Lions @ Packers - Game 4

[ajaX82]

Lambeau field isnt exactly kind to us. The question here is probably how many we lose by

[TSE]

I just want to see Drew Stanton play.

[kellmellus50]

I just want to see Drew Stanton play.

You should get your wish the lions will be blown out by the 4th quarter.

[Icness]

The early line is 14.5 and that seems about right. The fact GB cannot run the ball will help, and our DL should annihilate their OL. Lions are 2nd in the league in sacks (GB is 1st) and lead the NFL in percentage of QB hits/hurries per attempt--by a pretty wide margin (58.8%, TEN is next at 44%, league average is a hair under 34%). Some of that harkens back to the PHI game where the Lions recorded a QB pressure on 13 straight passes, but this is right there with CHI as the worst OL they'll see all year.

It will be interesting to see how much and how effectively Best & Co. can run on them, and if Linehan can dial up some play action and take advantage of their vulnerable safeties. I don't see any way DET wins a shootout here but if the defense can get a couple of fortuitous turnovers and the offense controls the ball, the Lions should at least cover. Hard to see our secondary making that happen though.

[TSE]

I just want to see Drew Stanton play.

You should get your wish the lions will be blown out by the 4th quarter.

Oops, yeah what I meant though was....

I want to see Drew Stanton play, in the first quarter when it's a real game, before we are out of it and our season is completely scrapped, and while Calvin Johnson is still relevant and motivated in the game.

I would have typed all that but I figured it was implied and i didnt want to say too much on the subject cause then I would just get lots more people whining about how crazy and stupid I am so I just tried to keep it short.

[kellmellus50]

I would like to see Cowher as our new coach too.
Bill Cowher and Bill Parcells, with Cowher rumored to be rubbing his hands at thoughts of returning to the NFL.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20100929 ... z111HZoR9k

[TSE]

It really doesn't matter what flavor you call it, the Lions lose in the mental aspects of game preparation in a multitude of ways long before our players even take the field.

I have thought about this a lot and I have settled in at a ratio of blame to be passed out as 8% for the players and 92% blame belonging to coaches/managers. A professional sports team should have closer to a flipflop of those numbers. I try to analyze the question with extra benefit of the doubt towards the coaching personnel and I can't sell myself on a justification of less than 90% blame for them, and when I try to give benefit of the doubt to the players I can sell myself on as little as 5% blame for them, and so I lean towards 8% just because it's so ridiculous to have that much going towards the coaches, but I see no way around giving them that much blame.

[ajaX82]

It really doesn't matter what flavor you call it, the Lions lose in the mental aspects of game preparation in a multitude of ways long before our players even take the field.

I have thought about this a lot and I have settled in at a ratio of blame to be passed out as 8% for the players and 92% blame belonging to coaches/managers. A professional sports team should have closer to a flipflop of those numbers. I try to analyze the question with extra benefit of the doubt towards the coaching personnel and I can't sell myself on a justification of less than 90% blame for them, and when I try to give benefit of the doubt to the players I can sell myself on as little as 5% blame for them, and so I lean towards 8% just because it's so ridiculous to have that much going towards the coaches, but I see no way around giving them that much blame.

May i ask how you came up with said numbers? Or is it just a ballpark thing?

[TSE]

Well it's a ballpark thing obviously, because for it to be an exact scientific number I would have to analyze every single play for every single player and the resulting activity would be ridiculously time consuming even if I had the video materials I would need to do that, which I don't.

So for example, I place blame on a player if he makes an obvious mistake that is not something the coaches can be expected to be accountable for. Like take Stefan Logan's fumble. You can't put that on the coaches when he can't even line up to the ball correctly and then he clumsily kicks it when trying to recover, that's clearly a player mistake and something that I expect better from Logan or any pro return man.

But I also don't hold players to accountable beyond their expectations. So for example, i don't place a lot of blame on Shaun Hill because he hasn't been great, because he isn't a great player, I don't expect him to be Peyton Manning. So for what I expect out of him, he produces right around what he is worth as a player. If his name was Peyton Manning and he played the exact same way, then i would say that's his fault for playing well below his ability and expectation level for him. You could put me in at LT for the team, but then you can't blame me for not blocking Julius Peppers unless I dog it for myself on any given play. But as long as I do my personal best, then I am exempt from being at fault, as I'm doing the best I can to my ability if I'm technically doing it theoretically the right way. It's then the blame of Mayhew for having chosen to have me on the team despite I'm playing at par for myself and my skill/talent level.

So it's a totality of determining how often the players are complete numskulls and just make what would be the equivalent of an "error" as it is recorded in baseball. But if a player has say a 6.0 40 yard dash and cant' even reach a groundball that makes it into the outfield, well that's not his fault, he coudn't possibly have made it, and then it's the fault of the manager for having a super slow person playing on his team.

