Week 1: St. Louis @ Detroit | Sept 9th 1PM FOX

[ajaX82]

why can't we ever just dominate. i've had like 4 heart attacks in the past 5 min, i hate and love this f* team. SH*!

No kidding! whew. It wasn't pretty, far from it, but hell I'll take it

[need4detroit]

This team is so talented yet so immature. Scary immature.

[TSE]

why can't we ever just dominate. i've had like 4 heart attacks in the past 5 min, i hate and love this f* team. SH*!

Well that's because of Mayhew and the coaching staff. This is why I don't approve of the staff as a whole because they fail at stuff that doesn't require any football skill or talent whatsoever. They are missing on the mental aspects of the management of the game and the strategic critical thinking is our weakest department as a franchise. Everything I ever complain about ultimately stems from this cog that never gets dealt with and attended to properly. We can't possibly dominate without turning that department into a strength, and doing so would conveniently make it really easy to dominate. But we have to want that and understand that and then exercise our will to do something about that if you want to dominate. That was an easy question, what else do you have?

This was ay abysmal game and we are very lucky to come away with a win. The problem we have is the same problem that has always plauged us, and that's coaching and management. We stunk it up in so many inexcusable ways on the field and made countless off the field mistakes again. Shooting ourselves in the foot is an understatement. We have been walking around in voluntary shackles that we can choose to remove any time that we simply want to use our heads to unlock the dead weight.

Drayton Florence cost us a pick early in the game by being too old and useless out there. He is probably at the worst point of his entire career, and he wasn't a special player to begin with. There is not a team in the NFL that should have a guy like this on their roster, it just doesn't make any sense. Stefan Logan turned a few positive yards off some good skill, but he is such a weapon that is poorly coached and our ST units on so many issues are just frustrating to watch. Clock issues and other general strategy was just awful all day long. KVB really needs to turn the focus on and get his head into the game because he is supposed to be a veteran leader and keeping older expensive guys around is not a good idea unless they are going to provide exemplary play and he didn't do his job today. I felt like it was fair to call out KVB and Drayton today to balance out the confusing praise that the commentators were giving them.

It's nice to see we did pretty good on avoiding penalties and staying healthy; really strong positives to build off of!

[BadMofoPimp]

Hey, the bright side is this team proved they can win a game when it is on the line. That final drive was epic. As far as immaturety, this is a long season and I feel they can come together come playoff time barring injuries. This team can be scary good. Defense can and will play great on some days. I am excited for this season now. Go Lions!

[TSE]

Yeah plus the first half dozen injuries could actually upgrade our roster when the PS players replace some of them.

[kellmellus50]

throws by Stafford on the final drive.

1. On our 20, a 20 yard rifle shot to Calvin.

2. On our 40, a god-like 20 yard fast-ball strike to Burleson that was fit into the tiniest space you can imagine. A couple of the St. Louis defenders reacted with a lot of distress in "Are you F'ing kidding me?" body language. I replayed that about 10 times. Very few QB's in the league can make that throw.

3. His 17 yard? throw to Calvin to take the ball to the 5 was, again, a throw that few QB's should even try to make.

4. Watch the TD play. The St. Louis right DE is charging hard with both his arms up in the air. Stafford calmly flips it right between (I think it was between) those two raised arms. The throw really was a flip. I have no idea how he got that off without it being blocked, or with enough velocity to get it to Smith. That's the kind of pass that other QB's get blocked, or the ball is at the RB's ankles if not bounced short off the turf.

[Lionlifer]

Whew glad we pulled out a win, I was sitting lower bowl endzone and the mood wasn't too good up until that last drive.

We need to get Houston and Delmas back ASAP, and we need Stafford to stop whatever the hell he was doing in the first half. I'm praying it was just some rust or he was trying to be a hero. If he pulls anything close to crap like that against SF we are going to get blown out BAD.

Does anyone know what happened at the end of the game? I thought Avril got the sack, then all of a sudden Suh is in the middle of a group of Rams getting pushed around. Glad to see him take off and get out of the cluster, he knows the league and media is watching him EVERY play.

But in the end a win is a win and I'll take it!

[TSE]

throws by Stafford on the final drive.

Yeah he also has a pretty wicked sidearm pass. Did you see that one pass he threw I think it was to Kevin Smith, but nobody was really in the throwing lane and he nonchalantly whipped out a sidearm pass for some reason, and it was a perfect pass, it just seemed like a peculiar choice at that moment. I thought he was doing it just to be cocky.

