RedRamage

I had a whole long reply to this typed up that I should have saved because I knew the server migration was coming, but I didn't. 😞 The short version is that the Spartan/Lions had a part to play in the NFL Championship game even existing. Prior to 1933 the NFL Champion was the team with the best record. In 1932 the Bears and Spartans both finished with the same winning percentage and the normal tiebreakers didn't work, so the league and the teams agreed to an additional game to decide the ultimate winner. This was officially a regular season game so doesn't count at a post season game. 1933 would see the first official playoff/Championship game. That 1932 "playoff" game is actually a wild story. If you haven't heard about it ready the wikipedia page here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_NFL_Playoff_Game The game had to be moved inside due to weather and was played on a "field" that just a few days earlier was used for a circus. Special rule changes had to be made, some of which persist through today!

Historically about this time of year is when we start looking at the draft, but we can't do that this year. Next add in such a lopsided game that there's virtually nothing negative to talk about... so what are we to discuss for the next week? Well, why not who our OC and DC are going to be next year? I best option is that it's Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn... but I think it's very likely we'll need to replace one and I I'd say there's probably a 40% chance we'll need to replace both. So, if we assume they're both gone... who do we get as replacements? Do we look outside of the org or do we look at promoting within? On the offensive side of the ball I think the likely promotion from within guys are Mark Brunell and maybe Scottie Montgomery. Scottie has HC and OC history in college and he's currently listed as Assistant HC/RB coach, but Brunell has been here longer and has a relationship with Goff of course. Defensively there's been some talk about Kelvin Sheppard being the guy most likely to get the nod. Sheppard has very little experience though. He was director of players development at LSU for one year, then became linebackers coach for the Lions in 2021. I don't know if there are any others on the defense that are decent candidates.

I know I'm talking like it was ages ago when this happened... but do you remember when he first was our HC and there were so many talking heads who talked about how his aggressiveness was a poor coaching quality and how he needed to mature and understand when it's smart to not go for it? Now Campbell is a trend setter.

I wasn't really trying to make any specific point... just found it interesting that three games counted for so much. AND even if we took out those three games we'd still be 10th in point differential... that's pretty dang good. And your numbers with the Packers just re-enforces that. You take out our three best games and we're still in the top 3rd of the league. You take out the Packers best three games and you end up in the negatives. Just for the fun of it I looked at the Bills, who are second in point different with +106. Take out their top three and they fall to +24... which would be 12th in the league. The Eagles (3rd with +80) would drop to +7, tied for 14th. So it definitely isn't a case of the Lions being that statistically odd with three big wins totally skewing things.

Just out of curiosity, what would have been the payout on a win? I avoid gambling like crazy because I KNOW I have weak will power and could easily get addicted to it, so I know very little about it.

51 got SOOO lucky on that too. If he hadn't just gotten the hand in there to trip up Gibbs that would have been a TD.

38, 38, and 46. That's the point differential from the three blow outs. 47-9 against Dallas, 52-14 against Titans, and 52-6 against the Jags. 122 of those 159 points come from those three games. If you take out those three games then we've got 185 points scored to 148. Or +37 point differential... which looks like it would be tied for 10th in the league (with the Packers). Also on a side note, it looks like the Bills are over 100 now as well: 106. https://www.patsfans.com/new-england-patriots/stats/2024/points/diff/6/

Can't do that with how much money is wrapped up in pro sports these days. Can you imagine if you paid hundreds to great seats to a game like this and they just decided to end if after just 75% of the game was played? And that's just the smallest of issues: 25% fewer ads? 25% (approx) fewer concession sales? And that doesn't being into question all the gambling implications.

We haven't though. Really it's only been three blow outs, this game, Titans and the Dallas game. Rams: 6 pt win Cards: 7 pt win Seahawks: 13 pt win <--You could try to argue this was a blow out, but really the Hawks and Lions were trading body blows the whole game. There was never a point were I felt "We've got this one sewn up. Now we can coast to the finish line." Vikings: 2 pt win Packers: 10 pt win Texans: 3 pt win And even the Titans I would argue wasn't as much a blow out as it appeared. The Lions still handily won that game, but it was more that the Titans kept giving us a short field. To use baseball terms: It's not like we were stealing bases or stretching singles into doubles... they just kept throwing pitches down the middle of the plate and we kept hitting single after single after single and driving in runs almost by accident.

Oh that's cruel man... that's just cruel.

I live right next to a park that is frequented by dogs. Lots of people bring their large dogs there to run and play. For a while there was a family that brought a couple of greyhounds who were retired race dogs. It was always fun to see them run. You'd get these poodle or shepherds or labs or whatever who would be pumping all out to run across the field or case a ball or just run with each other... then the greyhound would just bolt by them looking like they were running at half speed...like they were out for a casual stroll in the park why easily breezing past the rest of the dogs. This is what it's like watching Jamo on one of those routes. The only thing that's going to prevent Jamo from being a sure fire HOF receiver is himself.

I think it's one of those things where the NFL is a small sample size and so various factors can influence those numbers. The Lions are a playing a "first place" schedule this year and happen to be in a division with two other very good teams. This means they won't have too many games where they score huge numbers because they are playing good defense.

So close...

