RedRamage

I think it's also worth pointing out that Darnold did better against the Rams than the Lions: ~80 more yards on one fewer attempts and nearly 20% higher completion percentage. The Rams numbers are not really that far out of line for Darnold over the season. His season average (including the playoff loss) is 254 yards per game with a completion percentage of just barely shy of 66%. Now, I'm certainly not trying to say that the Lions defense is stellar now because they dominated the Vikings to end the season. We should NOT read too much into that. But I think Darnold is getting too much of the blame for the Rams game. He ABSOLUTELY deserves a good portion of it. But any time an OL is giving up 9 sacks and the RBs only manage 87 yards combined... there's problems there beyond just poor QB play.

They mentioned this during the Bills game: Chiefs and Lions record vs. Bills: 0-2 Chiefs and Lions record vs. the rest of the NFL: 32-2 That's kinda amazing.

Wait, what??? You mean ....... if we just win two ......... more games then we'll ......... be in the .......... SUPER BOWL?!??

I don't love the idea of facing a running QB, but having Anzalone back will help there a bit.

I think I'd prefer to not play the Eagles or the Commanders right now mostly because I don't think we match up well against running QBs.

No, no, no, no!! I don't want to lose Fraley.

As for the draft... here's how Holmes will draft: BPA, BPA, BPA, BPA, BPA... and BPA. Oh, and BPA. He's shown repeatedly that he's going to target the best players (according to them) who is available almost regardless of positional need. Part of me would want to see them get some backup for positions like OL that are getting older and expensive, but this isn't how Holmes works. He'll draft whomever he thinks will have the best chance of being a star player. If that means he don't end up with the depth we need or we don't have a starter ready to fill in for a retiring/leaving player, Holmes will fill that with a short term deal FA. Look at what he's done in the past and how it's worked out: 2021: Drafted a DT in round 2, so we filled that need... why are we drafting ANOTHER DT in round 3? Do we really need Alim McNeill? 2022: St. Brown is a star in the making and we're desperate for secondary help. Why are we trading up for a WR named Jaymo or Jamo or whatever? 2023: We just signed Montgomery and you're drafting another RB? Who is this Gibbs anyway? A linebacker?? Rodrigo's been a nice pickup... why do we need this guy? Wait.. a Safety? Joseph was such a nice surprise from last year why are you getting another one?

Iffy: I'd love to keep him if we can for cheap, but I'm not spending on him. We have Joseph and Branch as starters and a quality backup in Joseph. Low priority here. Barnes: I'd making him a priority. I don't think we have as quality depth at LB and we certainly are lacking quality depth at pass rushing. Barnes is a necessity. Levi: I'd probably try to keep him at a reasonable price. We need the depth, but I'm not paying him 2nd round money. Too many injuries, and not really star-level production when he's healthy. I want him, but only at a reasonable price. Jamo: Pick up the 5th year, start working on a longer deal if he looks good starting in the 2025 season. Pascal: Punt until next year. See if he can stay healthy, see if he can be productive when healthy. Joseph: Pay him. Rodrigo: Try to keep him on for the right price. Don't overspend, but we need the depth at LB and he decent when he's on the field. Davis: Try to keep him for another 1 or 2 year deal. Cominsky: Keep him if he's willing to sign for a reasonable amount. We need the depth. If Levi leaves this becomes a bit of a higher priority. Davenport: See ya! Zeitler: Give him a 2 year deal. We need stability while we work on future OL pieces. Patrick: Try to keep him for a reasonable price. FA: I agree that there will likely be no bit free agent signings. I don't think we have too many glaring holes that outside of perhaps DL. I think in most positions the price to upgrade won't be worth the level of upgrade we get. Obviously if a number of the guy in yellow or green don't re-sign, that will change the calculus here.

Not necessarily. If you're dropping from 3 to 2 preseason games that makes up for the extra game. Then you just start a week sooner or end a week later. That said, I wouldn't be opposed to dropping that week. The Pro-bowl stuff as gone from being a joke or worse than a joke. No one cares about it at all. Try to make it more interesting by putting it before the SB doesn't help.

I guess it depends on how the clock works, but this would be simple to fix as well and would be much better than an official subjectively counting out that last second in his/her head.

Regarding the play clock: I do NOT want a horn a buzzer because I'm sure there will be LOTS of times where this doesn't get turned off in time and the horn or buzzer goes off during a play. That could be disruptive. Lights would be better, but still there's a level of needing to react to the lights and then verifying if the ball has been snapped or not. Honestly I think there's a much simpler solution: Just add this task to a new person in the replay booth. It would not be hard at all to have someone watch a screen that has the clock and live video of the play. Give them a button that buzzes an official OTHER than the head ref (so there's no confusion on what the buzzer means... is it a replay thing? Is it a delay of game thing?) and that ref blows the play dead as soon as the buzzer goes off.

Without taking anything away from Brock, I think Gibbs was down before the ball came out. It seemed like it bounced out after he landed on his back. There isn't a great angle on replay so it's hard to tell for sure. Either way, it's a non issue because of Brock. Even if he did fumble, Brock was there to scoop it so it didn't matter.

