Game 6: Time to Bear Down

[TSE]

This arguably could be the most important game of the year due to our shaky record and having not won a division game as of yet, and the Bears being at the top of the division. If we lose and have 2 losses in the division on top of being a few games below .500 that would make it really tough to compete for the division and also for the WC since the NFC has SLAUGHTERED the AFC thus far (19-9). In other words we either need to win the division, or the WC will take a minimum of 10 wins most likely. We can only afford to lose 3 more games this season.

The Lions signed CB Alphonso Smith! And we cut Keiland Williams who we never bothered to use. Not sure about the logic of letting Smith rot on the streets unable to practice and get potentially picked up by other teams for the first 7 weeks in place of an extra RB that we had no intentions of using, but better late than never to get somebody that might have a shot to help us! Geeze.

Well good luck to us on Monday night!

[Blkbrd671]

Ya when i read on DFP that we resigned smith, i didn't understand why we didn't just keep him. Additionally little ocncerning that miami didn't sign him

[Icness]

Smith got ZERO interest around the league despite fairly aggressive marketing by his agent. That tells you his value and how desperate the Lions are at corner. He might not be active though as Bentley had full practice Friday. Lacey looks to be out though.

This is a winnable game if the Lions actually come out and play four quarters of football instead of the 1.5 they typically do. Delmas being back is huge to help on Brandon Marshall but where he really helps is stopping the RBs as receivers and runs outsie the tackles. He's one of the best safeties in the NFL at both, and the Bears use lots of stretch runs and screens/flares to Forte.

Chicago D is a bad matchup for the Lions offense. Tillman has the size to handle Calvin Johnson as well as anyone does, and Tim Jennings on the other side is having a fantastic season. Both are very aggressive in playing the ball in the air. With Urlacher and/or Briggs locked onto Pettigrew, could be a long night for Stafford unless he's fully dialed in from the get-go.

[Icness]

What I wrote Wed.:
Detroit Lions (18) at Chicago Bears (4): At some point, the Lions are going to bring their “A” game before they are behind by 10 or more in the fourth quarter. The universal laws of inevitability and balance dictate that at some point Matt Stafford is going to start a game the way he finished against Philadelphia, looking like a cross between Troy Aikman and Tom Brady, and not his typical 4-for-13 with an ugly INT. Sadly, I don’t think a trip to Chicago is going to be the spark that ignites that fire.

As good as Jeff Backus has been at left tackle--he ranks in the top-8 in pass blocking acumen--he will need help with Julius Peppers. And when the Lions have shifted things to give Backus help recently, two things happen: First, the help isn’t adequate and Peppers (or Jared Allen or DeMarcus Ware) knocks the stuffing out of Stafford anyways. Second, the run blocking, already a weakness, goes completely into the crapper. Mikel Leshoure has been quietly effective in two of his three games, and the Lions would love for him to get more than the 15 carries and 70 yards he got last week. But that takes a commitment to running and not worrying about the pass rush, something that is a foreign concept to Offensive Coordinator Scott Linehan.

Chicago has run commitment issues of its own, and their pass protection is vastly inferior to Detroit’s. Right tackle Gabe Carimi is the ultimate one-dimensional threat; according to the good folks at Pro Football Focus, Carimi ranks 54th out of 57 in pass blocking for all tackles, but only two other right tackles are better in the run blocking department. Chicago as a whole has highly publicized pass protection issues, and the Lions showed last week they are getting back to being consistent sack threats. Nick Fairley provided a nice infusion of energy up the gut, while Cliff Avril looked spryer off the edge than he had earlier in the season.