[Icness]

There was a lot to hate in this game, but the sign of a good team is playing poorly and still getting a win.
Positives:
Stafford only had his A game for the final drive but when it kicked it he was unstoppable. They ran the ball well when they tried. Florence made a couple of nice plays. Bentley looked very good before getting dinged. Corey Williams was a monster. Fairley got a sack. Ben Graham was outstanding punting. The dumb penalties were at a minimum, other than Janoris Jenkins getting over on Titus Young. Stafford dropped back 50 times and got sacked only once and hit twice and one holding penalty, that's excellent protection against a pretty good pass rush in Chris Long and Robert Quinn. Gunther actually made a halftime adjustment with the coverage that worked, dropping the wide side LB into wider coverage and having the corners play more inside technique; forced Bradford to attack outside where he's not as good, that beauty TD pass to Gibson the exception. The run defense was excellent, strong tackling by the LBs and domination up front by the line.

Negatives:
Stafford cannot continue to make all those bonehead throws. All three INTs were all on him and they were all ugly. Other than a couple of nice series by Wendling the safety play was horrible. There were some bad drops on balls that need to be caught. Titus Young did nothing except that penalty; credit to Janoris Jenkins but Young is more talented than he showed. I felt like they needed to run more esp. in the first half. Jonte Green is a disgrace in coverage. Avril was largely invisible and I'm not sure my man Willie Young even played.

[TSE]

Good comments Ice, and I was wondering why Titus didn't see more action and didn't realize he got benched because of that. I see the Redskins are only 3 point favorites next week and the Rams have a destroyed OL, that might be a good pick. Our DL didn't seem to take advantage as well as expected, I kind of felt like we needed more Brown out there, I bet he would have made a big play at some point in that game. We had options and choices with Avril, and we could have paid more money or figured out a trade, so I just hope they know what they are doing and that they are going to get full value and win the Super Bowl. I question how strong their convinction is since I don't see the title securely wrapped up, so it puzzles me why they are not feverishly trying to improve what needs improving or why they are so comfortable in standing pat with their hand. I don't see either scenario as justifiable at this point. I'm a confused fan that is left wanting more.

[Blkbrd671]

After taking a day to digest the game and get my blood pressure down, couple observations

1. Kevin Smith if healthy would provide a pretty good 1-2 punch with Leshoure. Seemed that he had a good game running

2. OL looked a lot better. Great pass protection, and run blocking for the most part

3. Did Avril or young play? i truly can't recall if they were in the game

4. Bill Bentley looked good, i'm not a great analyst when it comes to football but i felt comfortable having him as our starter

5. Stafford looked horrible in the first 3 quarters, and amazing in the final drive. Which pisses me off because it seems that when its time to show up, he clicks the switch, a switch that should always be on. Then again i rather have it like that , then good all game, and horrible when it matters. Also i liked that he was stepping up in the pocket and throwing off the front foot. one thing i've always hated about stafford is him throwin while he's back peddling.

6. It literally felt like it took us 30 seconds to march down field. If Stafford can keep it together, there's very few defenses that can stop us from scoring. we also need to throw the ball up in the air for Calvin to go get it in the red zone. Was also surprised he didn't get a concussion on that play when he lost his helmet, his head hit the turf straight on.

7. Our front 7 looked ridiculous last night, Jackson was getting tackled or at least touched in the back field. i hope we find a way to keep our LB core.

8. Titus Young, he did make a dumb move, however i like his tenacity and competitiveness, he needs to reign it in though. Also for all the hype he got during training camp, was not impressed by his performance.

9. Suh had a couple beast plays, where it just made you marvel at his strength. Don't really know how he did overall, as everytime we needed a stop i was expecting suh to blow through the line and get a sack, which he didn't.

Was wondering if anyone could break down Suh's play

[TSE]

Was wondering if anyone could break down Suh's play

I wish I could do that for you and would be happy to do so, but I don't have the film to do any proper evaluation or analysis from that game. I'm not sure what there is to break down since the purpose to do so would be for another team to do that to determine what to offer in a trade, or for us to do that to determine what to ask for in a trade. The only other purpose would be for coaching adjustments, but that's pretty much a moot conversation since we aren't there seeing what instructions and coaching he is getting and it would be hard to stay on the same page with the coaches' program and plan for any help they contribute.

The only thing I can say is that I do not particularly care for how we use our DL as a general practice. I think we had strength in numbers there and that we should be using them in different ways with different packages and taking the pressure off of the other positional groups by having the DL act more aggressively and with slightly different responsibilities and assignments of attack. We are letting our weaker other areas show themselves instead of sheltering them and turning that negative into a functional strength in a way by having the secondary and other complementary players trained on a different scheme that creates more opportunities in concert with a more aggressive, flexible, and dynamic Defensive Line. We just don't have ideal personnel to perfect this phony-baloney system that Gunther is so high on and it just does not appeal to me as the optimal way to prevent yardage and points.

