Division Champs

The Tigers finally managed to do what we expected them to do all year, and that’s win the AL Central.  Back to back division championships is fantastic.  The papers say the Tigers are a matchup nightmare for the other playoff teams, and are up 2-0 on the A's.  Miggy won the Triple Crown and should be MVP.  Verlander is close to a 2^nd Cy Young.

So why don’t I feel enthused about this team?

Perhaps it’s easily understood by what we expected and how they got here.  The Tigers played in one of the weakest divisions in baseball.  They really had no real competition.  Sure the White Sox had the division lead until the last week of the season, but they are a mediocre baseball team.  The Tigers should have blown by them months ago and never looked back.

But that underscores the problem with the 2012 Tigers – they are underachievers.  How many blown saves did they have this year?  How many 1-run losses did they have?  How bad was the production from the 5-spot?  How bad was the production from SS, 2B and C?  How bad was the defense?  These are the factors that tell you the Tigers are far from being a legit World Series contender.

So lets start with the pitching.  The bullpen was bad this year.  How bad?  Try 16 blown saves bad.  The bullpen ERA of 3.84 doesn’t tell the true story of how many games this team let slip away.  The Big Potato would win the Alka-Seltzer award for causing fans the most heartburn of any player in years.  Benoit gave up 14 homers in 71 innings.  That’s your closer and set-up guy, folks, and they were responsible for 9 of the 16 blown saves.  That’s bad, no matter how you slice it.

In one run games, the Tigers were 20-27.  Now that’s not good, but to put it in perspective, they were 29-17 last year.  Baltimore – the surprise team of the season – is 28-9 in one run games.  And there’s this – from August 24 to September 23, the Tigers played in 10 1-run games, and lost all of them.  That’s almost impossible to do for any team, especially one that actually wins their division.

But if it were just the pitching, at least this team can hit, right?  Um, not once you get outside of the 1-4 spots in the order.  The batting average of the 5-9 spots?

5 - .253

6 - .238

7 - .255

8 - .246

9 - .231

When your team BA is .269, it’s hard to have that many spots in your lineup perform that badly.  And it renders your 3-4 hitters much less potent.  Several times during the season, teams intentionally walked both Miggy and Prince to face the 5 hitter.  I can’t recall ever seeing that before – intentionally walking two hitters to load the bases to face the guy who follows them.  That’s horrific.

And when you look at BA by position, another point comes to light – the Tigers need to be active in the offseason.  Why?  Because of this:  2B - .211, SS - .239.  If these were fantastic fielders, you might be able to live with this.  But this was Jhonny Peralta with his minimal fielding range and 6 different 2B’s, the best of which (Omar Infante) made 9 errors in 60 games.  That’s just pathetic.  I could also include DH and RF here as they batted .259 and .236 respectively, but DH will be fine with Victor Martinez coming back and RF should be fine if Avisail Garcia or Andy Dirks is given the full-time starting gig.  Plus Nick Castellanos is waiting in the wings.

And finally, the defense, or rather, the lack of it.  This is the one area where it's hard to get the stats to back up the impression.  But this is not a good defensive team.  For all his prowess at the plate, Miggy is not a good fielding third baseman.  He's OK, and that's about it.  Peralta has good hands but severely limited range.  Infante has been disappointing at second, committing several errors, a few of which have been decisive in losing games.  And Prince isn't exactly gifted at first.  I heard on a broadcast that the Tigers led the league in most unearned runs allowed, and I believe it.  They aren't going to improve on the corner infield anytime soon, so second and short need upgrades, just like they do for hitting.

I want to believe in this team.  They do have the starting pitching to make a run in the playoffs.  But they are a flawed team and need to make improvements.  And that is why I still can't get too excited about them.

Figures it would take a Wal-Mart Wolverine to get me writing my blog again.  But that comment above is what got me going.  Only an idiot would argue that the Vikings should pass when they get the ball back and a 7 point lead with 2:56 left in the 4th quarter.  Especially when Adrian Peterson - that's AD / All Day in case you forgot - has been averaging over 5 ypc on the day.  So what did the Vikes do?  Run AD 2 times out of 5 plays on the drive (for a grand total of -1 yards - surprise there) and turn the ball back over to Detroit with 1:42 left.  That's a recipe for disaster and Leslie Frasier should be thanking his lucky stars that a) CJ was still clearly suffering from a concussion and b) that his D-Line sacked Stafford twice when he obviously should have thrown it away.  But that's just a microcosm of the game in it's entirety.

So yes, I'm back writing about the Lions.  And the Spartans.  And probably the Tigers.  Hope to keep the blog alive for a while.  Maybe I'll convert to a podcast / YouTube thing at some point, but if I do, it will be with someone else to make it more than just me talking.  But that's up for debate in the future.  Lets get back to this past weekend.

First, on Saturday, my Spartans once again looked bad.  Having had time to think about it, I'm of the opinion that this game is going to be an indicator of what to expect for the rest of the year.  I'm now figuring 8-4, with losses to Nebraska and either Wisconsin or that evil blue and yellow school in Ann Arbor.  And yes, I would hate to lose to the blue-n-yellow, but if our kids can't figure out how to catch the ball, then it could happen.

To paraphrase the old Keyshawn Johnson book, "Just catch the damn ball" should be theme around here. That simple concept of catching the damn ball is a common problem for both the Spartans and the Lions this year. By my count, the Spartans dropped another 7 passes Saturday, giving them about 40 on the year.  The vast majority of those have come from Bennie Fowler and Tony Lippett, the two starters.  Or at least Fowler was a starter before this past weekend, as it appeared that Keith Mumphrey finally passed him on the depth chart.  If Fowler keeps dropping passes, he deserves to sit, regardless of how open he gets.

The papers seem to think the passing game showed improvement agains the Buckeyes.  I completely disagree.  Just because you throw the ball more because you can't run doesn't mean the passing attack improved.  Maxwell still has very little touch on his throws.  The receivers still dropped a lot of balls.  The only microcosm of improvement was that Maxwell was only sacked twice.  But the O-Line was completely overmatched against the Bucks D-Line and it meant a lot of short passes.  There are a lot of issues there, and they also stem from the next problem - playcalling.

I swear, Dan Roushar is the least imaginative play caller I've ever seen.  It became apparent based on the formation and motion what the play was going to be before the ball was snapped.  OSU definitely could tell what was coming and were jumping the run every time we tried it, leading to most of the running games problems.  The passing game was barely over 50% completions (22 of 42).  Those things aren't coincidental.  I mean the Spartans only scored 1 more point than UAB scored on OSU last week.

And the Defense - Narduzzi needs to understand that Notre Dame gave opposing teams the blueprint of how to attack his D.  Misdirection and counter plays are hitting us for big gains.  Agains OSU, we also saw a Denard clone do to us what Denard couldn't do - gash us for big runs.  Why we didn't have the same 'prevent Denard' D employed, I don't know.  I'm convinced that in both the ND and OSU games if we had played the same D we've used to contain Denard, we would have been far better off.  We have two more games like that coming up - Nebraska and the blue-n-yellow.  Better get it figured out and prepare to stop a running QB.

Now on to the Lions who have somehow managed to lose their last two despite significantly outgaining both teams and limiting turnovers.  How did they do this?  Simple.  Forget how to play special teams and forget how to catch the ball.  At least they didn't give up any big plays to the Vikings, but they exchanged those for drive extending Pass Interference calls.

So how does a team give up a kickoff return TD and a punt return TD in consecutive weeks?  I'm not sure I still know the answer to that.  But it was bad.  Bad is in "first time in NFL history" bad.  Really bad as in neither Vikings returner was touched on their way to the end zone.  This must be fixed on the bye week and if changes are required, make them.  And changes are required.  Just get them done.

Just like the Spartans, the Lions have been bad at catching the ball.  They lead the NFL in drops through 4 games.  This was a problem when I first started writing about the Lions, but I didn't expect it to be an issue this year.  Pettigrew is the main culprit, but Titus, Nate and Calvin have all dropped a few.  Although I'll give CJ a bit of a break on a few drops he had due to the hit he took.  But there were a lot of yards and points left on the field in the form of dropped passes.

But that hit.  If the NFL is serious about wanting to eliminate helmet-to-helmet contact and make the game safer, then it needs to start ejecting players who make hits like the one Chad Greenway made on CJ.  I'd have ejected him on the spot and suspended him for at least a game for that cheap shot.  To recap, the ball was already out of CJ's hands when Greenway left the ground and launched himself at CJ's head.  There is no excuse for a play like that.  None.  I want a minimum of a $50k fine, but it probably will be under $30k with the way the NFL seems to hand out penalties.  After all, CJ isn't a QB.