So the battle becomes Jay Cutler vs. Jay Cutler. Will the Bears sourpuss QB stand tall and deliver strikes under duress, or will he break down into a sniveling turnover machine? If he chooses the former, the Lions stand little chance of keeping up with Brandon Marshall down the field. He didn’t have anything close to Marshall in the Monday night matchup with Detroit last year, a Lions 24-13 victory at Ford Field where Cutler was sacked three times but hit 17 others. I think Marshall’s presence makes a huge difference here, as does the fact Chicago is coming off a bye at home. If this turns into a shootout I favor the Lions, and that could very well happen. But the safer bet is to take the Bears in a mid-range scoring game with a lot of punts punctuated by several big plays. Chicago 28, Detroit 25.



Read more: http://football.realgm.com/src_article/ ... z29qWACNIU

[TSE]

I disagree with the first post of Ice, lots of guys don't get appropriately valued by 100% of ALL GMs in the league, and we see countless examples of that. Tom Brady would have got picked by any team much earlier if he would have been identified as a talent and obviously that's one of the most famous examples. But lots of guys go undrafted and end up proving that they were valuable. The fact that zero teams in the league like a particular guy or see value in him is absolutely not proof by any means that a player is not valuable. Every GM makes mistakes every single season for their team, they are not perfect, and in fact they are LOUSY at their jobs across the board. What they think does not define what a football player is worth, it only defines his market value.

[TSE]

Douge Hogue just got released for Justin Miller to help our CB crew for tonight's game. And of course for the record I was against Doug Hogue as a draft pick since it didn't make sense to me. Just another blown draft pick that never would have happened under my watch; great.

Well good luck to us tonight, it's essentially a must win as our mathematical odds would be shot to hell if we lose. DVOA only took us up to 5% after the win against the Eagles, and no system of odds calculation will favor well for us if we lose tonight.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/playoffodds

[Blkbrd671]

Hester +/- 1 TD return?

[TSE]

LOL, I always will take the under on that. No matter how bad your ST units are, it's still statistically unlikely. Under for me!

In all seriousness this kind of analysis is the core of where the Lions fail at almost anything. They can't figure out how to turn bad 40% scenarios into 30%, or 3% into 2%, or even .002% into .001%, etc., it's all bad if you don't make the right logical choices. It's not about the actual results, it's about what odds you give yourself to achieve desired results.

The name of the game is maximizing your odds of positive events and minimizing odds of bad events, and we are TERRIBAD at this type of thinking and analysis.

[ajaX82]

I gotta go to bad, so I won't get to finish this atrocious game. But good lord the offense is horrid. I'm not actually sure how Scott Linehan is still employed

[Icness]

I'm with you ajax, bedtime with ample frustration. Very hard to like this team or the direction it's heading right now.

Two positives:
Ryan Broyles
Jonte Green

[Blkbrd671]

A couple points i noted:

Defense: We look like a totally different team with Delmas in the back, a couple bad plays here and there, but much better tackling, and nice break up by smith on third down after being man handled by marshall. idk if SUh is having a good or bad season, but i'm glad he seems to be under control. On one play he had a clear shot at cutler almost as he threw the ball, and Suh held back. i personally would slap the sh* out of the hit stick, and taken the penalty , but i'm glad he showed discipline. Avril needs to learn to tackle, and KVB looks done. Love our LB's today.

*Note : on one play i got quite a chuckle as the bears were forced to use a timeout as cutler looked confuse and yo ucould hear Delmas or Speivy talking smack about it.

Offense: Not quite sure who said this but someone told me that "good offenses force other teams to adjust to them" and it seems as if the OC has that mindset. IMO yes good offenses force teams to adjust to them, however a good offense also adjusts to the D. If safety's are going to play that deep, we have 3 able RB's we could rotate and pound the D until they adjust. Seemed like we could get 10 yards on 3 run plays the majority of the game. We were on the goal line twice and didn't even attempt to play power football unless you call Bell's dip sh* move powerful. i'm glad we targeted CJ in the end zone however, we need to bunch up our receivers and force them to try to stick with all of Staffords targets. not telegraph where we are sending teh football. Stafford still looks uncomfortable under pressure.

ST: .............Harris was beast, Logan or somebody should be fired. Not the coaches fault for the team not exciting but this is getting ridiculous. and a message needs to be sent.