And since I can't be there to know what our coaches are telling the players, it becomes a judgment call when a DB blows a play. Is it because the DB is terrible and doesn't know what to do or isn't good enough to do it, or is he doing what he is instructed to do and getting exploited? You can't possibly know all of that stuff with certainty so I have to guess at it and determine is that the player making a bad choice, or is he following bad programming. And from how our players appear to me, I see the vast majority of the time it looks like a programming error and not a player decision or ability error. And when I watch this next game, I might adjust that attitude. If our entire defensive scheming or programming is completely different, and then the player somehow still gets out of position, well then I can chalk that up to saying that our coaches are on the right track but the player missed the play or the execution, and thus the shift of blame goes from coaches to players.

Or here's another example, late in that last game AP had a running play and failed to get out of bounds for some stupid reason when the yards had no value to the team, only extracting timeouts was the goal, so that play the great Adrian Peterson was responsible and the clock mngmt error there would have been his fault and not a coaching fault. Or like how LJ missed Vick on that wide open sack opportunity, a coach has to teach a guy to make that hit right, but on that play I can't excuse the player at all and have to assume that's his error and not a coaching error as that is the intuitive guess. Or if Pettigrew drops a ball he should have caught, that's one strike to him, not the coaches. Just trying to give you other examples for some other positions.

And then I also account for severity. Like if our DB coaches are clearly not instructing players correctly and we get gashed bigtime in the passing game due to obvious exploits, well one bad play could have multiple players being coached wrong on that play and the coaches could get say 3 errors on one play despite 0 errors for the players on one play, and those errors are bigtime value errors and I adjust for that. And then you have ST errors like how to strategize for a bouncing ball that is approaching the endzone, they always screw that up and sometimes its clear that the player could simply wait and pick it up last second, but sometimes its clear that our guys are not programmed to go to the 1 yard line and play a side straddle defense to wait for the ball to come to them, that's a coaching error in that case.

So based upon quantity and severity of coaching errors verse player errors, I see the absurdity and damage of the coaching neglect to be worth about 92% of the team's global problems and responsibility for those problems. If I was the owner or GM of a team, I would feel the maximum tolerance I would allow for the coaches screwing up the team to be about 5%, because nobody is perfect and to be perfect without errors in a tough complex game like football is extremely difficult to do even with the greatest of football minds working together, so I anticipate how many mistakes I would make if I was doing the job, and I can see where and how I would go wrong and I would be upset with myself if I scored myself and my coaching staff selected to be worth more than 5% of the problem. I believe you should never ever let your team suffer on account of the behind the scenes stuff, that part is easy and there's no excuse for screwing up, but when you have the right players in place and they are instructed and supported logically the best you possibly can do, then if they get beat it will be because you just came up short on the field with playing talent and skill. It's just an unconscionable thing to me to have the sideline and booth people screwing up the game, but since nobody is perfect I can tolerate like I said maybe 5% of mental error, but even that is a stretch and should be and could be improved upon over time, but that takes on the job experience which there is no substitute for.

[Bartender]

What I got out of that is Jim Schwartz it the reason for global warming.

[kellmellus50]

Bartender i see you have been hitting Jack Daniel's wiskey again you have to lay off that stuff.

[TSE]

What I got out of that is Jim Schwartz it the reason for global warming.

Well Schwartz is being severely handicapped by Martin Mayhew, who is the ultimate SOURCE of the problem, and that's not fair to Jim. If we had a good GM who could make logical choices of players and coaches and other booth strategists and support people, then I think Jim would have potential to do a very good job, cause then Jim could just do ONE thing in being the conductor of that orchestra. He's qualified in my mind to waive the baton around, but he's not qualified to write the music and play all the instruments. And since he doesn't have what he needs, it's his job to go out and get what he needs or call out the GM for failing at doing his job to support him. Since Schwartz isn't speaking up and making things happen for us, he accepts responsibility and blame for our results.

Now global warming is a much more globally encompassing problem, and therefore your logic is flawed in thinking somebody at the bottom would have responsibility for that. If we are simplifying this to just a U.S. perspective, then Obama is closest to the top of the food chain, so it's his fault if he doesn't do anything about it, to some extent. Because the SOURCE of the problem that is having Obama in the White House is the "system" of govt we have today that is responsible for making that selection, so it is the "system" that ultimately is responsible for global warming in my opinion. And that's a really big problem, because there is no person to take the blame or to accept responsibility and so nobody ever will. The "system" is flawed and not capable of calling itself out to identify and solve the problem.

[Manocad]

This Lions secondary is utterly disgusting.

