws but this coach has gotten the least out of them and even less than that. I could go down a long list of errors from his asinine rotations, to his even more asinine system, to starting Killian for however many games to dicking around Ausar and Sasser with their minutes, to benching Ivey in favor of Killian, to deploying Cade as if he's Luka Doncic to.... well, you get the idea. He's a bum and needs to go. Gores could give him his sweet buyout payment then let the door hit his ass on the way out.

This franchise is doomed, I had a glimmer of hope after that nice 3 game stretch against a fully healthy Kings team, the Portland comeback and pushing the fully healthy Clippers to the brink but it's been a whole lot of WTF since then. I also had a glimmer of hope about the deadline acquisitions and Grimes can't even get on the court now. Poverty franchise

I'm actually looking forward to Pistons games now, it's an odd feeling. I was also one of the few, I think, that liked what Weaver did at the deadline. Got rid of the old one dimensional chuckers and brought in guys that are younger, energetic and should play more of a team game. Interested to see how the pieces fit.

28 minutes ago, 1984Echoes said:

Ragnow is getting injured often.

When he's out 6 games next year, what's the backup plan?

Interior line of Awosika-Glasgow-Sorsdal?

Sorry... but that doesn't give me any comfort level whatsoever.

Can't afford Jonah is bull****. IMO.

He won't get top 10 guard money... that's BS.

The O-Line is the ENGINE of this team.

**** up the O-Line and we **** up our Super Bowl chances.

Sorry, but I'm overruling you.

Of all of our Free Agents this year: Jonah Jackson is our priority re-sign #1.

Losing Jonah is not going to **** up the offensive line. He is NOT the engine of that line, the tackles and Ragnow have been. Glasgow was better than Jonah last season for long stretches, Awosika looked solid too. There's also the draft.

Ragnow has missed 3 total games the last 2 seasons so... You talk about Frank missing a bunch of games yet Jonah was the one who has been absent the most, missing 9 games to Ragnow's 3 and that's not including the playoffs when he was out of the lineup against SF.

You can get angry and combative all you want but the reality is that quality players get paid on the free agent market, overpays happen all the time. Laken Tomlinson just got 3 years $40m, you don't think Jonah could get that on the open market? It's possible that he won't but you can't simply just dismiss the possibility just because YOU say so. The free agent market has proven that somebody could very well pay him top 10 guard money.

We'll just agree to disagree. You think the line will fall apart without him, I don't. If he comes back at a discounted rate then I'm all for re-signing him but if he commands top 10 guard money then I'm letting him walk. I think it's 50/50.

13 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

I think you guys are also making a MAJOR mistake thinking we can just let Jonah walk...

I don't think he will be "OVER"-priced...

I think he will be an affordable sign for the Lions. He's not a top 10 Guard in the NFL. His PFF grade for 2023-24 was the 60th Guard. Even if there is context in there and he's a better guard than that... I don't think he's breaking the bank.

He's more valuable than Ceedy Duce. He was critical to our best O-line play, as any substitute performed well below him.

If his AAV is $10-12 mill per year... and I think it ends up closer to $10 mill than $12 mill...

Then he is my #1 priority keeper re-sign.

There are other areas to save money on this team. O-Line isn't one of them. 

Just my 2 cents.

I think he'll get more on the open market and the Lions can't afford to sign a guard for top 10 guard money, which is what Jonah will likely get, with Ragnow and Decker getting top dollar and Sewell soon to be the highest paid tackle in the league (and rightfully so).

I thought the offensive line looked fine with Jonah out. Re-sign Glasgow at a reasonable rate and have a rotation of young guys (Awoslka, Sorsdal, draft pick) at the other guard spot and sign a vet for depth. 

On 2/10/2024 at 10:37 AM, RandyMarsh said:

I saw one of the fan sites(probably Bleacher Report) throw out the scenario where we trade a first for Joey Bosa. At first I didn't think it was that bad of idea until I looked closer at Bosa's numbers and to me a 1st along with having to pay him 27 million each of the next 2 seasons isn't worth it.

I do think the Chargers may consider it though since they reportedly are in a tough cap situation and that is a big number that they can get rid of. Also for the Lions it isn't that big of deal since they have the space the next couple years, but he's just been too banged up the last few years for me to feel comfortable giving up a 1st(even though it's a late one) for him. Especially since we may only have him for 2 years. I feel with how coveted those are we could potentially use that to find a more reliable player or just use it and draft a younger cheaper player that will be here longer. 