Team: one thing i liked about this game is for the first time all year, i felt like we should have won this game as oppose to us getting lucky and wining the game. Bears didn't beat us, we lost this game and that is on the Coaches. idk how many penalties but it was enough to noticeably prolong the game. Smith horse collar call was BS, but i get what the ref thought he saw. Also mental move by Lovie acting like he didn't know you can't challenge incomplete passes.


Never thought going into this season, our offense was going to be our Achilles.

[TSE]

My comments of which I already did supply some of this in the General Week 7 forum:

First of all the game was clearly lost by Stafford, Linehan, Schwartz, and Mayhew, by far the 4 clear GOATS of the game. They were god awful in everything they did.

Logan was also terrible as he muffed a ball AGAIN, and every ball he did catch wasn't even a proper handling and we are lucky he didn't muff more than one. I guess I could fault Danny Crossman more, but I already fired him in the past and he doesn't get to choose Logan as his return man, and in fairness he's one of the only coaches that has shown any semblance of improvement, as Gunther technically has. But big deal if we can't win.

KVB was awful on defense again plus very embarrassing. He missed on some assignments and failed to raise his arms on a big play when he was in the path and clearly couldn't get to the QB so he had nothing else to do but try to bat a pass but his dumbass mentality can't figure that out and he charged the QB to no avail. He then got super excited about a tackle on Cutler when Cutler was already falling to the ground and he got in the area, despite losing by a lot of points late in the game at that point. This is a horrible example of leadership, and he's our FREAKIN' CAPTAIN ON DEFENSE! God he is one awful football player and football mindset. Gruden called him the "all effort" guy on the team and me and my dad had a laugh saying wow that's a really polite description to call him, you got that right, he definitely supplies the effort, but only if he could supply ANYTHING else. What a jerkwad he is, and terrible leader for our defense.

I took some notes on how bad Stafford was, but that turned out to be like a book, so forget it.

Alphonso Smith was the brightest spot of the team. He played with EVERYBODY in the world against him except ME. Nobody in the NFL would give this guy a shot including our team until now, and he showed he was raw because he's rusty and not coached up and playing for a coach's system that doesn't fit his style, and he made a couple of very minor mistakes, but he made a bunch of really good plays including the best play of all Lions in the game with his 3rd down and goal defensive PD. The ball was thrown to the WR's outside and he was in an awful spot and somehow advanced and stuck out his arm on a tough angle and slapped that ball down to save a certain TD. It was really fantastic in addition to 2 other plays I have notes on but I'm super drunk so I can't perfectly recall those exact play schematics there, but he provided an admirable performance on three really sweet plays I marked down.

WELL DONE ALPHONSO and congrats for contributing despite NOBODY believing in you but me. To think what he could do with a SUPPORTIVE COACH, and a FITTING SCHEME, and a FAIR OPPORTUNITY to PLAY BALL.

Ryan Broyles had THREE beautiful plays that I can remember offhand. He doesn't show much superstar talent, but he did a great job in basically his first real game of an opportunity. I was impressed with him.

Also shout-outs to Jay Cutler for insane warrior heart, and Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman who played a great game. Oh, and Jason Hanson was no help at all. Probably because he never saw the field except for ONE kickoff. Man the Lions sucked bad tonight. I thought the Bears played awful and it still wasn't even close.

It's primarily Mayhew's fault in my opinion for not setting this team up with the right players and coaches, so hard to blame the team since he's the guy that picked these guys and is RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR RECORD.

We can afford only TWO more losses on the season to still have a chance this year. So that's 8-2 or 9-1 as a target. If Mayhew can't make it happen, then he HAS to be FIRED. He has damaged our team for enough years, and ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Oh and to anybody that didn't watch it I scored an A+ to Gruden for commentary, WOW what a difference from the normal commentators we get, he did a beautiful job with a lot of brilliant and professional insight all night long. He was the most impressive performer for the entire game.

