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1PM EDT on FOX
Lions are 1-1, Titans are 0-2

Some key numbers:
Detroit is 10-for-24 on 3rd down, Tennessee is 6-for-23 on offense

TEN ranks 31st in 3rd down defense at 55% conversions allowed. The Lions are middle of the pack at 34%.

Detroit has three 3-and-out drives this year, only New England has fewer
Tennessee has eight 3-and-outs, tied for most in league

Both teams have had 11 penalties accepted against them, DET for 94 yards and TEN for 89
Titans opponents have committed the fewest penalties of any team (7)

Jake Locker is 1-for-9 for 7 yards on 3rd down and more than 3, with two sacks and two batted down at the line.

With the slop the Lions have been showing, the Titans couldn't have come at a better time.

Chris Johnson has been terrible and Locker and the Tenn WRs don't scare me a lick. The D-line should beast this game. I'd love to see Titus Young get involved in the offense and to see some positive things from LeShore. Though I'd like to see us start flinging the ball around the field again. Establishing the run is nice and all, but this team has too many weapons on the outside and at TE to not target them more

^i hope we get destroy this team and stop this check down BS. Stafford needs to go back to his gunslinger mentality especially when throwing to CJ

Houston and Bentley both full participants in Wed. practice, looks good for both to play. Johnson got a day of rest, Delmas still not cleared for contact. Scheffler did not practice and is reportedly limping, no word on extent yet.

My pipe dream would be to trade Schef to NE for Chandler Jones and Avril to Eagles or browns for a Corner.

Yeah that's a pipe dream, Chandler Jones has looked really good so far on top of being a 1st rounder. We would need about 10 Tony Schefflers to equal his value.

Yeah Jones has way more value than Scheff. And to trade for him to be their 3rd TE?

They just lost Aaron Hernandez, and i think picked up Winslow. Ya it is a pipe dream, and i'm pretty sure i remember "booking" chandler Jones being a great player and either TSE or ICE said he's a bust. Got get my shots where i can.


Question:

Is our DL overrated? For a front 4 that's suppose to be the best or one of the best in the league, didn't seem like we made alot of big plays. We seem to get more sacks than stops or tackles at the line.

Is this due to our secondary being weak?

Yeah that was Ice, I was high on Chandler before the draft. And our DL is overrated and that's because our defensive scheme isn't tailored to taking full advantage of our talent there, and I have mentioned before that I think we have issues there with regard to certain veteran leaders and our coaching staff in general. Our DL is performing precisely according to how we treat it and manage it as well as the other defensive issues that interrelate.

Well that was a roller-coaster.

The Bad: ST coverage was awful, even more than usual. Pettigrew dropped a few balls he should have caught and had that bad fumble at the end. Secondary got torched. Lot of penalties. Not converting on 4th and inches in OT. Stafford hurt

The Good: LeShore...wow. He was great in his first game. The comeback and Titus Young's hail mary catch was pretty damn exciting. CJ was his awesome self. Run defense was solid all day.

Bad loss though. Really bad.

Anyone know if that last play should've have been called a false start on Raiola?

Not sure of the specific rules, but the Center can be called for false starts can't he, if he moves before the hike?

I'd have to watch again, but it was so messy I would't be surprised if he did move before the hike. Which would've given the Lions another player, 5 yds back.

But it is what is. Sucks to lose, but looks like we have a legit NFL running game brewing. I'll trade a loss for that. I know it doesn;t look pretty now, but in the long run this commitment to the run is going to pay off.

Just gotta have patience. Its literally a different offense we are running now, and fans shouldn't expect them pick up right where they left off last year. Changing from a pass happy 50 times a game team, to a balanced team will take some games like these first 3 games to get it going. Still though, we are only 1 game out of 1st in the division, and if we can stay close in the division, by mid-season this offense can be scary good once everyone learns how to play balanced like this. They are close though, as we saw on the last Stafford TD drive. They made that run game a threat and it opened up everything. Just a flukey finish after that, not much you can do but take the loss and move on. I like where our team is going longterm though.

The Good- Leshoure looks like hes going to be a beast, Titus Young got involved and had a pretty good game and the O line was solid. .

