Back to Earth

Two weeks into the preseason, and we've already had the rollercoaster start. After PW1, it was "this team could be awesome!" Now it's "we could be in for a LONG season".

Brace yourselves for my next obvious statement.

Preseason means nothing.

Take a deep breath in. Exhale. Repeat. Now repeat after me "Hi, I'm (state your name). I know that the results of any preseason game mean next to nothing about what will happen in the regular season." It's like a Lions 12-step course in dealing with reality. And we're going through it with some regularity already this year.

What I saw in the game has been already described in detail by a lot of other posters, and based on the late date of my writing, I'd be rehashing the same points over and over again. So I'll keep this one kinda short and simple.

On O, I'm concerned about the run game, but not because of KJ. It's the O-Line again. It's the same problem as last week, last year, last 5 years, every year since 1991. The line needs to improve in these areas:
- Get push on the D-Line at the line of scrimmage
- Make the correct line calls and ignore out of position defenders
- FB's and pulling OL need to hit the correct 2nd level defenders.
It's been an ongoing theme in Lions O-Line play for a long time. There is some communication we can chalk up to new players like Verba, but the same mistakes are being made that have been made for multiple years. Hopefully Beightol can correct this, but at some point you have to place the blame on the players in the system.

On D, we just got pushed around by the Browns O-Line. You want a textbook example of what I want to see our O-Line do, watch Cleveland's O-Line against us. Big holes were opened. Pulling guards hitting the correct second level defenders. Backs not getting touched until they were 4 yards downfield. That was good O-Line play, and outside of Shaun Rogers not playing, most of the guys on our D-Line will get significant PT this year. Granted, we still were without our starting LB's (what else is new?), but this was a bad job at stopping the run.

That's all I care to write about. It's too late after the game to bring anything more meaningful to the discussion. I'll be more prompt after the next game. That I promise.