[ajaX82]

This Lions secondary is utterly disgusting.

Yes, yes it is


And Calvin Johnson is really, really good. We should probably throw him jump balls in the end zone every time we get in the red zone

[kellmellus50]

this i one of the reasons lions lost,schwartz once again deceiding not to go fot it.the lions also had 1st and goal from the 6th yard line and did not call the right play.settled for FG.

Lions head coach Jim Schwartz decided against having Jason Hanson attempt a 54- or 55-yard field goal and punted. Earlier in the game, Hanson missed from 55 yards, but hit from 52 and 49 yards.

The Packers took possession at the 13-yard line and drove downfield, eating up the entire clock -- the Lions never got the ball back.

the coach does not know how to win it may take him all year to learn.

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

[TSE]

I rewound that snap on the miss and it came in tight and was a tough late adjusted handle and it threw off Hanson's timing perhaps. Besides, whether he came up short or not on that kick, coach knows darn well that Jason can hit that kick, and the odds are going to be really close to a 50/50 shot of him making the kick. By punting, we take a big risk to not get the ball back, whereas with a FG try we have a guaranteed 50/50 shot to take the lead with similar time on the clock for GB's last possession. The main difference between the scenarios is we have a freeroll chance to try and take the lead versus not having that coin flip chance at all. Yeah we lose some field position, but that field position isn't big enough to trade away a coin flip, as making up those yards in the air when you control the ball and the play selection isn't that insurmountable to be worth more than a 50/50 FG try.

The 4th down play from the 9 it's still in our best interest to attempt the TD, packaged with great field position if we don't make the score. Basically, if we don't get the TD our odds to stop them from the 9 and get a TD are higher than to stop them from the 30+ and get a FG in conjunction with the clock also being alive for us to even try. Although the difference is not gigantic, but math logic still favors taking the risk and taking that guaranteed opportunity to go ahead.

We also had a chance to use a TO with 1:00 left instead stopped it with 55 seconds, not to mention there's no special reason to wait 'till 3rd down to use it once you see the team run the ball on 1st and 2nd down, cause there is no guarantee they will continue to run it if they are stupid, which they proved by attempting a pass during that drive when they should have just ran it every time.

Also I still think that despite being ripped off by the refs a lot, that we still would have been more likely to win had we played Drew Stanton. I was shocked to see how many people on other boards were touting on about Hill playing well when he did not, he missed that run for 4 extra pts with a wide open TD, he threw a 40 yard pick 6, and a few of the big pass plays we had were just made by the receiver and not because of his good play. He hurt us in this game a lot more than he helped us, and that was just enough to make the difference. No guarantees we would have won with Drew, but Shaun Hill is just an illogical play for so many reasons in addition to not even giving us the best chance to win the game. We did everything in our power to try and keep GB in it, a truly sickening game.

This loss is again on Mayhew and Jim, Mayhew for allowing Jim the opportunity to even choose an illogical QB play in addition to other shortcomings of the team with our roster design, and Jim for making countless mistakes that have no excuse other than not being able to understand logic and strategy and mathematical probability at a high level. He doesn't even need to understand all that if he would just hire a guy to sit in the booth and figure that stuff out for him. These guys are screwing up our team badly, and it's a real shame.

[kellmellus50]

In the NFL you need to have a running QB like Micheal Vick it gives you that extra threat to win games .If the lions would have picked him up a year ago instead of Hill we would be 4-0.

Drew Stanton can run and i like that in a QB why don't the coaches see that and let him play that one play hill could have walked into the end zone but choose to pass it,Stanton would have ran and made that touchdown.

"We've got to score touchdowns. We got too many field goals and we need six (points),'' said Lions center Dominic Raiola. "It's plain and simple, that's it. It's that game in a nutshell ... the big, bad Packers.

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

[TSE]

And then what would happen to Mayhew's job if it looked like the Stafford pick was a waste and could have been spent on something else? That would potentially embarrass the team and put us in an awkward position of what to do with this highly paid guy who is now under contract for a long time, and nobody would trade us a fair price for that contract when they see we are handcuffed to a QB picked. So why not try to win with Shaun Hill instead of Stanton, what if Mayhew felt that Drew only gave us a 1% higher chance of winning? Why take a huge personal risk for a lousy 1% bonus, when if you win with the bonus you have to answer much tougher questions. He didn't know he was going to be 0-4, but it's much more convenient for him to win with Hill than win with Stanton, so it's a small price to pay for him to choose Hill as the better option. Besides, Drew's game is like Vick's in a way that he is susceptible to a lot of hits and potential injuries, so it could create the appearance of a controversy without the security of the position, you really need to have 2 QBs if you are going to play with Stanton. It's just way too much risk for major headaches for Mayhew. Which is why I wanted to play Drew a long time ago so that we could figure out the optimal solution set of what to do with him, create a possible trade market, and possible clearer definition of what to do with our draft picks, etc. etc.