And so much for not letting a player back on the field if they have a concussion.  There is no way Calvin Johnson did not have a concussion on that play.  He should have sat for the rest of the game.  It would have hurt the Lions more than his dropping passes did, but it was what should have been done.  Shame on the Lions and the NFL for showing us they still don't take concussions seriously.

The D wasn't bad against the Vikes, but there is definitely room for improvement.  Bentley needs to learn to TURN HIS DAMN HEAD so he doesn't get hit with another PI call.  The D-Line needs to start getting to the QB.  And for the love of Christ  can they PLEASE learn how to wrap up and make a tackle?  I swear AD broke at least 30 arm tackles yesterday on his 21 carries.  These seem to be the same issues that have plagued Lions defenses for years.  I wish I never had to write about this again, but I probably will next week.

All in all, this was a bad weekend for Football in Michigan.  But it did get me back to writing about it.  So there's that.  Hopefully I'll be writing better posts in the future.  Because this is painful to have to write about this kind of stuff...

Rock Bottom

I've avoided blogging about the Lions for quite a while, as I needed less stress in my life, instead of the constant frustration the Lions brought to the table. In the '07 season, I was tempted to start posting again around the midpoint of the season when the Lions were 6-2, but I sensed that the record was mostly smoke and mirrors - they had a HUGE +turnover margin in those 6 wins, and had gotten blown out in the 2 losses. So I resisted.

1 and 23 later, here I am posting again, because 2 things happened that are of historic proportions. The Lie-downs went 0-16 in a season. And the same season, the Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl. Tell me that there isn't something strangely upsetting about this. The Cards were the Lions partners in futility, trying their dangest to lose as much as the Lions. They backed into the playoffs going 1-3 down the stretch, after playing in the worst division in football, and had trouble selling out their wild-card weekend playoff game. 3 wins and Larry Fitzgerald becoming the next great WR in the game later, and they are in the Super Bowl.

This is in stark contrast to the Lie-downs who have now hired their 4th head coach this decade - a total of 7 men have now filled that position since 2000 - Ross, Moeller, Morninweg, Mariucci, Juaron, Marinelli, and now Schwartz. They came off an historic 0-16 campaign. How did things go so incredibly wrong for this franchise? I think anyone who has read my blog in the past knows the main reason - bad drafting.

So now, how do we fix it is the real question.

Here's my un-solicited advice for what the Lions should do this offseason.

1) Somehow acquire either Julius Peppers or Albert Hanesworth. Both are available, but will have strings required to obtain them. Outside of giving away one of those 1st round draft choices, do what it takes to get one of them. Either would immidiately fill one of the Lions greatest, most glaring weaknesses. Getting both would be awesome, but not realistic.

2) Cut strings with several players. Again, if you've read my blog in the past, some of these names shouldn't suprise you. Backus, Cody, Lenon, and Kitna all need to find new homes. None of them are in the top 3/4 of the starters at their positions in the league. There are several more minor players that should go as well, but why dive into their names.

3) #1 draft pick - trade it if you can, or take Andre Smith. DO NOT TAKE A QB!!! The success rate for LT at the top of the draft is far greater than it is for QB. Plus, what good will a QB be if you can't keep him vertical? Smith is the only player who makes sense at that spot for the Lions. He'll be a cornerstone at LT for years, and help begin the turnaround. Optionally, I wouldn't shy away from a dominant DE or DT. I just don't see one this year as being worthy of a #1 selection. If they can trade down a few spots, there are a few possibilities...

4) Take one of the stud LB's with the Dallas #20 pick. Malauga will likely be off the board, but Lauranitis is projected to go right around that position. Take him. The MLB spot will also be filled for years to come, and no one will regret the pick. If there are concerns about him not being available, consider packaging one of the #3 picks and move up a few slots to get him. They can't let another Jerod Mayo type situation (where the Patriots traded up to get him before the Lions) occur.

5) Take the best available DE/DT with the #33 pick. Obviously, you take whichever slot you didn't get with Peppers / Haynesworth.

6) Take the best available players in positions of need with the next several picks. If they have followed my advice, those positions will be OG, DE, DT, OLB, CB in that order. Under no circumstance should they draft a skill position player in this draft. Primarily because they have so many other more pressing needs, but partly because they arent' as bad off in those spots as a lot of people think.

7) Hire an OC and DC who are not married to one system. The BEST system that any NFL team can have is one which adapts to the personnel that the team has. That has been one of the Lions classic undoings in the last several seasons - trying to cram the personnel they had into a system that was less than ideally suited for those players. Right now, it is reasonable to think that a pass-first, mostly balanced O would fit the Lions best. Calvin Johnson is an absolute stud, and demands a double-team on every play. If you combine a 3WR, 1TE set and mix in some draws and short passes using Kevin Smith, this O could be very potent - it was just a year ago with Mike Martz running it with nearly the same players. On D, figure out who will be here next year and then play to their strengths as well.

That kind of roster turnover should result in a significantly improved Lions team next year. Exactly how good will remain to be seen. I don't think that the Lions were as bad as the 0-16 record indicated this year. They easily could have had wins against Green Bay twice, Minnesota twice, Chicago, Carolina, Houston, Washington, and Tampa (don't forget that Tampa scored on an INT return and a Punt return and the Lions led 17-0 in the game). That being said, they did lose all those games. But the margin between 0 wins and several wins wasn't anywhere near as large as some people think.

As a country singer once sang, "When you hit rock bottom, there are only two ways to go - straight up, or sideways." Let's hope the new administration figures out how to go up.

Thinking ahead... '06

Well, I sit down here in sunny Florida on vacation, and the Lions should be the furthest thing from my mind, right? Well, except for the fact that in watching college bowl games I start thinking about who the next Lions great hope will be. Then I start thinking about how pitiful the team has been and then about how Millen will likely make th next draft choice again, and...

Sheesh, it's time to have another margarita.

First off, when I'm thinking about the draft and free agency, a few things stand out in my mind. First off, what the heck do they do about KJ? That injury could be an absolute franchise killer - except that this franchise is already dead. It definitely changes my opinion about what needs to be done in the offseason. Well, without further adieu, here is my shameless plan for the Lions Off-Season. As for the names to fill in most of these positions, I haven't thought about that one yet. Just the general plan.

In free agency, the Lions have one glaring need - DE. If there is one position that the Lions need desperately bad, it's an every-down DE. They have needed one for about 7 years - about the last time Robert Porcher was playing at the top of his game. The impact of finding and signing a good every-down DE can't be underestimated. The Lions pass-rush - or lack of one - is more the reason our DB's get beat than anything else. If an opposing QB has 5+ seconds to throw, they will find someone open. It's that simple. And all too often, the opposing QB has that and more to throw. Conversely, when they put one of their supposed pass-rushers in, they are hideously weak against the run to the outside. When they pick right, and have the correct personnel in, they are decent defensively. But too often, they have DeVries in trying to pass rush, or Kalimba in when the other team runs. The desperately need an every down DE on at least one of the two sides.

That one upgrade will be huge for the entire defense. It will result in the CB's looking better as they won't have to cover for as long a time. The LB's will look better as they won't get smashed by TE's or pulling guards on end arounds and be free to make tackles. By far, IMHO, this is the one position the Lions most desperately need to upgrade. I'd try to find a great one as a free agent, and then draft another one.

The other position that needs a lot of help is LT. Yes, this means you, Jeff on-your-Backus. I was against franchising him to begin with, I was against signing him to the monster contract, and I have been openly critical of his play for a long time. He is paid as if he is a top-5 LT, when in fact, he plays like a bottom-5 LT. This is completely unacceptable. He's just not a very good LT, and he kills the Lions with his play. He is too slow to handle speed rushers, he's not strong enough to handle power rushers, and he's not a very good run blocker. That's the trifecta of things you don't want to have in a LT, and he has all three weaknesses. I have no idea how the Lions have managed to not see this on thier tape. IMHO, it's because Joey Harrington was throwing the ball away so quickly that Backus didn't give up more sacks the last several years. Maybe that blinded them as to how bad this guy really is. But he's awful.

Unfortunately, with KJ going down and no timetable for his return, we have no idea yet if he'll even play next year. That creates a HUGE hole at RB. None of the other guys on the roster should be a full-time NFL starting RB. If we get closer to the draft, and the prognosis for KJ doesnt' look great, I'll make this suggestion - draft Adrian Peterson. He is about as much of a sure thing as there is in this draft. I personally think the guy is the best RB to come out in the last 3 draft classes. Many people compare him to Eric Dickerson, but after seeing some video eye-candy, I'd compare him to Marcus Allen. Great speed, great instincts, gains most of his yards after contact but never seems to get hit really hard, very shifty, etc. He's the complete package. Based on his play before his injury this year, he looks like he can catch the ball as well. And of course the Lions have some pretty good history with RB's from the state of Oklahoma. But he can only be the Lions pick if KJ won't be back next year.

