Detroit Lions: We're Going to Bite a Kneecap Off
Larry Foote will be a Detroit Lion, ~100% chance of that.
Theres also talk between DET/KC that would involve Glen Dorsey coming here for our 2nd rd pick. Not sure I understand why Pioli wants to get rid of him but I'd gladly ship out our 2nd for him.
You add Dorsey/Foote and it makes our draft look that much better. Shaun Rogers also said he wants to come back to Detroit once he gets released from the Browns, which looks likely.
Biggest question going into the season is will Matt Stafford be the starter from weak 1.
hindsight being 20/20 but I'm obviously 100% happy with this previous draft. Spoon is a phenom, obv, but the weapons they've added make this offense so robust.
short story time. I was talking with my father this morning and he's a lifelong Lions fan but fairly casual. its amazing how slept on Sewell still is, to a degree. I was trying to explain how impactful he is and how he's already on the short list for all time run blockers at his position and my dad was like "what? who?" lolololololol
not really relevant to anything, I was just amused 😃
also, my conspiracy nut brother is convinced a local television station in Canada has leaked the script. I guess we can pack it up and head home, boys
I think he'd already be a very good WR2 on a lot of teams, and probably a 1 on some. He's just competing with an All-Pro WR and an elite TE for targets, while often running deep routes that Goff isn't too comfortable throwing but have to be respected by the defense. He's also a dog blocking in the run game.
Going to disagree with that assessment, I don’t see him as WR1 on any team, even one without functional wideouts like KC. He’s been decent, but he’s not a finished product.
Two more days. I'm pumped. Gotta get through some family gathering bullshit on Saturday but Sunday is mine. Calendar cleared, and ready for football.
Welcome to the show! Pretty much fumbled the bag away in the 3rd. How do they rebound? Is this group/org for real, or one hit wonders? I'm leaning for real. They're gonna extend Goff, obviously, but I would let him play out next year and probably use the Franchise Tag going forward. I'd pay the premium upfront to not be locked into anything for 5 years. If he doesn't get one in the next two years he'll be run out of town. If he does...
"pay that man his monies"
Proud of this group, though. Game of inches. One heck of a year!
Yeah, that was quite a string of high leverage plays that all went against the Lions in 3rd.
Oh well, still the best season in forever and the future looks bright.
I'm not even a real Lions fan and that game legit hurt me. That has to be the most devastating loss in Lions history. 85.1% SB equity at halftime. Goddamn I can't believe that game happened. If Michigan were up 24-7 vs Washington at the half and all that crazy **** happened for Michigan to choke it away I would probably have stomach pains for a week and I don't think I would ever really recover from it. My gf is a diehard Lions fan. She was laying in bed afterwards with nausea. That game seriously made her sick.
I thought this would be a good taste of success. Now I just hate the playoffs.
It's Michigan-TCU all over again. You just can't make 5 of the 6 biggest mistakes in the game and expect to win.
Only this team can manage to overwhelmingly exceed my expectation and kick me in the nuts on the same day. The team was going to have to play perfect to win this one, and they almost did for a while, but drops on key downs, a bad fumble, and a 50 yard bomb bouncing off the DBs facemask into the receivers hands. You're just not going to win the NFCCG on the road with those kinds of mistakes.
At the start of the 2021 season this team was at rock bottom. Losing their only good QB. Riddled with cap crippling contracts, and very little young talent. Even a "good" rebuild would probably look like 2 years of mostly suck, then in year 3 meaningful November football, and possibly after that competing for a shot like this. By those metrics this hasn't been a good rebuild, it's been a great one. In just 3 seasons they've managed to:
- Turn Jared Goff from pariah back into top 10 (maybe 5?) QB in the NFL in terms of production.
- Draft no less than 5 players already among the elites at their position (Penei, St. Brown, Hutch, Gibbs, LaPorta). Plus a lot of other promising young talent.
- Win more playoff games than the pervious 17 coaches combined.
Despite what happened this appears to be a competent organization. At worst it feels like we're maybe the Steelers now. Playoff appearances and division wins are the expectation and may get normalized. Sustained success season after season seems achievable, and it's not just a passing fad before a return to mediocrity or worse.
The good
- The cap situation is still in really healthy shape for the time being.
- The core of this team should stick together and likely only gets better from here.
- This organization seems to actually understand how to build and develop a football team.
It's mostly positive from here. There are a few things though.
Areas of concern:
- Goff is good, but not the kind of QB that can seem to magically will his way to the SB like Mahomes and Brady. But those guys are generational. The Lions will have to win as a team.
- The CB position is still problematic, as witnessed yesterday. I expect to see some moves get made here, but it's not clear it will be an easy fix.
