There’s a lot more to this story.
Bottom line is he wasn’t a locker room fit.
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I think we have to reserve judgment until we have a season without a historically bad deficit due to injury.
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I would agree with You expect half the injuries are players he brought in that were often injured. So thats brads fault.
The AA, Davis, Hutch, and Dorsey injuries were fluke injuries. But paschal, levi, davenport, Rakestraw, Turner, Pachecco etc, those guys were often injured before coming to Detroit,
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None of those players being healthy was/is enough is overcome losses of the “fluke” guys.
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Paschal never had a back injury prior to 2025… or a knee injury prior to being drafted.
Levi recovered from his back injury and looked good in 2024… before tearing his ACL. Totally unrelated.
Rakestraw had core muscle surgery & tore an ACL in college. These are not career ending injuries. He has had completely different injuries to his ankle & shoulder since then.
Pacheco never had a back injury before this year… and most RBs miss time with injuries.
Davenport had different fluke injuries as well… including a dislocated elbow sustained from a dirty block by an Arizona OT.
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None of those players had a chronic issue that kept occurring.
They all had a variety of injuries… playing a violent game with huge athletic dudes.
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These days, there are very few players coming out of college with completely clean injury histories. Let’s not forget Anzalone had a TERRIBLE injury history through college and most of his early career, but was very reliable for us over a 4-year stretch, missing only a little less than half a season in 2024.
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John Elway didn’t have a functioning ACL in college or the NFL…
but was the consensus #1 OA pick and obviously a HOF QB.
Frank Gore tore BOTH of his ACLs at Miami… and then turned in a 16 year HOF career at a position known for having a short shelf life.
The assertion that a common injury or two should eliminate a player from being drafted is ridiculous.
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Right, I mean honestly there are prospects who have injury histories who don’t get hurt and some who do, and there are fewer prospects with no injury histories who don’t get hurt and those who do. Both sides of the discussion can hammer out examples here, my main point is that critiquing Brad for taking injured players is a little over the top and fallacious. EVERY GM takes injured players.
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You have to look at why they are injured
Rakestraw is always injured because hes a small fast corner trying to play super physical man coverage.
Same with Pachecco. Built like Gibbs but tries to lay the lumber.
Half of pascal injurys were leg related. Which he dealt with in college because of his cancer. Hard to condition regularly when your dealing with that unfortunately
Levi is always having back issues that started in college. When your legs are messed up at all for an extended period of time you play differently being more susceptible to back injuries. If you’re not walking and running correctly, your back is gonna get tweaked.
Davenport his pecks were held together with hopes and dreams. If your pics are messed up, you can’t condition the rest of your arms. That’s why he had a bunch of wrist and elbow injuries later in his career. He dealt with broken foot multiple times in his college and pro career, which led to leg injuries later on.
the NFL is brutal. If you cant strengthen and condition most of the year because your consistently in and out of rehab your likely to get injured again Its better off to get a guy that had 1 catastrophic injury 2+ years ago (ACL) but has fully recovered. Vs the guy with a minor nagging injury. You have to be able to protect yourself while your playing
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Again though, I could go through and find slight guys who don’t get hurt and big guys who do. I can go through and find guys with back injuries who had long careers. I can go through and find injury after injury after injury for guys who held up. I mean Philly traded a 3rd rounder for Jaelan Phillips who had to retire in college due to his injuries, then he immediately got hurt for them, and they’re still getting a 3rd round comp pick in return for Carolina signing him. Sometimes it’s worth it to take those risks.
Brad doesn’t take any bigger risks than anyone else is my point, not appreciably. We’re just in a bubble where we only pay attention to his moves
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It’s always managements fault. You accept the blame with the job.
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All’s I know is if the season ends well or poorly, somebody is gonna really looove dem receeeps or really hate dem receeeeps when post season questions are asked.
The question about what changed after Terrion was arrested that got him cut was fair. The rest of that shit wasn’t and I’m someone who thinks how bad our outside corner depth actually will determine the season
There will always be some randomness to injuries in football. But, availability is a skill. Some players prepare, eat, sleep, stretch, etc, to a level that keeps them more healthy than other players. Some might just be pure dna. And yes, it is hard to guage when injuries are just one offs, that guys will come back from, vs whether they are indicators of other future issues. I think it is a big mistake to act like injuries are only a random event that can’t be managed. There are reasons we are consistantly one of the most injured teams in the NFL. We don’t weigh it enough when picking players, and our training methods need to be looked at. And I would love for us to put in grass…
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Fieldturf ruins careers
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And how many of them took on as bare bones a roster as Brad did.
I get the frustrations of last year, I get some of the frustrations about the personnel, the depth in particular with some position groups and his mid round trade ups the last few drafts, but some perspective is needed
1st year - 3-13-1 but a team that was clearly trending up towards the end of the season, lots of close losses early on
2nd year - 9-8, a team that was on a major upswing and I bet would have done some damage in the playoffs had they snuck in
3rd year - 12-5 and an NFC Championship appearance within a whisker of going to the Superbowl 2 years after taking over arguably the worst situation in football. Think about that for a moment, one of the best turnarounds in league history
4th year - 15-2 and a team that had near historically good metrics before the season got destroyed by injuries
5th year - an obvious setback but some context needed that bad luck played a part with Frank retiring late in the offseason process (this was arguably the biggest reason for the drop off) and, again, injuries or very key players coming back from serious injury and not quite themselves. I’d argue that bad luck was the biggest factor in the regression last year. Even with that, the team had the best point differential in the division and was very close to winning the division.
Point being that while Brad has had a few missteps, if you look at the entirety of his tenure what he’s done has been nothing short of remarkable. I do think this is a big season to ensure that the Lions don’t get lost in the NFL elite shuffle but overall we’re very lucky to have him, his staff and Coach Dan.
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Its higher but not THAT much higher.
Under 25% of getting a long term injury on turf vs grass. And that was on the old turf from the study done from 2012 to 2018. I believe since that report came out every turf stadium has updated to the new style.
And they haven’t released a full study on the new turf yet. But initial reports say that the non contact injuries are down.
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I don’t know how common this opinion is but the 2023 team that made the NFC championship wasn’t as good as the results of the season and the 2024 team is the only one that really should have won the Superbowl
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The 2023 team was young, and choked in the moment. The team that started Q1-Q2 of the NFC Championship, and the team that came out of the locker room after halftime, were two very different teams.
The 2024 team was absolutely loaded to start the year, however they also absolutely feasted on a trash schedule. They wiped out the AFC South 4-0, and crushed the NFC South 3-1 (lost to Bucs week 2). They still went 6-0 in the division, and while the NFC North as a whole was inflated with a cupcake schedule, we still beat a very good Vikings team both games.
I believe the team that started the 2024 season was definitely a playoff team, even if their record was 13-4 or 12-5, but the team that we played with in January was a far cry from the team we had in October.