[FlipTSO]

^First I ever heard of a GM losing a game. LOL

Sure you can blame him for hiring Linehan, but Linehan made this a top 5 offense last year. There was no way Mayhew could've known that defenses around the league had figured out his system going into the season. And you don't just change OC's after your QB has 5000 yd season, UNTIL you actually see the proof on the field that the system doesn't work anymore.

Now, if Linehan is still here next year with the same system in place, THEN you can blame Mayhew. But after the Fords invested $200 mil in this offense this summer, I would expect at least a new OC next year, if this continues the rest of the season.

You can;t blame Stafford though. He's only running the plays the OC is telling him to run. Yeah he made some bad passes, but this offense as a whole is a mess, and its not Staffords fault. Its the system. Teams have figured it out and thats Linehan's offense. He's not going to invent a whole new offense mid-season. A new OC is necessary. A new QB is not.

Linehan and Schwartz should take the blame for this loss the most, imo. I kow Schwartz is involved in the play-calling in the red zone, and that Bell run call on 2nd and goal was atrocious. You don't extend the ball out to a defense that had forced like 10 fumbles already.

Oh and Jay Cutler passed for 150 yds. He was garbage and so was Gruden's commentary.

[TSE]

^
No way Mayhew could have known? Yes I agree, because he doesn't have as good of FORESIGHT as I do, and I have known of every mistake Mayhew has made before me made those mistakes. That's on Mayhew. Mayhew has made countless awful decisions for this team, on offense, defense, special teams, coaching, failing to sing the right FAs, drafting, failing to look for the right trades, clock mngmt and game strategies that are outsourced to his coaching choices, etc etc etc. Mayhew has blown every department of his set of roles and responsibilities, and every game we LOST was indirectly because of his shortcomings as a professional. Your post offends my sense of professional football insight and understanding.

As far as Stafford goes, I have said time and time again that I had the switch turned on that I wanted to TRADE STAFFORD EVERY SECOND SINCE WE DRAFTED HIM! AND I HAVE NEVER EVER SWITCHED THAT POSITION OFF! The very moment we called his name, I declared it our best strategy to exchange him for what we could get, sure it doesn't make sense to do that immediately after you make the pick, but if I enter as the decision maker at that instant then I have to do the best thing FOR OUR TEAM and to trade him has ALWAYS been the best choice. That's the LOGICAL and OPTIMAL choice in my opinion and I'm absolutely certain I'm correct here. WE WON NOTHING WITH HIM, and have BLOWN MILLIONS ON HIM, and ALL OF THE USAGE TIME WE UTILIZED HIM FOR WE COULD HAVE GOT PAID FOR!!!!

[Icness]

Watched game again. Notes:
--Stafford is playing awful, just awful. His mechanics continue to go out the window and it happens even when he's protected well. Someone has got to get into his head and straighten him up pronto. If he continues the off balance 3/4 release he's going to shred his shoulder. Last night was a classic case where the coach should have yanked the ineffective starter for the quality long reliever. Teams never do that (see the $.10) and it ticks me off they contentedly stick with the starter when he clearly doesn't have it. BAL should have yanked Flacco, STL should have yanked Bradford, and DET should have yanked Stafford.

--OL was pretty good. Reiff was VERY good in his reps and is absolutely the starting LT next year. He went H2H with Peppers 4 times, put him on his back twice and locked him up the other two. Raiola's best game of the year, which made him average. Sims had a poor night, missed a couple of blitz adjusts. RB pass protect was poor.

--IMO the Lions are using Titus Young wrong. The void on the field is underneath Calvin going at the backside safety, but the Lions continually run him long. Pettigrew isn't quick enough to make defenses pay there, and Scheffler is too erratic. Maybe Broyles can seize the day and make defenses pay. Burleson did well but Stafford seldom looked for him there. This void is as much, if not more, on Stafford than the receivers or Linehan but they're not helping Matt there.

