Lions @ Vikings - Game 3

[ajaX82]

1 pm, Sunday

Two 0-2 teams with a lot to prove. Favre has been horrible so far and the Minnesota receivers have been awful. They run the ball well and protect Favre poorly and you would think these things play into our strengths. Our D-line should be pressuring all day and hopefully slowing Peterson. None of their WRs scare me so our secondary should be decent. Shiancoe being covered by the LBs is the only threat in the passing game.

Best might have some issues with the Williams wall. Hopefully CJ is involved early and often

This one is winnable, but the Vikes are going to be desperate

[Liqourish]

They are going to be desperate, but so will the Lions. I think Vikings being at home gives them an edge, but it is a winnable game. Much more so then I though entering the season. I'd be THRILLED with a win here.

Hopefully Levy and Avril will be back with the team.

[TSE]

Well the biggest concern for me is still our secondary. I still can't wrap my head around how bad our coaching is in that area, and a guy like Brett Favre could easily destroy us and will destroy us if we don't get serious pressure on him, cause we sure as heck are not going to have a well trained secondary in place as long as Gunther and Walton are here, they just have no clue on the finer points of logical secondary instruction and play. Either we get crazy pressure on him or gamble for some TOs in conjunction with that pressure or it's going to be massive yardage in the air and certain defeat.

[TSE]

Hopefully Levy and Avril will be back with the team.

Hopefully Drew will be invited to participate with the team too. Not too worried about Avril as we have a lot of interesting players of potential that have already shown the ability to make plays. That miss by LJ on Vick was a big game changer, but if that situation comes up again he's not going to miss next time, probably. McBride looked good too and we don't even have room to activate Willie Young. Levy is the bigger miss for now although Ashlee Palmer looked interesting, he made a couple solid plays last week and could be a surprise player for us.

[kellmellus50]

I am still scratching my head on the lions getting rid of Drew Bly ? we need a vet in the back field. now he would have not dropped 2 int's that the other lions did.

[TSE]

Well they did just pick up Nathan Vasher after the rookie Aaron Berry went down. So it's either Bly or Vasher, both vets, but Vasher is 3-4 years younger. He's still a waste of space for being an old player when we need to get lucky with more young players, and Bly is way too old to have any future beyond this season and we clearly are not in good position to make a qualified run with journeymen players. We need a vet that is not too old and has major upside like a Cromartie or somebody comparable to that. Maybe they know something about Vasher that he's now better than he's ever been for some reason. What that reason would be I don't know, but then again I'm not the pro that does this for a living. Perhaps they see some good stats in his first couple years and believe he was hurt in the past but now healthy and ready to be a superstar? Any reps he gets on gameday will just take away from the young guys we need to develop in Alphonso, Spievey and Wade. I'd rather those guys get more playing time so they suck less next year or perhaps develop into good players. Wade and Alphonso both made some decent plays last week too, but mainly in the physical elements of the game, they still are terribly hindered by bad coaching so they need all the experience they can get to try and learn how to play football on their own. Less time on the field and more time listening to Gunther and Walton is an unhealthy trade-off for a young Corner.

[Q00]

As much as I think the Lions have looked like the better team thus far this season, I ask myself which seems more likely, the Vikings starting out 0-3, or the Lions starting out 0-3?

Which make me worry about this game, esp with the fact that the Lions have never beaten Favre on his turf.

At the same time, you would think it would happen eventually, and if Favre was ever ripe for the picking, it seems to be now.

Plus, the Vikings are going into a bye week, and might be overlooking this Lions team that is much improved, imo. So, all in all, I think its going to be a good game, but I still have a hard time seeing the Vikings at 0-3 instead of the Lions.

[kellmellus50]

the lions are playing not to lose. they had 14 seconds at the 14 and chosse not to run another play and get a touchdown they were happy to get a field goal no guts no glory.

[kellmellus50]

1st and 10 from min 20 peterson runs right up middle for 80 yard td ,we have no linebackers or saftys that know how to play.

Game over hit the showers it's going to be LOOOOOOOOONG SEASON.

[Icness]

First time this year the Lions have been thoroughly beaten. The defensive back 7 is just awful and the scheming with them just ain't working.

Well-coached game by the Vikings, they took away what they knew DET was going to do and Schwartz couldn't answer it.