Not a bad idea. If you used Goff more in a receiver role that would free up Raymond to play more OL, which means Sewell could sub in at CB. I think we've got a good plan here but I seriously doubt someone as inept as Johnson will see the wisdom and make the necessary changes. SOL...

I dunno... I mean Davis was 5th best receiver in terms of catches last game. I'd hate to lose that product with him wearing a cast.

That's cool. I loved Bell when he was playing. When it seemed like all the other backs we had would try and juke and jump and dodge and twist and try to get 10, 15, or 20 yards but would end up, more often than not, being tackled at or behind the line, Bell just powered through and tried to get 3-5 yards and make a positive play.

Found a video breaking down the 5 INTs. Not sure how accurate the analysis is, but you can see all 5 INTs here. First was on a screen pass that Houston seemed to have sniffed out. A defender makes and perfectly timed jump to tip the pass and another defender makes an incredible diving play to get the INT. At best 10% Goff's fault. Second was on a play where the a defender ran around out left tackle, hit Goff has he threw the ball bounces off a couple of lineman and takes a fluke bounce right into the hands of another defender running up towards the play. I'd say maybe 2% Goff's fault. Third was a Hail Mary at the end of the half. Yeah there was a good chance that it would get intercepted, but that's understood... it's Low Risk, High Reward. It's low risk because it's the end of the half. Best case you score. Worst case the defense gets an INT and runs the ball ALL the way back for a score (EXTREMELY unlikely). Most likely the play ends with no score and then it doesn't matter one bit how the play ended. INT? Incomplete? Caught but downed outside of the EZ? Functionally it's all the same. 0% Goff's fault. Fourth was a deep ball to Jamo where it doesn't seem like Jamo was expecting the ball at all. It wasn't a great thrown by Goff but again Jamo just doesn't seem like he's expecting it... he's certainly not looking for it until way too late. Without knowing more about if Jamo didn't run a good route or if Goff's pass didn't go exactly where he wanted it or what it's hard to assign blame, so I'm gonna go with 50-50 on Goff, but then error on the side of over blaming: 60% Goff's fault. Fifth was a medium range pass to LaPorta. The video narrator points out that LaPorta ran into some contact from the defenders and so his route was slowed down and Goff didn't take that into account when he threw the ball. This seems valid and so I'm going to mostly assign the blame here to Goff. Again erroring on the side of over blaming: 90% Goff's fault. So, by my scientifically rigorous evaluation of Goff's Interceptions, he's 32.4% to blame on average. So really Goff only threw one and a half interceptions in the game.

Well "best" is somewhat subjective. "Win Total" is a product of skill and longevity. If you're just good enough that an overtly loyal owner doesn't get annoyed enough or feel pressure from fans enough to fire you, then you can rack up a pretty decent win total. If we did it based on regular season winning percentage, minimum of 10 games as head coach, then we get: .667 Parker (47/23) .636 Clark, Dutch (14/8) .624 Clark, Potsy (53/25) .563 Caldwell (36/28) .554 Schmidt (43/34) .542 Campbell (32/27) .538 Wilson (53/45) .496 Fontes (66/67) On a side note, I just looked up the NFL coaching list based on win total and Fontes is tied with two others for #74 on that list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NFL_head_coach_wins_leaders. Shout out to Norm Van Brocklin, one of the coaches tied with Fontes. Norm obviously have 66 wins but he's got that paired with 100 losses, giving him a .398 winning percentage... the worst of any of the top 100 winningest coaches.

I mean... the joke is writes itself right?? I'm not the only one right?

I had to look it up because I thought I remembered Trubisky being kinda a reach and most people not being high on him. But looking up him up and he was rated pretty high coming into the draft... pro-bowl talent, NFL comparison of Stafford. A 7.0 on a 0-8 grading scale. So not as much of a reach as I thought. Looking back at the 2017 draft is interesting. Mahomes was drafted 10th over all. 9 teams passed on him. At least the Lions weren't one of them. They picked 21st that year and got the first round stud (checks notes) um... LB Jarrad Davis?

I think you're generally correct. McCarthy's injury may end up being a blessing in disguise for him and the Vikings. That said, I think there are also plenty of examples of rookie QBs thrown into the fire who've put together pretty good careers. Just look at Stafford for one... or Goff (technically he sat for half a season). So Williams isn't necessarily ruined because he's played his rookie season, but I also don't think it helps him. I would have been better if he could have sat.

I would agree on both accounts... though "largest attended" is somewhat nebulous given that I think every SB is sold out. But that's nitpicking. As for the Lions/Chiefs... this is only to be expected. I mean I remember when the Tigers started winning the Central regularly. 2006 was magical and new and exciting... 2011 and pretty cool... 2014 was fun, but it wasn't the same feeling. I'm sure this is where Chiefs fans are right now. After 6 straight AFC conference appearances, 4 times making the SB, it still cool but doesn't have the same magic that I'm sure it did in 2019.

Yeah I'd forgotten that the Texans were the ones who gave Bates the try out and then cut him before he went to the UFL.

Watching "Calls of the Game" and noticed something interesting... look at the Texans' OL right before the snap at this point in the video: https://youtu.be/ltZdyVSQegs?t=124 Are my eyes deceiving me or are the Texans doing the thing where you're the away team and the guard lets the center know when the QB is ready because it's too loud from the fans for the center to hear?

I like to think that the Lions beat down is the reason they are worse than expected. We broke them.