If KJ looks like he'll be back, them my recipe for the draft is the same as it's been for several years. First, try to trade back a few spots and pick up a few additional picks. If you can, great. It allows you to trade back up into late round 1 and get another player. IMHO, the pick has to be the best OT / DE available. I'd use every pick in the first 4 rounds next year on OL and DL. The Lions desperately need at least 2 OL players, and at least 1 DE. QB should not be an option, unless someone like Drew Stanton is sitting there in the third round. Under no circumstances should the Lions take a QB #1. No QB will be successful here until the O-Line is fixed. When it finally does get fixed, I believe that it won't take a #1 or even a #2 QB to be successful here. Heck, Martz has turned undrafted free agents (Warner) and 6th round draft picks (Bulger) into an NFL MVP and a Pro-Bowler.

Throwing in the towel

Well, it took me a while to admit it, but I've finally officially thrown in the towel on the Lions this year. It took a absolutely draining loss against the Patriots for me to admit what truthfully I had already accepted 5-6 games ago - this team isn't getting any better. I almost admitted it in my last post, but I just never wanted to give in to the dark side. It took a team this perennially bad and a loss this emotionally draining to break the spirit of this eternal optimist. And I just have no emotions left to give to this franchise for a while.

My downer for the Lions really started before the season began. I'll finally admit it, I liked Joey Harrington, and his departure really upset me. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not blinded by thinking that he is the greatest QB to walk to face of the planet. I simply respected him, his stand-up attitude, and I thought he was unfairly blamed for every ill the Lions had. The fact that he was an optimist like myself probably had a bit to do with it as well. When the Lions traded him to the Dolphins for next to nothing, and hung our hopes on Jon Kitna, I just had a bad feeling about it. Here we were, trading the one guy who tried with every ounce in his body to remain upbeat and change the attitude of this franchise, and instead we put our faith in a journeyman QB who has been kicked to the curb for the next young hotshot QB twice in his career already. To me, that didn't bode well for the direction this club was going to take.

Now, I'd say the games and results have proven my fears to be true. Joey hasn't been all-world in Miami, but he's now 4-4 as their starter. His new team has some of the same problems the Lions had while he was here - a porous O-line, receivers that drop balls, and now that Ronnie Brown is hurt, no running game. But he's still 4-4. And best for him, he got a victory and a Gatorade bath beating the Lions on Thanksgiving in Ford Field. He'll likely never live up to his draft position, but he's a solidly average NFL QB, and that's not all bad.

Meanwhile, Jon Kitna has put up great stats in Mike Martz O, but he's 2-10 and has found ways to flat-out LOSE the game several times for the Lions in the 4th quarter. He turned the ball over 3 times in the 4th to seal the last loss to the Patriots. The Lions actually LED the Patriots 21-13 with 13 minutes left in the 4th quarter and he managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again. 8 of the teams losses so far this year are by a TD or less. In each and every one of those games, we had either the lead in the 4th quarter or a shot to take the lead in the 4th. And Kitna has found a way to implode in an alarming number of those games. Personally, give me the choice, and I'll take Joey mounting a comeback and falling just short over Kitna having a great stat line and blowing the lead any day. At least one way gives me hope. This constant blowing the lead is killing me.

Another great numbing feeling I've had is the unconvincing explainations we've heard for the treatment of our former #1 draft choice WR's. I'm at a loss for both Charles Rogers and Mike Williams and what happened here. I know that CRog hasn't caught on with a new team this year, and supposedly he has lost his speed. I know that BMW seems to not practice well. What gets me is why we the public never got a chance to see them even get a shot. I mean, even in pre-season, they were in the doghouse and sitting the bench. Then CRog got cut without so much as sniffing the field, and BMW has had his butt firmly planted on the bench. It just doesn't make sense to me. The only possible explanation is that Martz and Marinelli were using them to set an example for the rest of the team - my way or the highway. Unfortunately, if 'my way' gets the team to 2-10, maybe it's time to re-think that position.

We keep hearing that the locker room is so much better this year, and that the team is making improvements. Yet we see the same thing week in and week out. The same thing we've seen for several years. A D that seems to wilt at crunch time. An O that continually shoots itself in the foot. Excessive undisciplined football with lots of penalties. Failure to insert youngsters to gain experience when the season is already a loss. It seems that the common sense that other franchises have is totally lost on the Lions. Heck, Joe Gibbs could see the writing on the wall for this season, so he put Jason Campbell in to gain experience and see if he has what it takes to be an NFL QB. If he can do that, why can't the Lions? It just doesn't make sense.

So here we sit at 2-10. Two and freaking ten. For anyone who's forgotten, Joey's record as a starter last year was 4-7 and we dumped him in large part because he didn't win. What's that say for the direction the team is heading? I've seen absolutely no improvement with the team this year, contrary to what I keep hearing people try to tell me. Great season to get season tickets for the first - and probably last - time. This likely will be my last post during the season unless something truly interesting happens in the last 4 games. But the way the games have been going, just take any of my previous posts, change the players names to fit the opponent, and you'll have the same story. It always ends the same. And that is truly the tragedy that has killed my optimism for the Lions this year. I'll be back to dissect the team's offseason needs in January. Until then, try to focus on the Pistons and Red Wings to keep a positive outlook on sports.

knee-jerk reactions

I'm back again after not writing last week. Last week, I decided not to write because I didn't want to sound too negative amidst all the good feelings after beating Atlanta. This week, I'm going to sound fairly upbeat compared to all the negative feelings about the 49ers game. The reason for this is that I'm not about to have another knee-jerk reaction to the outcome of a Lions game. Not when I see the same things happening again and again.

Here is the truth about what I've seen the last two weeks - the Lions played about the same against both the 49ers and the Falcons. Now I know everyone will think I'm crazy for saying this, but I do have my reasons for believing this. In quick bullet point form, here's why:

• The Lions are still committing a lot of penalties
• The O still has periods where they don't seem to be on the same page
• The D still can't seem to stop anyone from running between the tackles or making 3rd down conversions
  
• Both games were won by the team that won the turnover battle

That last point is the most critical one. Against Atlanta, the Lions benefited HUGE from the Falcons first half turnovers that led to KJ's TD's. Against the 49ers, the Lions turnovers kept them from getting any kind of momentum going on O until after halftime. Once again, in a game between two teams in the middle of the great 'parity bubble' of the NFL, turnovers will decide nearly every game. And that has held true the last two weeks.

I won't dig into dissecting the O or D this week - it's the same story every game, and it's well enough explained by my bullet points. What I will get into is a few other issues I have a beef with. First, the officiating seems to be at a worse level than I have seen in a long time. I am as confused as ever about what criteria officials use when reviewing instant replay. Both Lions challenges should have overturned calls on the field - Kitna fumbled only after hitting the ground, and Hicks fumbled going to the ground which should have spotted the ball behind the first down marker. Instead, both calls on the field were upheld. I'm curious if the officials are relying on some obscure section of the rulebook that states "A call should not be overturned if it makes a member of your crew look bad". Instead, the lack of overturns made the entire crew look bad. And what does Roy Williams have to do to get a pass interference call? I re-watched the game on TiVo, and it confirmed my suspicions at the game - Roy should have drawn about 5 PI calls, but he only got one whistle on the 49ers. And to hear the announcers, they agree with my assessment. However, the most egregious of the no-calls on Roy's defenders, they seemed blind to the obvious no-call - I'm talking about the no-call on the pass in the endzone. While the announcers were praising the CB for his anticipation, they overlooked a simple fact easily seen on replay - he missed the ball and made contact with Roy's arms before the ball got there. This was easy to see and call, yet even the announcers missed it.

Which leads me to a second beef - can the announcers do a LITTLE homework before they spout off incoherent nonsense? Heard yesterday were these gems. "The Lions have not scored on their opening possession all season" - The previous week against Atlanta, they scored a Field Goal on the opening drive.

And in this situation - Lions down 19-13, 4th and 13 from the 49er 19, they state "The Lions should kick the field goal here and rely on their D for a hold with their timeouts and the two minute warning" EXCUSE ME, but how does that differ from going for it, not making it, and THEN relying on the D for a hold? the only difference is you have a chance for a FG to tie if the D holds. If the D doesn't (and it didn't), it's a moot point. At least this way, they took a chance to win the game.

There were numerous other screw-ups I don't even care to listen to again. But it's typical of the minor-league announcing crews they send to Lions games. I mean if they are going to call the game, they could at least do a little homework before the game. Sheesh.

Finally, I'm going to repeat my concerns with Rod. I'm not going to jump all over his case, but these same points are what has me concerned about this squad.