[Blkbrd671]

i do wonder why we aren't more dominant with our front 4 since we are theoretically 8 deep.

As for suh, i meant can any break give their opinion on how they thought he played. while the stat sheet doesn't light up, i'm assuming its due to the double teams etc.

[TSE]

Well I'm not sure what Suh's snap count were or precisely how many times he was double teamed without reviewing it. When I watch games as a fan I'm typically trying to analyze every player that the camera will allow me to see simultaneously, and when I see interesting plays where it looks like a player does something bad or good whether he's in the play or not, then I try to pause those plays and dissect them while they are fresh in my mind.

I will say for our DL though that the last game is a tough thing to judge. It seemed to me like the Rams were holding us quite often. I started to count for a while how many penalties they were getting away with and I stopped counting at 2 when I realized how this game would go. I just kind of figured that the refs knew the Rams were outmatched and so they were going to let some things slide. There was one play were our DL player had a chance for a sack or a hurry but he forgot something, he left his entire arm back near the line of scrimmage in the clutches of a Ram player's hands. What a silly choice, or maybe he didn't have one? I didn't try to keep a scorecard though of how much we were getting away with, so I don't really have an objective analysis other than feeling like the Rams got a lot of penalty breaks. There is probably some psychological effect that you are less likely to call penalties as a team keeps mounting them up and the Rams did at every point have more calls against them. Maybe the refs were second guessing themselves and didn't want to blow the penalty stats too far out of proportion.

I reviewed a couple of the KVB plays in particular which is one of the reasons I called him out. He failed on some contain, and got faked out a few times etc. and so I go through that stuff when it sticks out and I even had about a 3 minute conversation with KVB in my mind as we were reviewing the film. It's not fun to tell a monster of a man with crazy eyes to get his head out of his ass but it had to be said and I know he respects my wisdom as the trump card to give me permission to tell him how it is so we can work together and get things right in the end; which is the only thing that truly matters.

[Icness]

What I saw from Suh:
Teams have figured out how to attack him, and he has yet to fully realize how to counter it. On run plays they let him run himself past the play or get his own shoulders turned in trying to penetrate. He still has not figured out how to combat, or anticipate, a trap block. On his pass rush he gets double teamed pretty steadily and still generally wins the battle but it takes too long to bull his way through. I don't see that explosive burst off the snap that he had in '10, it's only about 90% and that takes him down from elite to just pretty good.

On the trap block, which is a staple of many running schemes: it's not his job to make the tackle on those plays, but he has to make the runner bounce to a different hole or at least control the leverage battle and not get pushed back. He does not do that very well. Fortunately the coaches have adjusted the backers behind him and stopped the bleeding. Getting Delmas back will only make that even stronger. But if Suh could see it or feel it coming, he could preemptively attack it and really disrupt the play. Kevin Williams is brilliant at that, so was Warren Sapp.

[Blkbrd671]

My question with Suh is wth haven't coaches worked with him on it. Seems like a simple concept.

If and when Bentley and Houston come back. Is Houston really that much of a upgrade over barnes or Florence?

[Blkbrd671]

i didn't catch the whole game, just most. i'll be honest to say i was waiting for S. Jackson to bust out a big run and get past our secondary. From what i saw, Jackson remained in front of us the entier time.

[TSE]

The Rams have one of the worst offensive lines in football and they lost their high priced $24MM Center that they signed as a Free Agent in that game, plus OT Saffold got carted off. They are down to only 7 OL players on the roster, one is a UDFA, and another is a 5th round pick from this year, the other 5 are basically journeymen no-namers.

[Icness]

My question with Suh is wth haven't coaches worked with him on it. Seems like a simple concept.

If and when Bentley and Houston come back. Is Houston really that much of a upgrade over barnes or Florence?

The coaches have worked with Suh. DL Coach Kris Kocurek spends a lot of time working on situational awareness stuff like that. Hill and Williams are both fine at it, it's just a hole in Suh's game. Hill is actually exceptional at it, made a couple of great stuffs off it by beating the trap to the point, saw it coming and blew it up. The play where Levy got SJax for a loss was because Hill did that.

Houston is absolutely an upgrade over every other CB on the roster. He's one of the top 15 CBs in the league. More importantly, he makes Bentley and Florence better because they get to match up with receivers they are better equipped to handle.

[Blkbrd671]

Good sh* guys, i hope we show up and put on a show next week, and not commit (Please Use More Appropriate Word) penalties