[TSE]

There aren't any traditional schemes that will work, cause beyond the conceptual design of any scheme, there is a logic to be taught to the players to keep them within position regardless of what scheme they are playing, and I guarantee you that we won't have any games this year where our secondary players will act appropriately because they are specifically instructed to play and react in a way that fits with our coaches' philosophy and that is a broken system that keeps our mediocre players always in a positional disadvantage for easy exploitation. Our coaches can't even get our players standing in the right spots before the snap in many cases, let alone teach them the finer points of what to do by design, they are told to move in the opposite directions of the correct directions for so many situations. It feels like a Madden game where the player wants to control a DB and just play free for all out of position and to try and beat the computer's natural instincts to cover the guy, it's hard to manually keep the guy on track and adjust for every step and every read if you don't know what you are doing, and the result leaves the player in an inefficient no-man's land territory that keeps him out of the play with defense of all the territories of the field that have no possibility of being where the action will unfold.

[TSE]

the lions are playing not to lose. they had 14 seconds at the 14 and chosse not to run another play and get a touchdown they were happy to get a field goal no guts no glory.

Absolutely, I was irate. It is a terrible missed freeroll to score more points. There's no guarantees of a TD, but the odds are so heavy in our favor in that situation that you have to make those gambles.

[kellmellus50]

i dont know what worse the offensive play calling or shaun king i wish the lions would have picked up vick a year ago when know one wanted him.

[TSE]

Instead we spent a #1 overall pick and giant mass amounts of millions to fill a QB hole. The Lions mngmt has probably never heard of the dollar menu at McDonald's either, they just have no understanding of how to make logical value moves to get better, and then the secondary coaching is the nail in the coffin to compound our terrible personnel missteps. Bad clock mngmt is the cherry on top.

[Q00]

Worst coaching performance I've ever seen. These guys just flat out suck.

The terrible clock management at the end of the 1st half was on the Head Coach.

The 1 yard draw play run 73 times in a row was on the terrible O.C.

And allowing Favre to dink and dunk all game with a 40 yr old arm, who's incapable of throwing more than 20-30 yards anyways was a joke of a defensive gameplan which is on the D.C.

Every knows Favres strength is the dink and dunk game. Yet the Lions left the undermeath open all game and only covered deep, not realizing that Favre can't even throw that far anymore, LOL.

An all around JOKE of a performance from theis coaching staff.

[TSE]

Yeah I can accept losing a ball game to another team when their players beat ours, but I cannot accept elementary coaching mistakes over and over and over again. These coaches are nothing but anchors on our players. We have plenty of talent to play respectably and these guys on the sidelines are discounting their value tremendously just on account of ignorance. They can't even identify that they have a clock mngmt problem or instructional problems that are their fault, let alone figuring out how to fix those problems. This is really embarrassing and I have defended Schwartz for a long time and given him the benefit of the doubt that he might be a logical coach and he has really dropped the ball bigtime and has done an atrocious job. Schwartz has nobody to blame but himself at this point. I wish he would just call me and bring me in so I could fix the basic problems. I would need ONE hour with the DBs, and if they were forced to listen to me and obey my orders above any contradicting orders that Gunther and Walton give, we could really salvage the season by having a competent team still with lots of youth and talent to play an honest football game. If I could do anything with that hour I would spend the entire time with them and not address any other players or positions, I wouldn't have a second to spare elsewhere with how fundamentally flawed we are in that department. The LBs should watch and listen too, they would get a lot of good insight out of it that could help them.

[TSE]

Actually I take that back, i would steal 5 minutes to talk to the ST players, there's some stuff that just has to be covered that is so huge. I have to make time for that, I would sooner hang myself than miss an opportunity to discuss some of my finer strategy points on ST play. I'd do that first just to make sure I don't get started on the other task and run out of time. MANDATORY!

[kellmellus50]

Here 's one thing you can tell the lions DB'b is not to play 10 yards back from the reciever,they were even doing that in the red zone while minny DB's were playing right on the line with our recievers every down.

quote:Trailing by seven points, the Lions ran just two plays in the final 41 seconds before halftime. Schwartz said he wanted to make sure he got at least three points, but he might be slipping into problem of former Lions coaches -- believing in your defense when common sense tells you not to.

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/20 ... ffe_1.html

[TSE]

Yeah Jim just keeps saying more and more stuff that doesn't make any sense. He even agreed that the CJ call was the right call! And you are correct on seeing that flaw with the DBs, but they stand there because that's where Gunther and company tell them to stand. It's just wrong. And that's just a fraction of the things that they teach them to do that's wrong. It's so messed up in so many ways how they have these DBs trained to be in impossible situations.