• They have not gotten any better in reducing the number of penalties per game from last year - if anything they are worse.
• They still are not making any effort to develop the some of the talent that they inherited, instead trying to plug in free agents.
• They are still turning the ball over at a far worse rate than in years past, only this year it's far more fumbles and fewer interceptions.
  
• And finally, the final score is what matters and last year through 9 games, the Lions were 4-5, this year 2-7.

This isn't a death blow to Rod, just that I'm not seeing the improvement I would have expected to have seen by now. What was the main selling point is that Rod would create a new culture, demand accountability, and improve the basic skill level of the players. I still haven't seen that happen.

Again, with all of that, this team is perilously close to being both 8-1 and 1-8. Only the Atlanta and Chicago games have not been in question in the 4th quarter. That still puts the Lions in with the vast majority of teams in the NFL's parity of the middle grounds. The biggest difference between the Lions and a team like the Saints this year is the Lions haven't figured out how to close out games. Until that happens, they'll continue to have a below average record. And we fans will continue to lament the lack of wins.

Back in the Saddle

First off, I must apologize to everyone about the lack of posts recently. When given a choice between investing my emotions on the Tigers in the playoffs and the Lions and their misery, I'll go with the Tigers. It sure feels good to have a winning team that we can all be proud of. The Tigers had a heck of a run, and made me mostly indifferent to whatever was happening with the Lions.

Now that my Tigers related euphoria has faded into the past, I find myself coming back into paying attention to the Lions. Yes, I have watched the last two games, and seen the same things that most everyone else has seen. It's far too late to go breaking down game tape, so I'll just talk today about my general impressions about this club.

I see this season so far as a "glass is half empty / half full" season. The club is very close to being 6-1, and also even closer to being 0-7 right now. As John Madden says (and you likely will never hear me quote him ever again), "a team is what their record is, regardless of how many close games they've had". I find this to be somewhat true, but also I think there is more to it than that. For example, I think both Minnesota and St. Louis – both 4-3 – are absolute frauds that are no where near as good as their records would indicate. Likewise, I think that Pittsburg and Washington – both 2-5 – are nowhere near as bad as their records indicate. This is the problem with NFL parity – there is so little difference between the vast majority of teams in skill or talent that most games are a crapshoot. And our Lions fall right into this great middle area.

I tend to usually be a glass half-full kind of guy. I like to think that things aren't as bad as they look and that they are getting better. I don't know if I can do that with the Lions right now though. I came into this season with certain expectations of what we would see different, and I haven't seen them yet. To be clear, I'm not talking about the record – I'm talking about the way the team plays. Yes, the O has looked a lot better this year, and I'm glad about that. But I still haven't seen the discipline and the penalties being less. I still haven't seen the O-Line and D-Line significantly improve. I still haven't seen the Lions stop shooting themselves in the foot at the most inopportune times. In short, the only thing I see different from past teams is that the O actually is scoring points. And that keeps me from thinking glass half-full.

I do like that the O is scoring points. For the first time in years, we're not wondering if they will be able to put 20 points on the board. And to be honest, I give 100% of the credit for that to Martz. It's about as obvious as can be that the WR's are a LOT more wide open this year. That makes the QB's job a lot easier. There still aren't many holes for KJ to run through, although that has been better in recent weeks. We'll see if getting Tucker and Verba back this week really makes a difference on the O-line. I'm taking a wait and see approach on that one as I'm not sure what the impact will be. Hopefully it's a big one.

Perhaps the biggest question mark on O is why Kitna can't seem to play well in the 4^th quarter. He's done well in the first three quarters of games, but his play in the fourth quarter has directly lost at least 3 games. I don’t even know what to think, but since this season is basically toast already, I do think it’s time to see what McCown or DanO can do in the game.

On D, the injuries to Alex Lewis and Teddy Lehman have hurt us in perhaps our weakest area – LB. Ernie Sims looks to be a pretty good player, but he’s still young. Boss looks OK out there, but he’s still adjusting. Paris Lenon? Ouch. Going with a Packers castoff at LB can’t be good. But as bad as that unit has been, at least they weren’t getting hammered every play because of the play of Shaun Rogers. Now with him sitting for 3 more games for taking a banned weight-loss substance (brilliant one there), it’s going to be VERY rough on our LB’s for the next few weeks. The secondary actually hasn’t been as bad as some people think - it’s hard to defend a WR for 10 seconds because there is no pass rush. And that brings us to another weak spot – DE. Nothing against the guys we have there, but none of them are complete all-around NFL DE’s. We need at least one guy who can generate consistent pressure on the QB from the end. IMHO, this is our #1 need in the draft next year. And since right now we’ll be picking so early, we should get the cream of the crop.

After all of that, you can see why I’m having such a hard time maintaining a positive outlook. There are so many holes, so many problems. There are still lots of penalties. Still dropped passes. And yet through all of that, the team has been in a position to win in the 4^th quarter of every game except at Chicago. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me other than to think in terms of the NFL parity.

So I’ll keep watching, hoping to see something that gives me a hint that maybe the team is finally getting ready to round the corner. I’m not sure I’ll see it, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Not gonna happen

I've had a lot of people suggest that I should send the Ford's and Millen a message by returning my season tickets. The suggestions have tried to be creative in suggesting that I write a nice letter, try to publicize it with the local media, and basically get my 15 seconds of fame for not supporting the franchise. They all hinge on the premise that the action by me could possibly have some kind of impact on Millen's employment or the Ford's ownership.

Let me be clear about this - It's not going to happen.

Here's a particularly good exchange from one thread that I think signifies what I'm talking about.
-----

Me: "The fact of the matter here is that the Lions are 0-5. They haven't been this bad since 2001. You can try to put lipstick on this pig, but I still ain't kissing it..."

-----

neveragainlikebarry: "Oh yes you are kissing it;actually you've got your tongue all the way down it's throat! You have season tickets don't you? you have at least one jersey,right? You by their hotdogs.pop and beer correct? Basicly if you go to the games you keep Millen in there, hence no change whatsoever."

-----

My response: When I first read this one, I was going to post reply with something snarky, but then I came to realize there is probably too much truth in it. Quick summary:

You have season tickets don't you? Yes, just got them this year. In a lot of ways this is the worst year to have gotten them as I missed out on getting a shot at SB tickets.

You by their hotdogs.pop and beer correct? Beer, yes but only to keep my buzz from tailgating going. Hotdogs and pop no as I'm already full from aforementioned tailgating.

Basicly if you go to the games you keep Millen in there, hence no change whatsoever. I don't think this is accurate. The profitability of the team and the stadium more positively reflects on Tom Lewand than Millen. The play on the field reflects Millen, and it's never been this bad. I don't know that my not going to games would have any material impact on Millen's employment, since there is still a season ticket waiting list.

Some interesting ideas in this thread about abandoning my season tickets. But I'll put it this way - Unless there is some benefit to me to get rid of them, it ain't happening. I paid a lot of cash for the tickets. I'm not the kind of guy to spend a lot of money and get nothing for them (please no snarky comments about the Lions haven't given me anything yet - that's why I'm angry).

So if I were to give up the tickets and send them to management and let all the TV stations know, I'd accomplish what exactly? I'd get 15 seconds of fame on the local news, then I'll have realized I have said take the $600 face value for the remainder of my tix and keep it. Not a fair trade in my book. I'd rather keep the seats and be able to @#%$ about the play from a seat in the stadium than have to rely completely on my TiVo for my frustration.

-----
So there you have it. I'm not giving up my seats. I have a sneaking suspicion that some of the people who make these suggestions are still on the waiting list and are trying to free up more seats (note the dripping sarcasm). I don't think giving up my seats would accomplish anything besides keeping me out of the stadium. Besides, it took me too dang long to get these seats, so I sure as heck am not going to give up the tickets now...

Gone in 60 Seconds...

OK, having calmed down from my reactionary phase following the game, I decided to take a look back and try to figure out what happened that drove home another loss for the Lions. Unfortunately, I don't think that I have any really great insight beyond what anyone else has said recently. This was actually a very simple game to analyze.

The Lions lost this game on 2 plays within a minute of each other in the 4^th quarter. It really is that simple. The Lions led 17-3, and Minnesota scored a TD to make it 17-10. Eddie Drummond returned the ensuing kickoff all the way for a TD, but it was nullified by a block in the back by Donte Curry. Two plays later, the O-line forgot to block Pat Williams. Williams hit Jon Kitna from behind just after he made a playaction fake and while his hands were still low, causing him to fumble at the 10 yard line and it was returned for a TD by Ben Leber.

Two plays, 56 seconds apart, a game swings 13 points from being 24-10 to being 17-16.