--Delmas being back is HUGE. Aside from his strong run defense, he sets up the coverages and does a great job reading the play pre-snap. There were two plays where he took the initiative and moved Smith from one spot to another, both times Smith wound up making a play.

--Green and Smith both played well considering their circumstances. I like that Smith matched up with Marshall because they used to practice against one another, knows his routine. He did get beat every single time his receiver did a double move. Green got over his early nerves and played well, showed more physicality than before. Still rough around the edges but there's more here than I thought.

--Stefan Logan is just not a very good return man. Second KR he had a seam to his left that he never saw, cost him at last 25 yards. But the rest of the ST was very good. Blocked FG, could have blocked another, Palmer was great & disciplined in coverage. Finally.

[TSE]

^
Wow thanks for watching the game again and going the extra mile with more detailed notes, much appreciated!

[ajaX82]

Watched game again. Notes:
--Stafford is playing awful, just awful. His mechanics continue to go out the window and it happens even when he's protected well. Someone has got to get into his head and straighten him up pronto. If he continues the off balance 3/4 release he's going to shred his shoulder. Last night was a classic case where the coach should have yanked the ineffective starter for the quality long reliever. Teams never do that (see the $.10) and it ticks me off they contentedly stick with the starter when he clearly doesn't have it. BAL should have yanked Flacco, STL should have yanked Bradford, and DET should have yanked Stafford.

--OL was pretty good. Reiff was VERY good in his reps and is absolutely the starting LT next year. He went H2H with Peppers 4 times, put him on his back twice and locked him up the other two. Raiola's best game of the year, which made him average. Sims had a poor night, missed a couple of blitz adjusts. RB pass protect was poor.

--IMO the Lions are using Titus Young wrong. The void on the field is underneath Calvin going at the backside safety, but the Lions continually run him long. Pettigrew isn't quick enough to make defenses pay there, and Scheffler is too erratic. Maybe Broyles can seize the day and make defenses pay. Burleson did well but Stafford seldom looked for him there. This void is as much, if not more, on Stafford than the receivers or Linehan but they're not helping Matt there.

--Delmas being back is HUGE. Aside from his strong run defense, he sets up the coverages and does a great job reading the play pre-snap. There were two plays where he took the initiative and moved Smith from one spot to another, both times Smith wound up making a play.

--Green and Smith both played well considering their circumstances. I like that Smith matched up with Marshall because they used to practice against one another, knows his routine. He did get beat every single time his receiver did a double move. Green got over his early nerves and played well, showed more physicality than before. Still rough around the edges but there's more here than I thought.

--Stefan Logan is just not a very good return man. Second KR he had a seam to his left that he never saw, cost him at last 25 yards. But the rest of the ST was very good. Blocked FG, could have blocked another, Palmer was great & disciplined in coverage. Finally.

Thanks for the recap, excellent as always. I never saw the fourth but doesn't look like I missed much.

I loved what Reiff did in his limited snaps. In the first he had a perfect cut block on Peppers that opened up a decent run. I am very excited for him to replace Backus next year.

I mentioned it before, but the offense is just a effing mess. Stafford has seriously regressed. I'm not sure whose fault it is, whether that be the QB coach, Linehan or Matty himself (or most likely a como of all three) but it impacts the entire offense. It's almost like he is hitting his sophomore slump finally (given the number of games he missed in years 1-2, it is around that time). I don't have the solution, but a coaching staff who knows their stuff should not be allowing this to happen. Which brings me to....

Titus Young, who is the same way; total regression. Part of that is like you said being utilized wrong, but he still needs to make plays and get open, regardless of the play call. He is completely invisible for long, long stretches. Given his impressive training camp and solid rookie season, I am stumped.

Altogether, this offense, which is supposed to be the strength and catalyst of the team, is just hilariously bad. It makes no sense to me, because we have seen it when it is clicking and know it is possible. To me, Linehan is doing a very, very poor job in playcalling and getting the most of his players. Not that the players are excused, because a lot is on them. But the coaching has been glaringly evident to me, and that really pisses me off.