If I felt confident that he'd be healthy and be on the field every game or atleast nearly every game I may be for it cause he's still a force when he is out there and pairing him with Hutch would obviously be a deadly combination but I think that's too much of a risk at this point to give up a 1st and pay that salary for 2 years. 

That would be a very unHolmeslike move and considering that this draft is in Detroit even less of a chance that they trade the pick for a win now solution.  Plus, Bosa is never healthy. I don't see a move for Reddick either for that matter.

I just can't see Holmes abandoning his plan and selling off futures for immediate help and/or making free agent splashes with big long term contracts like for Chris Jones or Hunter for example. Holmes seems like a man that's very strong with his convictions so I see more focus on drafting and developing, re-signing his own guys and taking chances on bargain bin free agents with short term deals. Could see Moseley and/or CJGJ back on 1 year prove it deals, for example.

This team is a lot of fun to watch right now, the fact that Killian was blocking Sasser for this long is a basketball crime. I'm really glad that Weaver traded B and B and brought in those younger more well rounded guys, looking forward to seeing how they fit in.

I'm good with it. Get rid of these older one dimensional shooters for younger more well rounded shooters. Apparently Grimes was inconsistent shooting this season but he's traditionally been a good shooter so I like this deal overall.  

I'll say it again, the Pistons have looked better without Cade and it's a growing sample size of this. The offense flows a lot better without him and with Ivey and then Sasser at the control.

I blame Monty not Cade for this btw. Once Monty stops deploying Cade as if he's Luka, he and the Pistons will be better off for it. Cade's role is likely to be best maximized off ball as a secondary ballhandler. He's just not a good enough decision maker/playmaker to offset the lack of athleticism, to go along with a mediocre 3 point shot.

And now Weaver gives Morris away for a bag of peanuts. Yeah you want to give Sasser minutes but they could have done that with Morris and in fact, Morris would have been the perfect vet for him to play off of. Just get rid of Killian if you want to clear up roster space, there....easy.

2 hours ago, Shinzaki said:

Is she any good?

Underrated post

I was reading on another board that Jazz fans really like him fwiw and apparently there were a lot of suitors so this could be a decent addition. Seems like a bit of an overpay to add a very high 2nd (just about a late 1st) in addition to Knox for him but this draft is trash anyway so why the hell not. Maybe they have something with this guy.

6 hours ago, Mr.TaterSalad said:

I did a way too early mock offseason. My numbers and players are likely way off too, but I had fun doing it.

Current Cap Space: $47,678,386

Lions Players Cut/Not Resigned

Hal Vaitai, Jerry Jacobs, John Cominsky, Jonah Jackson, Levi Onwuzurike, Matt Nelson, Michael Badgley,

Romeo Okwara, Shane Zylstra, Tracy Walker

Cap Space After Cuts: $59,549,598

Lions Players Resigned

Benito Jones: 2 years/$2.11 million total

Brock Wright: 3 years/$4.225 million total

Chase Lucas: 2 years/$1.97 million total

CJ Gardner-Johnson: 1 year/$6.5 million

Craig Reynolds: 1 year/$1.08 million

Dan Skipper: 1 year/$1.125 million

Donavan Peoples-Jones: 2 years/$3 million total

Graham Glasgow: 1 year/$1.47 million

Jake McQuaide: 1 year/$1,210,000

Jalen Reeves-Maybin: 1 year/$1.21 million

James Houston: 2 years/$8 million total (only year 1 is guaranteed money, year two is incentives)

Josh Reynolds: 1 year/$1.2 million

Kayode Awosika: 1 year/$875,000

Kindle Vildor: 2 years/$3 million total

Khalil Dorsey: 1 year/$875,000

Nate Sudfeld: 1 year/$1.035 million (Emergency QB)

Tyson Alualu: 1 year/$1 million

Will Harris: 1 year/$1.125 million

Zonovan Knight: 1 year/$850,000

Salary Cap After Re-Signings: $45,981,430

Lions Players Extended

Amon-Ra St. Brown: 4 year/$92 million with $61 million guaranteed (I used Deebo Samuel's contract as a comparison) 

Jared Goff: 4 years/$168 million total with $88 million guaranteed 

Cap Space After Extensions: $15,336,494

Major Free Agents Signed

Danielle Hunter DE: 2 years/$23 million

Stephon Gilmore CB: 1 year/$6.5 million

Robert Hunt OG: 2 years/$4.5 million

NFL Draft

1st: TJ Tampa/CB, 2nd: Jonah Ellis/DE, 3rd: Mike Sainristil/CB, 3rd: Roman Wilson/WR, 4th: Will Putnam/C-G, 5th: Caedan Wallace/OT, 7th: Joshua Karty/K, 7th: Evan Anderson/DT

There's no way that you get Goff, Hunter and J. Reynolds for that cheap. Those numbers aren't even close IMO. Even old Gilmore will probably get more than that coming off his best season in a while. I also think Ra will get north of $100m on a 4 year deal.