- No more top 10 draft picks. Those were fun while they lasted, and they hit dingers on those, but we have to get used to drafting towards the back of round 1, which means finding starters and immediate fixes gets a lot harder.
- Ben Johnson is the best OC this team has ever had by a long shot. If he was here during the prime Stafford era, we might be talking about multiple deep playoff runs. Decent chance he's gone this year, although not as sure of a thing as it felt like 4 weeks a go.
Dan Campbell's post game speech was right. Getting back here is far from guaranteed, and it's only going to get harder. I've always said I just want the Lions to be a good team. Sustained success. Competitive football against the best teams. But now that they were this close to a superbowl I want it. It's going to be tough to accept less than this going forward. I hope this is the right organization that can build on this, and that it's not their peak. I believe it can be.
Ben Johnson like 96% the next Washington Head Coach
That's 100%
He's gone
Great year. We will NFC North title again next year.
SB equity for next season just took a nice jump.
Their odds to win the 2025 SB are +1200. Their odds to win the 2024 SB at the start of the playoffs were +2200.
It's not hard to see Det/SF being the main NFC rivalry for the next 5 years or so. SF is probably the better team at the moment but they have a fair share of tough contract decisions coming up. Detroit could potentially gain a lot of ground on them with a good offseason.
This Lions team just feels different than other good Lions teams in the past. They're young, the salary cap is in good shape, and the coaching staff seems abnormally competent compared to past teams. A well run organization will consistently compete in the playoffs. Sometimes you can get into QB hell like where Pittsburgh is right now, but I don't see that being a problem. But realistically that's about all you can ask. There's an insane amount of rungood that has to happen to be a perennial SB contender. And as much as I want that, I know I just sort of have to be happy with seasons like this one.
Gonna go ahead and post this here. If you are sensitive at all maybe have a tissue handy
That letter!!
I don't know much about football history, but it feels like the Lions are on the precipice of a real dynasty.
Brad Holmes' post-mortem was ****ing incredible as well. And Sheila is obviously an Angel sent from heaven.
We're heading towards divinity...
I too sort of owe Alex an apology. I just assumed he was some rando they pulled out of a bargain bin in 2021 to fill out a salary cap depleted roster. Now he's a key piece of a Super Bowl contender. He seems to have really embraced the team and city.
It's easy to get emotional about this team. I still feel like the NFL is mostly an RNG when it comes to success, but it's hard to deny that Brad and Dan might be building something real here that can last a while. Just based on the amount of rookie deals and current age/cap space alone this team should be competitive for at least a few more.
Don't ask me why but I went through and read this thread through the Patricia era and into the Campbell hiring. Some funny stuff in there. I had my share of bad takes too, but a couple funny ones stood out to me.
Seasons over already. That lions life. Tank for Trevor jk we will draft a OT or something.
Yep, Penei Sewell. I was also against drafting O-Line going into this draft though. I actually had forgotten how godawful the Patricia defenses were, so wanted to go full on defense, but man we got an elite level tackle here so what a great pick.
Lots of y'all wanted Fields in this draft. Which I get it, he was a pretty solid prospect and is an elite athlete. He might turn it around, but I'm glad we didn't go that way. Just thinking back to how that draft played out it's clear Holmes was much higher on Goff than we were and made the prudent move to stand pat and draft a GOAT OT.
I like what I've seen from Campbell so far
But look at that guy
He's defiantly punting on 4th and 1 from the opponents 43 yard line.
There were a lot of our "this is an old school football guy" takes in here but this one made me laugh. I'm really glad we were wrong about Dan. NFL coaches make a frustrating amount of in game mistakes and Dan isn't immune from them either, but I'm glad he's at least embracing the new school 4th and 1 mentality.
I don't know why I'm doing this on a random Wednesday but couldn't believe I found these two posts in this thread:
this is probably my favorite thing. like, it can't be overstated. based on the small sample size, we currently have like a Mahomes level Tackle! legit already a top 10ish run blocker at the position all time and that might be low balling it. very good pass blocker. the frickin guy is 23, lololol
Absolutely love the Holmes strategy of only drafting 'football players'; not combine warriors, not just uber-productive college players, not guys with a pedigree. Seems so simple but every year you see teams strictly prioritize talent over red flags only to get burnt.
Reminds me of Buddy Ryan drafts and his "I can look in a man's eyes and tell you if he can play football".
I’ll be interested to see how it goes when it comes to upgrading. It’s hard to dislike pretty much anyone on the roster (CB excluded) but there are always going to be changes. I think Holmes isn’t going to have much trouble with sentiment but when you love “football guys” it can be hard to let go of them.