I wish I had something more in depth to point to, but that really was the ballgame. Minnesota's O only scored 12 points all day, and the Lions O scored 17. Even with Roy Williams hurt and out. Even with Damien Woody hurt and out. Even with only 2 of our pre-season starters playing on the O-Line. Even with KJ getting hit almost simultaneously as he got the ball. Even with Az Hakim dropping 5 passes. It still didn't matter.

This game was in the bag.

And then those two plays completely changed the entire outcome of the game. The D looked decent enough – they only gave up 12 points. The O for all it's injuries scored 17 points. Sure, it wasn't pretty as the O really wasn't moving the ball much beyond the points scored off the turnovers. But at least they had turnovers to score off of this week. The D was giving up yards to Chester Taylor in the run game as well, but he really didn't hurt them too much. The team stats looked skewed due to the Lions inability to run, but it really wasn't an issue. They were still moving the ball enough to win.

Except for those two plays.

On the first, Curry made a slight shove on the guy's back. He should know better than to do that. I heard the announcers say his block definitely impacted the run, but in my looking at the replay, I doubt it. The defender wasn't in position to contain Drummond from getting to the outside as he did. But it was a stupid penalty, and it cost the Lions 90 yards of field position and a score.

The second play has been diagrammed by everyone to death. No one even blocked Pat Williams. It was a complete communication breakdown on where everyone had to go. Kitna never saw it coming and was hit from behind far too quickly for any QB to dream of on a playaction pass.

And that was the ballgame. Sure, you could make an argument that the Lions should have scored more points. Or that Kitna couldn't lead them down the field during the 4^th quarter. Or that Az Hakim's butterfingers came back to haunt us again. But the truth of the matter is that the game went from being a win to a loss in those 56 seconds near the beginning of the 4^th quarter. Had Curry not made that block, the score is 24-10, and the Lions aren't sitting at the 10 yard line for the next play to happen. The second D TD by the Vikes was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things other than it prevented the Lions from scoring a go-ahead TD or FG. But again, without those two earlier plays, the Lions wouldn't have been pressing on 4^th and 10.

The Vikings proved all day long (and all season long for that matter) that their version of the Wet Toast O is just as inefficient at putting points on the board as the Lions was for the last 5 years. It should be painfully obvious to everyone now that the Wet Toast O is an O for a great mobile QB to excel in, but anyone else is dead meat in it. The Vikings weren't going to score 14+ points on O at that point in the game. They had only scored 10 in just over 3 quarters, plus the Lions D showed after that that they could hold them to a FG over 2 more series for the Kikes.

It really is simple. Eliminate those two glaring mistakes, and we're sitting here with a win on the books.

Anger

Hey folks, I'm back after a few weeks off on business travel. So I get back and I tuned in to watch the Lions - Queens game today. It definitely set off some emotions in me.

There's only one way to describe what I'm feeling toward the Lions right now. I'm mad. So mad I had to restrain myself from kicking my dog, that's how mad. Once again, this team of bumbling fools finds a way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Tell me honestly - Does anyone really feel better about the team this year than they did any of the last four years with Joey at QB? If so, please send some of whatever you're smoking my way as you are ridiculously high. The team is 0-5. They were NEVER this bad with Joey under center. Yet all I hear is how people have so much better of a feeling about this team.

Get a clue - this is about as bad as it gets.

So the O is a more exciting as they throw the ball downfield. Big deal, they still lose. The D finally looks decent for a game, so the O blows chunks.

2 defensive TD's given up in the 4th quarter? Are you kidding me?

Where is the anger? Where are the calls for Kitna's head? Where are the calls for firing Marinelli? The start this year has me more upset than any other year of Millen's reign. The play is inexcusable. We've seen the same stupid penalties, the same bumbled plays, the same dropped passes. Well, OK that's just because Az Hakim is now a Lion again - didn't we learn that lesson already about his hands?

And please, I don't want to hear any excuses about Roy and Woody getting hurt. We've lost key players every year for the last 6 seasons. Injuries seem to be more a fact of life with this franchise than any other I can think of. The problem is that no one ever steps up when someone else goes down.

I'm mad. First game I've seen in three weeks due to business travel and I had to witness that debacle. It's a dang good thing I have Tigers tickets for next Sunday so I won't have to go to the game. Here I was thinking that based on what I've heard that the O had come around, and the D now had to step up.

Nope. Same Old Lions.

Maybe I'll write something more about the game tomorrow after I've calmed down. What a freaking joke...

Appearances can be deceiving

Well, last weekend, I was still out testing cars in Arizona, so I missed out on seeing the carnage. For once, I'm glad I didn't see the game until Tuesday afternoon when I got home from my trip and cranked up the TiVo. I got a rundown of the game Sunday night from my brother who was at the game in Chicago. It went like this:

- HUGE number of penalties - and they were very one sided.

- Several calls of either fumbles or completions / incompletions were very suspect.

- Bears fans in the stands are clueless jerks.

After hearing that this was the same officiating crew that did the Cowboys and Ravens games for us last year, I'm not surprised. That crew was disciplined for both of those games last year, and it sounds like there may be more coming after this game.

Then I went back and watched the game. A few things struck me about what I saw.

The Lions did commit a lot of penalties. But there were several glaring omissions by the officiating crew on the Bears. Here were the lowlights of the calls.

- On 3 separate plays (including one of the TD bombs) a Lions D-Lineman was tackled after beating the Bears O-Line. James Hall was the victim on two of the no-calls, Kalimba on the third. Each should have been an easy holding call, but there were inexcusably missed.

- Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but I though tackling someone's head was illegal. On 5 separate plays, I saw Bears defenders tackling a Lions players Head. Granted, facemasks weren't grabbed, but heads were still turned around or snapped in unnatural directions. For some reason, I thought that type of tackling was outlawed as Being too significant of an injury risk. Apparently either I am wrong, or the officials don't know about the rule.

- The Berrian TD and the Kitna fumble should have been reviewed and overturned. I am very convinced after seeing the replays that Kitna's arm was moving forward, and definitely convinced that the ball Berrian caught bounced off the ground before he had control.
Those aren't on the officials per se, but on Rod for not throwing the red hanky.

Beyond that I was left with one more surprising revelation. If the Lions hadn't kept shooting themselves in the foot by fumbling and committing their own stupid penalties, the game was a lot closer than it appeared.

OK, now stop laughing and wipe up the beverage you just shot out of your nose off your monitor.

Unlike in previous games, the Lions were moving the ball with relative ease against the Bears D.
Their primary problem was stopping themselves with penalties, or turnovers. The Lions first two drives lasted all of 5 plays combined and ended up with turnovers that gave the Bears awesome field position. The third drive, they came out with three quick first downs, then had consecutive plays of a sack, false start and holding to turn a 1st and 10 at the 46 into a 2nd and 31 at the 25. The next drive, a KJ 12 yard swing pass was negated by a holding call on Mike Furrey. By the time they stopped committing penalties, they were already down 24-0. After that point, they simply allowed sacks to stop their drives.

The D wasn't as bad as it looked either, and Grossman wasn't as good as he appeared. As I previously mentioned, Berrian trapped his TD catch. His first TD pass capped of an impressive, time consuming 2 play, 3 yard drive that took 38 seconds off the clock. The third TD to Desmond Clark was one of the plays that featured James Hall getting tackled. And the 4th TD came on the same drive as the Boss Bailey interception TD that was called back. As a side note, yes, the penalty was a good call, but it was pretty ticky-tack - that call could be made on nearly every play.

So my conclusion is that it was a deceiving game as to how evenly matched the two teams are because of the officiating. I hate sounding like sour grapes and placing so much blame on the officiating, but it is what it is. Many of the Lions penalties were correct calls. But there were a LOT of missed calls out there. And when you miss so many calls, it definitely skews the outcome of the game.

A side note - I won't be watching the game this weekend, and I won't get a chance to see the TiVo until next weekend. More business travel back to Arizona, and I fly out on Sunday morning. Needless to say, I'm not thrilled about the time my flight was booked. It's just great to have season tickets and not get a chance to actually go to the games...

Better late than never

Well, I've been out of town ever since the game ended, traveling for business, so tonight is the first time I've had a chance to write down my thoughts on the game. Sorry for the delay. Hopefully I can deliver something that makes you go "hmmmm..." I'm not going to break down the game because it's too late for that. Too far in the past for me to bring anything meaningful to the party. But I can give my insight into the feel at the stadium.

My first regular season game as a season ticket holder was an interesting affair. We sit in the east end zone, and when the teams are in our end of the field, the game is pretty impressive. Of course when they are at the other end, it's a LONG way away. But watching from that angle got all my football senses going.