1 hour ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

The Reynolds drops had nothing to do with the Niners talent. Those two drops were massive gamechangers. I fully believe that if Reynolds catches that first 4th down, the Lions win this game and probably not by an insignificant margin. The 3rd and 10 drop he was WIDE open and Goff put it right into his chest, that had nothing to do with talent, and that could have stemmed the momentum at 24-24 then who knows. The Gibbs fumble was him going the wrong way on the handoff and losing full grip of the ball, that was a mental error not a lack of talent. One can argue that Vildor not making that catch was due to lack of talent at the position so that one I'd agree on.The Niners made some plays after the gifts and they're the more talented team on paper but the Lions coughed this one up. The Niners got really lucky that the Lions choked.

In any event, what's done is done so we'll see how Holmes plugs the holes this offseason because this was a golden opportunity missed by the Lions with a team that just seemed to have destiny on their side with a fairly undermanned roster compared to The Final 4 teams at least. It's going to get harder next season, the division isn't soft anymore and the schedule, on paper, looks tougher so hopefully the Lions are up to the challenge.

Isn't that the thing though? He's always injured.

Also, those are nice numbers but there's also some stat padding in there when games were out of reach. He's been poor in clutch situations most of the season. Not all on him but he just doesn't have that ability, it appears, to elevate and carry a team when they really need him. I saw more of that ability in him in his rookie season and he seems to have lost his way in the important moments since.

16 hours ago, Jason_R said:

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. 

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.

16 hours ago, Hart said:

I still think Cade is deferring too much.  The assist numbers are nice but I would rather have him be more aggressive as a scorer the first three quarters of games.  

The lack of progression in Cade's game, and in fact some regression, is probably the most disheartening thing about this season since he's the biggest key to their future because it's looking more and more like he's not going to be the franchise player that he was drafted to be. Scottie Barnes is looking like a significantly better player, who would have ever thought that?

12 hours ago, buddha said:

cause he's white so no one thinks he is fast enough to play corner.

Same thing with Campbell at LB. He's white so he's gotta be slow.

I'd love for the Lions to get Dejean but I don't think he'll be there at 29. 

12 hours ago, Deleterious said:

The bench seems to be playing well again.  At least they are not getting blown out when that unit is in.

Does it matter when it's vets that are keeping them in the game and the youth that's getting pummeled? What a waste of a season.

Also, it was funny to see Ivey finally get the chance to drive a ball in the 4th after all the Bogey and Burks chucks and Cade pounding the ball and missed layup possessions then Monty calls a timeout right when Ivey was driving the ball and sets up a play for Burks to get the ball in the corner as the shot clock was winding down only to get a shot clock violation. Also, Sasser with a whole 10 minutes of action even with Killian out and refusing to put a real defender on Mitchell when he was going off (Ausar maybe? perhaps?). I don't think I've ever disliked a Pistons coach more and there's a long line of ones to dislike over the last 15 years.

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

 

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. 

 

I don't understand why Glenn gets blamed then in the same token you say how awful the CBs are. 

I think AG gets way more blame than he should. IMO, he doesn't have good enough/experienced enough personnel to run a conventional defense that can survive in this league so what he did, smartly, is acknowledge that after around the second Packers game and started blitzing more knowing that the defense would give up big plays but also forcing the QB into more mistakes so what happened was that while offenses had more big plays down the field the defense created a lot more turnovers and the points against went down a bit as a result. There's only so much he could do with a defense that was littered with youth, had vets (Sutton and Vildor) in over their head and no pass rushers to speak of outside of Hutch.

I don't think Sutton should be cut, he struggled because due to the Moesley injury he was thrust into #1 CB duty which he's ill equipped to handle. He'll be better when, I assume, Holmes gets a #1 CB this offseason and pushes Sutton back to #2 CB where he belongs.

11 hours ago, buddha said:

sasser isnt anything more than a potential sparkplug off the bench.

Likely but we don't really know what he is yet and the coach is very inconsistent with how he displays him so hard to tell what he can become if given more opportunity.

Huge news, keeping this continuity will really pay dividends next season. Poor TP in shambles.

1 hour ago, holygoat said:

If it's a four year deal, I think it'll be closer to $180m, but we're in the same ballpark. Will be interesting to see how much guaranteed he gets. 

I can't see it being that low but that would be a nice break for the Lions if he does take less.