I think it's going to depend on a LOT of questions that we won't ever have the answers to: 1. What do the Doctor's say about the health/strength of his bone? If the docs give the okay... if they say it's as strong as it was or will be, then proceed. If they are iffy... if they are saying that it's only 85% (or less) back to full strength, then you probably have to not play him. 2. What is Hutch's conditioning like? Is he in game shape? Has he been able to work on conditioning for a few weeks? Has he been able to practice in pads? Has he been able to hit people and get hit himself for at least a week before the game? If he's not cleared to practice until like 3 days before the game, then he's not going to be contributing and shouldn't be playing. 3. What's the state of the defense leading up to the SB? If they've been playing well then the need for Hutch is reduced, but if they've just been getting by (or worse) then maybe you lean more towards getting Hutch in there. As for your bonus question: I don't think Gamblin' Dan really gambles too much on player health. He was a player himself so he knows the mentality but I also think he's smart enough to know that they have to listen to the Docs. If he's not physically ready, Campbell will not play him. However, if he's physically ready... even if he's only been able to have limited practice leading up to the SB, I think Campbell will do his best to at least get Hutch in the game a few times. No one is more aware than Campbell is about the lack of certainty in the game. While I don't think this is the case, this may be the only SB Hutch gets a chance to play in (obviously assuming we get to the SB) and Campbell will want him to have had a chance to play, even if it's just a few times on third down passing plays.

Agreed on all points. I'm sure the NFL wants to spread the bye weeks out over as much of the season as possible to minimum weeks with too few games, but week five it too early. I know the NFL wants to go to an 18 game season, so let's just do that and have two bye weeks. Get rid of one of the preseason games which are more meaningless than they've ever been before. Increase the roster by a spot of two to allow teams to have more depth so teams can rotate more people in and out. The two bye weeks will also give the NFL more flexibility both in spreading out the byes without screwing a team with too early a bye or too late a bye as well as with international games.

This will be the three year in a row that we play the Rams, Bucs, and Cowboys.

So we all know that Holmes will go best player available (virtually) regardless of position... but where do we think this teams needs the most help? Assuming the starting DL is ready to go (Hutch, McNeill, Reader, Smith) I don't see a huge need there. We probably should be looking for a DE as Smith is getting pretty old. We could use more depth at LB, but we're decent there with Barns, Anzalone, Campbell, Rodrigo. At secondary I feel we're in very good shape with Arnold, Davis, Branch, Joseph and then Rakestraw, Robertson, the other Joseph at backups. On offense: RB? Good. WR? Maybe some depth, but otherwise good. TE? Good. QB? Good. I honestly think that OL is maybe the area of biggest concern -- which seems REALLY odd to say, but: LT Decker: 31 years old (rightnow) LG Glasgow: 32 C Ragnow: 28 RG Zeitler: 34 RT Sewell: 24 60% of the OL is on the wrong side of 30 right now.

I obviously wanted the home games as I do believe in the home field advantage (also good for Detroit economy of course). But imho the bye is far more important. A week to rest is huge, especially if Arnold needs to be out for a while. If we had to play Monday night and if Davis isn't ready to be back and if Arnold wasn't able to go... That could have been super rough.

For the record I thought the refs really didn't flag a lot of stuff and I mostly like that. I also felt like the non-calls were on both sides. I thought there were a number of times holding/PI could (Emphasis here on COULD, not SHOULD) have been called and it wasn't against the Lions. But there were a plenty of non-calls on the Vikings too. I thought I saw a handful of false starts and of course the 00's that weren't called. I saw a few helmet to helmet hits as well and some PI that could have been called on them. There was also the blatant push off on that one play where the Vikings receiver was so wild open.

Sucks for the Vikings. Here you have just an amazing season winning 14 games... but you happen to be in the same division at the 15 win Lions so you end up 5th seed and have to go on the road. 14 wins! My goodness... only two losses through much of the season and that happened when you faced the Lions and then had to go on the road to face the the Rams. Now your third loss comes at the end of the season facing the Lions and now you have go on the road and... um... oh no... ohhhh no.

I'm 100% with you here. I thought the injuries on defense would just going to be too much for them to overcome. I still felt the Lions could win, but only if the offense put up massive points. Very happy to be wrong.

After last week I 100% expected a high scoring game. Our defense was worse than a wet paper bag last week. I assumed it would be 30s or 40s for both teams. Seems pretty clear now that defensively they were preparing for the Vikings and viewed the 49ers game as just a pit stop. The defense showed up BIG time.

S.Tork

D'oh! I knew that too. I don't know why I got that mixed up.

The guy's a proven winner. He's shown he knows how to coach in the NFC North. He's made it to the Divisional round 4 times, to the Conference Champ round 3 other times, and even won a SB. He's posted double digit winning seasons 11 times and won his division 8 times. This is a guy who knows how to get the job done. What NFL team in their right mind is going to pick an unproven guy who just got lucky to be elevated under a great coach and handed an talent laden offensive line, a stellar QB, and awesome weapons in St. Brown, Williams, Gibbs, and LaPorta. Who knows what Johnson would do without all those stars on his roster and without the guidance of Campbell? You have an unknown who's always had an abundance of talent to work with vs. a proven commodity who's shown he can get the job done. This is an easy decision Bears. McCarthy all the way.