I play a little game where I try to predict what the play is and which way it's going, kinda like QB1, but a live version without automatic scoring. When I can see the field from sideline to sideline (kinda like a video game), I found I could predict with a high degree of accuracy just before the snap where Seattle's O was going with a play. Maybe it's 5 years of seeing the Lions version of the wet toast offense that taught me what to look for, but somehow, I was calling out the play before the snap a lot. Seattle's O is pretty predictable, just like most west coast O's are, in that they try to run players to spots where the D isn't, and take advantage of the position of the defender. But to predict it, the view from where I sit is very helpful. I doubt I could predict as well from the sideline - too hard to see the spacing I was seeing. But it sure was weird to call their plays as much as I was doing.

On the other hand, the Martz O was nearly impossible to read. He shifts players and puts guys in motion so much that it really doesn't give an observer (or a Defense) a good chance to see the spacing and alignments. Nice and tricky in that it allows the O to get in a formation that the D can't adjust to quickly enough pre-snap, and frequently allowed receivers to be running free. My guessing the Lions O plays was only successful based on down and distance - 3rd and 8 was easy to guess. Other than that, it was like flipping a coin. Definitely not the predictable BS we've been accustomed to.

One thing that was also readily apparent was that Martz O allowed our receivers to run free a LOT more than we've seen in years. Basically, if Kitna had wanted to, he could have zeroed in on Roy and thrown over half the balls to him and Roy would have still been wide open. Part of that was that Seattle was also still significantly more committed to stopping KJ than to stopping the pass. There were a lot of 8 or 9 men in the box situations - and I still want to see Kitna allowed to audible out of those.

The one thing that I had been curious about in preseason related to the D was answered emphatically - Shaun Rogers is a HUGE difference maker. Not in just his ability to create havoc, but that he changes the O blocking schemes. Seattle had to have two guys account for Baby on nearly every play. That freed up the other D-linemen for one-on-one matchups and kept the LB's free to make plays. That single difference is amazing in how it changes the effectiveness of our D. Our fast LB's were able to run sideline to sideline and make plays - which they couldn't do in preseason. Shaun is that big of a difference maker - and the improvement of the D can easily be placed solely on his presence.

It will be interesting to see how the game this week plays out with Da Bearz. I'm still not ready to bet on the Lions in any way because there is still too much we don't know about the team. But if I had to make one bet this week, it's take the under. Even if the number is 20. The only way either team is scoring a TD is if the D's score it. At least that's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it.

Also, I likely won't see the game in real time again this week. I'll still be out in Arizona traveling, so I'll have to catch my TiVo recording of it when I get home Monday afternoon. So don't expect next weeks' entry early either. You've been warned...

Frustration

This deserves a post of it's own...

FunkTron made this comment about my recent postings:

Quote: I think you are going overboard with the "LIE" commentary.

He's probably right that I am going a little overboard. For me, it's a lot of pent up frustration - I wanted to see what those two (BMW and CRog) could really do on the field, in a game. I think we've all wanted to see that.

We all saw them play in college and have drooled over the possibilities of what they could do in a Lions uniform. Then, we haven't gotten to see them do much of anything. We've had to rely on the opinion of coaches in practice. Yes, the coaches are experts, and I'm not. But that doesn't make me want to see the coaches at least try to use them in a manner similar to how they had so much success in college.

I've been waiting...

And waiting...

And waiting...

And after all the waiting for all their varied offenses - CRog and BMW have been far from angels that have earned their shot - we finally heard that they were going to be given a chance in a preseason game. That got me excited. I wanted to see if they would actually use them in a manner consistent with their abilities and how that would play out in a game. I probably was expecting too much there, but I at least wanted to see them involved in the action.

And then we saw them barely used, and completely ignored in the game.

I didn't want to see if Glenn Martinez can catch the ball. I didn't want to see Sean McHugh and his T-Rex arms not be able to catch another pass. I didn't want to see Shaun Bodiford run around and run the wrong route. I wanted a chance to see the two thoroughbreds actually get some meaningful chances to catch the ball - something we haven't seen in even a single preseason game.

What adds to the frustration is that this was the last preseason game - the one with practically no entertainment value at all as the stars won't play at all, and the first teams will only play one series. The rest of the game is basically watching guys you hope to never have to see play during the regular season because if you do, your season is already lost.

So all that excitement was thrown on top of that stinker of a game, and gave me reason to actually get excited to see a game that normally I would have had about as much interest in as picking my belly button lint. And look what happened.

If the coaching staff had given us ANY indication that we would only see CRog for one series, and BMW would not have a single pass thrown his way, then maybe I'd be less hostile. But they didn't. I spent $124 on two tickets I really had no interest in (the biggest problem with season tickets - you have to pay for pre-season tickets whether you want them or not) and felt like they had purposely told the fans the 'significant playing time' line simply to get us to come to this game and spend more money at Ford Field instead of simply staying home and watching it on TV.

Now, I'll never get the chance to see if Charles Rogers can become a successful NFL WR as a Detroit Lion. It was obvious that he was going to get cut after the game, everyone knew it. In a best case scenario, he goes to Miami where he can be coached by Nick Saban again, or to Philadelphia, so he can become the #1 target for Donovan McNabb. I have a hunch that he'll find success elsewhere, and it will be this season. Of course I'm not always even close with my hunches, so he could continue to flame out and be out of the league for good.

In any case, there are 8 more days til the start of the season. And I'm not sure it's going to be a great start...

I hate "last preseason games"

Just got back from the game. Watching in the cheap seats (well, at least as cheap as a $62 seat can be), you get a different feel for what is going on at the game. Here are my quick impressions based on what I saw without the benefit of TiVo...

First off, I feel cheated and lied to. We heard that CRog and BMW were going to be given "significant playing time" prior to the game. Here is the quick synopsis of their PT.
CRog - one series, open the 2nd half, 9 plays, 1 pass thrown to him, 3 yard hitch.
BMW - remaining series in the 2nd half, 21 plays, 0 passes thrown to him.
How in the heck can the staff call that "significant"? That was BS. In the stands by me, we were paying close attention to when either of them walked on the field. There were at least 2 more passes that should have gone toward CRog, but DanO wasn't looking his way. And BMW... sheesh. There were at least 6 plays that should have gone to him. What the HELL are they doing throwing 3 passes to Sean McHugh and 0 to BMW? When they throw a fade route to the end zone, WHY is it going to Glenn Martinez and not BMW? This made absolutely no sense whatsoever. And it's not like either guy wasn't open - they were. They were simply ignored.

If you say you are going to give them PT to evaluate them, at least run a few plays for them. 1 play in 30 to two former top-10 picks in the second half is ridiculous. If I'm Millen, and I was told the guys I drafted were going to get a shot, and then this happened, I might be firing someone tonight. Just ridiculous.

Now that I have that off my chest, I can get back to the game. This was my first game I was able to attend from my new season ticket seats. Let's just say that the people around me have already figured out that they are going to have a new experience watching the game. The reason is that I'm a talker during the game. Not yelling at the coaches, but basically providing running color commentary during the game. I had an old guy next to me turn off his radio to listen to my commentary about what we were seeing, and three separate people commented and thanked me for keeping them entertained while we sat through that clunker of a game.

The first series of the game worried me. That was our starting D against their starting O out there, and the Bills marched down the field on us. Not good. We all were commenting "this is going to be a long season" after the opening drive. And then to follow that drive, we went 3-and-out. Highlight of the drive was rookie Jonathan Scott giving up a sack on his very first play at LT. Ouch. At this point, the people in the stands were expecting to be in for a very long night. It was silent in there. Then we held Buffalo to a 3-and-out of their own. Still no emotion, save the few cheers for the A-Train. Our second possession started before the first quarter ended, and we managed a first down to give us a grand total of +2 yards of O in the first quarter. Nice...

But that drive kept going, mostly due to Eddie Drummond. It looks like McCown really likes throwing to Eddie. And we barely made 3 first downs during that drive - by probably less than the length of a football on each of them. And then it gets stuck in the endzone to tie the score. Nice drive, a lot of longer passes, the kind of drive I hope to see a lot during the season. And it was starting to get a little exciting in there.

Of course then Buffalo hits on a 24 yard pass on their first play after the TD to cool things off. But then they get stuffed on the next three plays and we have the ball back. After an uninspired short drive to follow the TD, Buffalo gets the ball back and promptly goes up top to Josh Reed for a 35 yard gain. Nice, just what we needed to completely silence the crowd again. But the D started to hold again, finally stopping them at the 2 yard line to force a FG as time ran out in the half. We end the half down 10-7, and the crowd is more than ready to go find the bathrooms.