The Bad- Another lackluster first half by the offense, the secondary was horrible and Stafford showed yet again that hes about as fragile as a faberge egg.

The Ugly- Special teams enough said, the defense is still a liability in crunch time situations making bonehead plays and the terrible play call/execution at the end. you have two bruising backs who had up to that point dominated the game and you run a QB sneak? I dont get it.

I was kind of expecting a play action pass on that last play to catch the D off guard for the win, whether they won or lost on the play I would have been OK with it, but other than that with the way Leshoure was running the ball and the way the O line was blocking yesterday there was no reason not to give ML the ball on that play.

Edit: was just watching sportcenter and saw that the whole last play debacle was probably the result of Hill trying to be the hero.

Now Raiolas trying to take the blame which is admirable, but if you watch the replay you can clearly see Hill tap his leg. all that could have been prevented if Schwartz had either just gone for it(which i would have done) or kicked the field goal, instead of trying the bush league lets draw them offsides play that hardly ever works.

Special Teams and the coaching staff were not good, KVB and Lacey had many problems all day. It's awfully disappointing to have had both the hail mary and onside kick come through and still lose the game. We should have been able to win that one in a blowout.

With all the weapon's we have on the offensive side off the ball i don't understand why we struggle to get the ball down field. unless its the fourth quarter.

i'm really excited to have leshoure and Smith as our backs, it provides a whole other dynamic to our offense however seems every single play we constantly check down. i hope next year we obtain a better OC, assuming he's leaving, the fact that CJ has only 1 TD in 3 games is ridiculous. no matter what coverages he's seeing.

Also i think most detroit fans were okay with the going for it on 4th down. however why we doing a sneak. We finally have a power RB and a 7ft 12inch receiver. and we go with a sneak?

Defensively i want to shank our secondary

our offense is way too slow paced and conservative to start games. I dont know if Stafford is just sloppy until he gets in the flow of the game or if its by design to try to keep the defense off the field as much as possible. whatever it is it isnt working, Linehan needs to go back to being the guy he was in Minny when Culpepper and Moss were making defenses look silly.

i think stafford has a lot to do with it. he's timid, shaun hill got CJ his first TD

joseph mamah wrote:our offense is way too slow paced and conservative to start games. I dont know if Stafford is just sloppy until he gets in the flow of the game or if its by design to try to keep the defense off the field as much as possible. whatever it is it isnt working, Linehan needs to go back to being the guy he was in Minny when Culpepper and Moss were making defenses look silly.

The offensive playcalling has never been good for the Lions in any season over the last couple decades. We have consistently had problems at that more than any other element of the game over our long history of losing. I don't think Linehan has a very good offensive mindset, and to me I feel like our offensive units are being held back trying to do things the hard way and force square pegs through circle holes rather than developing a system of logical flow. Too off we run when we should pass, we pass when we should run, we punt when we should go for it, and when we do pass we pick poor areas of the field to target with route mixes that just don't jive for exploiting a defense, and our formation choices are often very curious. You guys know how much I don't like Gunther Cunningham as a DC, but sometimes I argue with myself trying to decide who's actually doing a worse job between the two and sometimes I just am not sure. Having to even ask that question is enough of a problem to worry about.

We are getting absolutely killed by our coordinators in every unit.

Another thing too, I just read a comment from Schwartz explaining why Kevin Smith didn't get any touches. He says there is no RB depth chart and all of the RBs are valuable and that we use all of those guys. Not sure how that fits with Smith getting no playing time in this last game and with Keiland Williams only having 1 rushing attempt on the year despite being activated for every game.

My quick summation:
This game proved that Jim Schwartz is not the coach that can lead this team to the next level.

Stafford should be okay for next week but the Lions won't say anything until Friday.

Yeah he had a couple of debatable calls in that game, punting from their own 44 yard line on 4th down at one point, also declining a penalty and giving them the short FG was a tough call he had to make. And then at the end of the game when the play should have at least been reviewed he was seen walking off without contesting for it or fighting for it. Luckily the chance for the review ended up coming, but he didn't seem to be on top of things or prepared for a plethora of game situations that came up that are the same types of decisions that come up in every game. I think he needs help in sorting out his decision making process and following a different formula to try and minimize making bad choices that make things more difficult for us as a team.