[TSE]

^
Sorry Ajax, all of your concerns have been invalidated by Schwartz because it was unlucky turnovers at the wrong time that totally changed the picture of the game. Apparently there is no problem with our offense or offensive players or offensive coaches, we just didn't happen to execute and had untimely mistakes, and that's not an excuse to abandon the plan or the scheme, and they are going to do everything the same from here on out. That's basically the summary I got from his press conference today. So nothing to worry about, we're all good.

[Blkbrd671]

Watched game again. Notes:
--Stafford is playing awful, just awful. His mechanics continue to go out the window and it happens even when he's protected well. Someone has got to get into his head and straighten him up pronto. If he continues the off balance 3/4 release he's going to shred his shoulder. Last night was a classic case where the coach should have yanked the ineffective starter for the quality long reliever. Teams never do that (see the $.10) and it ticks me off they contentedly stick with the starter when he clearly doesn't have it. BAL should have yanked Flacco, STL should have yanked Bradford, and DET should have yanked Stafford.

--OL was pretty good. Reiff was VERY good in his reps and is absolutely the starting LT next year. He went H2H with Peppers 4 times, put him on his back twice and locked him up the other two. Raiola's best game of the year, which made him average. Sims had a poor night, missed a couple of blitz adjusts. RB pass protect was poor.

--IMO the Lions are using Titus Young wrong. The void on the field is underneath Calvin going at the backside safety, but the Lions continually run him long. Pettigrew isn't quick enough to make defenses pay there, and Scheffler is too erratic. Maybe Broyles can seize the day and make defenses pay. Burleson did well but Stafford seldom looked for him there. This void is as much, if not more, on Stafford than the receivers or Linehan but they're not helping Matt there.

--Delmas being back is HUGE. Aside from his strong run defense, he sets up the coverages and does a great job reading the play pre-snap. There were two plays where he took the initiative and moved Smith from one spot to another, both times Smith wound up making a play.

--Green and Smith both played well considering their circumstances. I like that Smith matched up with Marshall because they used to practice against one another, knows his routine. He did get beat every single time his receiver did a double move. Green got over his early nerves and played well, showed more physicality than before. Still rough around the edges but there's more here than I thought.

--Stefan Logan is just not a very good return man. Second KR he had a seam to his left that he never saw, cost him at last 25 yards. But the rest of the ST was very good. Blocked FG, could have blocked another, Palmer was great & disciplined in coverage. Finally.

one thing i noticed about Leshoure is that when they showed replays of runs where he got stopped for no gain or a loss(ie went east west), as soon as he tried to bounce it outside, a hole opened right up, there were at least 4 replays i can recall when i saw this. Might be rookie jitters but does he have to let blocks develop or does our line need to open up holes much quicker?

[TSE]

^
Well I don't think he has a lot of confidence in his athletic ability and I noticed in a few games that some of the commentators gushed over how versatile and athletic he his, but I just don't agree. He hasn't exactly been stellar at running routes, catching the ball and showing good hands, and cutting smoothly. Maybe I'm spoiled from having watched too much Barry Sanders, but I just kind of consider him to have no athletic ability more than I would say he has impressive athletic ability and versatility. So I think he should be careful about trying to bust things outside and beat guys with his speed and cutting ability if he can't get it done, he just needs to be more decisive and discerning of what those doors of opportunity look like for him before he tries to go through a door that he can't get to in time before it closes.

I think he just needs to carve out his niche and find the right way to make choices of when to try and bust outside or turn it up inside, and there's really no way to judge him on that other than to coach him the best you can and then evaluate how he's doing. But I'm not sure how Linehan manages him or what he is advising him to do. He seems to make some peculiar choices and that's because he's either not listening to his coaches or he just hasn't gotten the right coaching advice which we certainly hope that's not the issue. Maybe he just needs more time to figure it all out if we want to make excuses and give him the benefit of the doubt.