The second half was barely watchable due to the scrubs that were playing. But it started out looking like we were going to be in for a show. The Lions got the kickoff, and CRog took the field. There was an immediate buzz in the crowd as we were all anticipating this. On the second play, DanO throws a quick hitch to Chuck, and we're all expecting several more balls to go his way. This was finally going to be his chance to show what he can do. But then they stopped. He was open a few other plays in the 9 play drive, but nothing even came close to him. Instead, DanO is throwing dump-offs to Bryson and Calhoun, and his longer passes to Glenn Martinez and Shaun Ellis. This is not what we wanted to see, at all. And then the drive stalled, due mostly to a sack, and we didn't see CRog again. The next series, BMW came in, and we were fully expecting to see him running alongside CRog. Nope, not gonna happen. Instead, we get to see the Arlen Harris show and attempted passes to Sean McHugh - who by no fault of his own is quite possibly the worst TE in the history of football. I thought for sure he was a goner when Mooch got the axe, but somehow he survives. Maybe he's got something on Millen, but I digress...

In between those series, Buffalo had another short series, not really much happening for them. We get the Arlen Harris show series, then Buffalo gets the ball back near midfield. They make a few first downs, and kick a field goal. Not really exciting stuff there. We get the ball back, and proceed to see the Brian Calhoun show. Calhoun looks decent running the ball, and we all get excited when we see him bust one up the middle for a big gainer. But in the end, too many runs up the middle, and ANOTHER pass to McHugh that he can't get to. The official NFL sheet says it was overthrown, but shoulder height is a high throw for someone with T-Rex arms. But again, I digress...

Buffalo's next series is the shortest of the night, the second play being an interception. We still have no idea who Craig Nall was throwing that ball to as there was no one within 20 yards of it except Lions defenders. But we'll take a little charity, it's nice to receive every now and then. We start with 1st down at the Buffalo 18. Should be an easy 6. The first play we run a fade route to BM...err.. NO, IT'S GLENN MARTINEZ, and he can't even stay in bounds before the ball gets there. Then we run a pass up the middle to BM...err... NO, IT'S SEAN MCHUGH who promptly lets the ball go through his tragically short T-Rex arms. And then DanO gets sacked so we kick a FG. Needless to say, we are pretty ticked in the stands. Here we have a thoroughbred on the field who was born to make those kind of plays, and we completely ignore him for a couple of undrafted free agents who shouldn't even be on our practice squad. Nice. I'm ticked at this point.

So what does Buffalo do to make me nearly get up and leave? They come back and on their third play from scrimmage, they connect on a 70 yarder. Nice deep pass against completely blown coverage. I missed seeing who it was that let Andre Davis just walk on by them, but that was horrid coverage. Half the crowd got up and left after that play, for good reason. I was fuming mad at that point. Time for another beer.

Then the Lions do the improbable - they go on a long drive. This one highlighted by Calhoun, Harris and Martinez. No CRog, he hasn't seen the field since his one series. No BMW, he hasn't sniffed the ball, even though he's been on the field ever since CRog left it. And the drive stalls at the Buffalo 18, for another FG to make it 20-13. OK, so there's 3:06 left, we'll do an onside kick to try to get the ball back. Of course if they do score, they have to go for 2, because we DON'T WANT OT in the final pre-season game. Nope, no way. So what do we do? We kick it deep. Everyone left in the stands is standing there with their mouths open wide; words can not express how dumbfounded we all are. OK, so we're gonna try to hold them, use our TO's and the 2 minute warning, and get the ball back, right? Except that strategy doesn't work when the Bills gain 19 yards on their first play.

At this point, we get up and walk out.

I forgot to set the TiVo to record, so I won't have to relive that nightmare of a game again. In a strange way, I'm really thankful for that.

It was good seeing McCown throw the ball that well. 11 of 14 for 97 yards and a TD? Not too shabby. And with DanO's performance, I'm guessing McCown just took the 2nd string job. I was wondering if his performance in previous games was more related to the players around him than himself, and I think we have our answer. He looked better with the 2nd stringers than DanO previously did, and better with the third stringers in previous games than DanO did tonight.

Calhoun looked good too. He has a darting and shiftiness that vaguely has some similarities to old #20. He's no where in Barry's league, but there are some similarities in his running style.

Another player who stood out was Claude Harriott. Sorry if I don't mention much about the D, but there really wasn't much that was noticeable. Harriott was. He has been a disruptive force with Swancutt when he's been in there, and he definitely belongs on the team. He just seemed to always be near the QB and the ball. Very disruptive, and I liked seeing that.

That's all for tonight. Maybe I'll write some more tomorrow when I see what the jokers in the press have had to say. Should be interesting. Can't wait to hear Rod's explanation for why BMW and CRog were ignored...

The REAL game notes...

Maybe we should punt the entire season away...
OK, after last night I needed a little time to digest the carnage I saw on the field. I sat down and watched it again this morning, with a little less alcohol, and I think I have a bit better idea about what was going on out there. It still wasn't pretty, but it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it was last night.

- First the plays we were talking about. On the Moss TD bomb, Jon McGraw got to Brooks on the blitz, and was hauled down from behind. The play should have been called back for holding - never happened. It was that obvious on the replay. But since it wasn't, we got to face the absurd reality that we were trying to cover Randy Moss with Fernando Bryant. We've only played against him for like 8 years and seen him do this to us how many times? Ah yes, we have new coaches who aren't familiar with Randy torching the Lions. At least they hopefully learned this lesson in the preseason.

- The second Moss TD was a head scratcher as well. Somehow Levar Woods was matched up man-to-man with Randy Moss. Whoever called that scheme and thought Woods could guard Moss should be fired. Today.

On to the player breakdowns...
- Kitna looked awful. DanO also didn't look good. It was a bad night for our QB's, and that's never a way to win a game. If Kitna keeps running the way he has been, he won't make it to the 5th game. He got his clock rung a few times last night on his runs. Not a good thing for your starter to be doing. DanO skipped a few of his passes to his receivers they were so short. We didn't even see McCown, but he couldn't have done any worse than those two did.

- KJ looked good last night. Real good. End of his rookie season good. I love this Heisman Trophy pose... I actually was surprised when I saw the replay about how well he was running. Had a few of his teammates done their jobs, he could have had a 100 yard game last night. He was hitting the holes well, accelerating through them, and making contact when needed. He also caught the ball well out of the backfield. He was definitely the shining star on O.

- But once again, the O-line wasn't. I slowed down several plays, and saw more of the same from previous games - O-linemen not making the right reads, missing the correct blocks, not holding the blocks long enough. The only one I didn't see make a glaring mistake was Raiola. Verba seems to pull well, but he doesn't always make contact with the guy he's supposed to. Backus got beat by a speed rusher around the end again - what else is new?. And then the right side of the line... ick. We need Woody and Tucker back because Stokes showed why Butler is beating him out, and that isn't good. And DeMulling showed he was the same blocker as last year. Even Pollard got into the mix, getting blown up by a LB in the hole when he was supposed to lay down a lead block for KJ on one play. Beightol had better work his magic with these guys, and quickly.

- At WR, someone needs to remind Kitna who his best WR is. Roy was mostly invisible, and that's never good for our team. Instead, most of Kitna's throws went to Furrey and Bradford. I'm not really impressed with either of them. They're OK players, but nothing special. And when you don't have a single completion to anyone named Williams, it's not going to be pretty. To be honest, I don't even know if BMW got in the game. If this is what we're going to be seeing during the regular season, it's going to be really ugly.

- On the other side of the ball, we really miss Baby. Get well Shaun, because we need you in there to draw a double team. It really messes up the other teams blocking patterns because they have to account for him. Without him in there, they can pretty much run it any way they want. Shaun Cody looked good, but there was an obvious hole in the line next to him. Our ends were invisible all night as well. IMHO, we have to get Swancutt in there with the first team and see if he can get it done with them. He was a bright spot again, and he deserves a shot.

- At LB, I didn't see too much of Ernie Sims. He just didn't' seem to be around the ball like he was in previous weeks. On the other hand, the Raiders ran at Paris Lenon as much as they could, and it was obvious they intended to. On at least 3 of their draws, Lenon was in the hole, and simply couldn't react to stop Lamont Jordan and Justin Fargas before they gained 6+ yards. He wasn't stepping up into the hole and initiating contact, he was waiting for it to come to him, and it went right on by him. At least we did see Boss Bailey play, and he looked OK in the middle. And Alex Lewis looked good as well. Maybe next week we'll see a starting lineup of Sims, Bailey and Lewis instead of Sims, Woods and Lenon. That would be a huge improvement.

- At DB, it wasn't pretty. Once again, Bryant got burned deep. He has shown absolutely nothing since he came to Detroit. Oakland mostly avoided throwing toward Dre, because of how easy it was to throw elsewhere. And our safeties were mostly missing in action. But truth be told, this wasn't the biggest problem area on D, the line and LB's were.

Ugh, it wasn't a pretty game. Dunno how we're supposed to have any good feeling going into the regular season after seeing that kind of a display. Maybe I should try to get my money back for my season tickets...

Game Notes - Oakland

We Suck!


