Bottom line is that not playing Drew is just one of many problems, it's a complete mess of poor logic and bad decision making, and that requires further illogical and poor decision making to try and justify the bad spot we are in and the bad path we are taking. It's just like a poker player who makes a big mistake early on and keeps firing bullets and praying, praying really hard that his card comes up before he runs out of chances. Screw the math, we are already too far invested and it's desperation time to try and justify ALL the terrible decisions and terrible actions.

That's just the way stupid people and losers operate. They are too ignorant and selfish to do the correct thing and the right thing. And now our whole team is full of losers, cause our management and coaches MAKE them into losers. I see this behavior all the time, in politics, in the corporate world, in the sports and tv/entertainment world, and thus I complain about it because I'm sick of incompetent people screwing up my pursuit of enjoyment of life. I expect better and demand better, but nobody ever listens to me, cause the people in power are greedy and afraid to admit that they don't deserve the jobs they have.

[Liqourish]

I was okay with the game for the most part. No one picked us to win. In fact we were supposed to get thoroughly embarassed. Instead we had a chance to pull out a win with 6 minutes left but Schwartz decided to punt when we only need a few more yards for Hanson to get in field goal range. IMO, that was a very bad call and cost us a chance to win the game.

Our offense was actually good. Shaun Hill didn't try to do to much. He really worked the short yardage game and got our TEs and RBs involved with screen passes that GB never adjusted to. And if GB isn't going to defend that, keep doing it. Yes, Shaun Hill should have ran for the TD when he was 4 yards out, but he didn't. We had other chances, but that hurt us.

Our defense didn't do to badly. One of GBs TDs was on Woodsons INT return. Our defense wasn't on the field much, but made their presence felt. 2 sacks, a few QB hits, a few TFL, a couple INTs (not counting Houstons first INT that was called back by a penalty). Chris Houston looks like a solid #2 CB and Alphonso Smith looks like a good nickle CB. We still need a #1 though. Jonathan Wade and CC Brown are our worst DBs. I'd rather start Spievey next to Delmas.

Our linebackers are horrible. Maybe even worst than our secondary. Follett doesn't look good out there unless he's blitzing. Levy can't seem to get on the field and Peterson is only one guy. Palmer has looked good on special teams, but we need at least two more LBers before we can be solid there.

Our offensive line didn't do too bad. They were on the field ALOT. They mostly did bad in penalties than in actual protection. Peterman has to STOP the false starts. He's a very good run blocker.... but damn man... slow your roll. Cherilus had a personal foul hitting guy on the ground after the play was dead. His first big mistake this year. He hasn't really been too bad, but that wasn't good to see.

We got Calvin involved more, especially in the end zone. Nice to see them remember what a freak he is and toss it up there for him. We really need another WR to take long attention away from Calvin. Hopefully when Burleson gets back healthy, he'll fill that role, but right now it's hurting us. Pettigrew and Scheffler have been very good for us this year. They are the best TE tandem in the league this year statistically. Scheffler ran some good routes that confused the defense and got Calvin open. And Pettigrew is growing as a blocker. If they can continue finding their rhythm, they could be a strength on offense, even without getting targeted.

Overall, it sucks that we're 0-4 instead of 1-3 or even 2-2, but this team has shown alot of improvement, on both sides of the ball. We need to get Stafford back healthy and continue expanding the playbook, on both sides of the ball, but I'm liking the growth I see. This team is on the rise. Now we just gotta get some wins.

[kellmellus50]

Same old story for years (but this team has shown alot of improvement, on both sides of the ball.)

everybody has been saying this after every game they have to stop.were the most improved team in the nfl the way people are talking.

Wins show improvement not losses,people wake up and smell the coffee!!!

"I like what Jim Schwartz is doing, the people he's brought in," Billick said, "but I gotta tell you, the way they're carrying themselves right now, they feel like a defeated football team, like they're waiting for that next bad thing to happen

http://www.freep.com/section/BLOG21



7. The hump: In his post-game interview Sunday, Schwartz talked about his team being close to winning, and how it has to “get over the hump.”I’d agree that they’re close, but amend the coach’s comment slightly. They have to get to the hump first. And that hump looks like Mt. Everest


29. Lions (0-4): The best of the 0-4 teams. (I have heard that before)
the rams who only won 1 game last year are 2-2 now thats improvement.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detnews.com/article/20101004 ... ms-but-won’t-repeat-winless-season-of-’08#ixzz11RTweGdg