OK, so I probably should write a bit more. I'll post my thoughts tomorrow. Let's just say this was worse than last week...

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.

Slowly but surely...

Sorry about the delay folks. I've been out of town over the weekend. I watched about the first half Friday night before I fell asleep on the couch. Yes, it was that boring of a game. But don't worry, I have it on TiVo and I'll finish watching it and have the writeup tomorrow night.

Of course you can guess that it won't be pretty. I kinda spelled it out in my one post over at The Den Saturday morning before we left for the relatives. "I guess that kinda killed the feel-good attitude we had from the first game, eh?"

More tomorrow night...

What I learned last night...

It seems that Lions fans fall into fits of hyperbole when given the slightest glimmer of hope. The game last night was no different from most preseason games - it teased you enough on many different levels and gave you glimmers of what might be. As always with preseason games, it is next to impossible to judge every player on the roster as no one gets a lot of time against the first strings, and many starters are held out for the most minor of reasons. But we did see some things that are remarkably different from years past. In all, this was an interesting game from a number of points.

- That was definitely NOT the 'Greatest Show on Turf' offense. It didn't look bad, but they 'pounded the rock' a lot more than any Martz team I've seen in the last few years. Heck, they pounded more than any Lions team we've seen since Boss Ross was around. 25 runs in 46 plays. Definitely not what I expected to see from Martz.

- On the other hand, the choice of passes was a HUGE difference to last year. Far more passes (percentage-wise, not pure number) were thrown downfield than we've seen around here in a LONG time. And it looks like we've got the horses to run those routes.

- One thing I'm a bit concerned about after last night is not allowing the QB to audible out of a bad setup. On two different plays, Denver stacked 9 in the box against KJ, and the Lions called sweeps - a recipe for disaster. Unless there is a halfback option pass that is part of the play call, those two plays should never have been run. In addition, the two throws to Pollard were both destined to only get 1-2 yards based on where the D lined up against him. Maybe those were more on the QB for a bad read (both were quick throws with a defender in close), but they should be audibled out of.

- Kitna looked solid. I'm not sold on his arm strength as it looked like one or two of his passes were slow in getting to the target, but he was on the money. Dan-O looked good except for the duck he threw up. In re-watching the game, I'm not sure that INT was on him - it looked like he threw a corner route and Bodiford ran a post. IMHO, it's pretty obvious why he's #2 on the depth chart over McCown. McCown didn't look bad, but he was playing with the third string. I'd guess Martz switches it up next week, plays McCown with the second string and DanO with the third just to get a better feel for where each of them are.

- KJ is going to get a lot of work this year. As long as we can keep him from having to do a Barry Sanders impression (dodging 2-3 guys in the backfield), he should have a huge year. Based on the defense played against the Lions last night, teams definitely fear KJ more than the passing attack right now. The Broncos typically put either 8 or 9 in the box when KJ was in the game. Once he was done and Harris came in, they brought more than 7 on only one play - the quick TD toss to Harris. It was a remarkable difference to see when I watched the tape, and it speaks volumes about what other teams think the strength of the Lions O is right now.

- The O-line didn't impress me too much. Of course Woody and Tucker weren't playing, but it was the other side of the line - Backus and Verba - that didn't impress. Too much penetration was allowed from that side of the line. In re-watching the game, it appears that it may be more of a 'gelling' issue than anything. There were a few missed assignments that looked very much like they didn't know where each other was supposed to be just yet. Hopefully we'll see improvement in this area in the next few games. One good thing was that our QB's didn't get hit anywhere near as much as I had been fearing they would. I hope we see that continue next week.

- It was hard to get a read on any of the receivers. Too many guys out there and not enough balls thrown to any of them individually to really get a great feel for any of them. There were a few nice plays though - Roy, Bradford and BMW all made decent grabs. On the other hand, Drummond and Bodiford didn't impress me much as both caught only 1 of 3 balls thrown their way, when all were catchable. Martinez looked lost on the one pass he caught, and he was easily out muscled at the goal line on a play that BMW or Chuck could have made. There is a reason those two guys were 1st round picks, and Martinez, Bodiford and Drummond were undrafted. The last three may play with more desire right now, but they are physically limited and can't make some of the plays that the other guys can. That's why I expect that both BMW and CRog will make the team - for all their other assorted issues, they still are supremely talented. Hopefully the motivation will kick in and they'll get it soon.

- On the D side, even though the Lions were running without 6 of the front 7 projected starters, they did OK. The stats look skewed for both TOP and # of plays. Originally, I thought it was the result of the Lions working a short field most of the time. In re-watching the game, I was a bit more surprised at what I saw. Denver moved down the field pretty easily on most of their possessions. Had they not fumbled twice in the first half, they looked like they could have scored 14 more points as the D was giving up lots of yardage. Thankfully Denver couldn't hold onto the ball. Again, the Lions played without 6 of their front 7 starters, so I can cut them some slack.

- On the D-line, the two guys who stood out the most were Swancutt and Harriott. They were driving and creating havoc in the backfield. But we didn't see anything even remotely similar to what we should see in the regular season since Shaun Rogers, Shaun Cody and Cory Redding all sat this one out.

- At LB, Levar Woods still impresses the heck out of me. The guy looked like our best LB in the final 3 games last year, and he was all over the field today. But his play was overshadowed by Ernie Sims. Ernie should be playing on the first string next week, period. He looked that good, flying around, hitting people, and even doing it on special teams. When Boss gets back in the lineup, hopefully next week, this unit should improve considerably.

- At DB, I was impressed with the play of McCann and Bullocks. These two guys look like keepers. McCann did a good job in getting in front of the ball and defending a few passes. Bullocks laid the lumber a few times, and looks like a natural back there already. I think he may be starting over Holt by the end of the pre-season. On the other hand, Dre' looked like he knew it was a preseason game and wasn't flying around the way we have become accustomed to seeing him play. A guess is that it may have been due to Rod Smith and Javon Walker sitting out and him not feeling challenged. And once again, Fernando Bryant was invisible, but what else is new?

In all, we saw enough in this game to give us a better feel for what we will see once the games count - not in terms of the players, but in terms of the basic strategies. The deep pass is back, and once teams have to respect that, it should open things up for KJ more. The D is harder to read without so many starters, but it looked Ok even while being outmanned. Not a bad start to the preseason, but nothing to get too overly excited about.

Heading to Las Vegas

Well next week, I'll be in Las Vegas for a few days. I get sent out to Phoenix and Vegas on occasion as part of hot weather testing for cars. In case anyone didn't know, I'm a fuel systems engineer for a large supplier here in Detroit, and part of my job is to go on these test trips. The cool thing about hot testing is that we stay in Phoenix and Las Vegas and these are two GREAT cities to visit. The bad thing is that we go in the summer when the average temps are well over 100F. It makes it hard on the cars to keep running, but thats what we do the tests for - to make sure our systems don't break down because of the heat. The major OEM proving grounds are all around the Phoenix area, so we usually fly in there. But Death Valley is the hottest spot in the USA, and that's about 8 hours from Phoenix but only 3 hours from Vegas, so we go to Vegas for a few nights. The Death Valley day is a LONG day of testing - usually about 12 hours on the road between driving there, testing and returning, and it's usually 120F+ in Death Valley, so these days are anything but a picnic. But we do get to spend the nights on the strip in Vegas, so...

That really brings me to the main point of this post. Since I'll be spending time in Vegas, I intend on hitting a few Sports Books to check out the odds on the Lions for the upcoming season. I figure I can lay down a few smallish size bets (impossible to bet large when you have 3 kids) if the odds seem interesting enough. I'll definitely be looking at the over-under for wins, and the Super Bowl odds. My gut is telling me that any odds for the Super Bowl are worth spending only a $20 on as it's still a pie-in-the-sky type of dream. But the over-under has me intrigued...

If anything, it will force me to commit to what I think the Lions record will be next year. If the O-U is at 6, I'm definitely betting the Over. But what if the line is 8? Do I feel confident enough yet to bet the over? What if it's 9? Am I pessimistic enough to bet the under? The problem is that I'll be making these bets prior to seeing any pre-season action. Not that pre-season action has typically ever told us how the Lions will play in the regular season, but I'll really have no clue about all the question marks we have with the club. I'll be betting blind. Plus, I have no idea how much I'll be betting. I'm thinking to keep my total bets to under $100, so that would leave $80 for O-U and other bets after my Super Bowl bet.

With all that said, I'd love to hear people's opinions as to which way to go with bets. I'm going to open up comments without moderation so that I don't have to approve each and every one before it is posted (and I'll still delete all the BS 'pimp viagara pills' posts to keep it clean). I'm very curious about what people really think, and if they'd put their own money down on this team. Let me hear it! I'll get into Vegas on August 6, so there is time before I get there...