Here’s a case for worse (and it’s not much of a contest IMO):
Its interesting how they worded things and I agree. Our personnel is improved over last season. Our offense is better, but the defense is worse. The problem is the defense isn’t just “kind of” worse. Its epic in how much worse it is.
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On paper, you would think the roster is better, but factor in that guys like James and Daniels were picked up for like near 20 million dollars and have done nothing. None of the rookie draft picks have played particularly well either. Sometimes us fans get caught looking at “names” and equating that into talent. We often overvalue our current guys and also overvalue guys we pick up, because they came here.
Do we have a single player that is even a top 10 player at his position in the league? Maaaaaaaaybe Slay or Ragnow perhaps? That’s the sign of a busted roster.
Offense better
Defense wayyyyyyy worse.
I agree, not many. I would argue Ragnow is the only definite top 10 player.
Others that are possibly top 10:
Offense:
Stafford
Glasgow
Defense:
Flowers
Walker
Slay – probably not this year, so far.
That’s all she wrote.
Overall, adding in all the pluses and minuses, I would say we are exactly the same. Now that smells of front office errs and/or questionable coaching directions. Perhaps.
But under that is the timing of tough early schedule, key injuries and questionable calls on certain games. Going deeper, it returns us to pysche of the franchise, the history, the failures.
Under that, is free parking.
It’s about the same. What is concerning is that our HC is a D guy and that side of the ball hasn’t gotten much worse. Quinn and Patricia need to find some speed for the front 7 this offseason or I think they’re done.
The last sentence of the article says its all:
"The 2019 Lions could have been better, maybe even competing for a playoff spot, had injuries not taken their toll and the defensive coaching been better."
Defense does suck, but injuries play a part in all of that…
And if the Lions finish 6-9-1, that would be pretty much the same.
The passing attack in 2018 was easily one of the worst I have ever witnessed as a Lions fan. Shitty QB play, poor WR play, etc.
The defense was great in 2018.
2019-The passing attack was completely different. Top 5 QB play, Jones and Golladay have been tremendous.
The defense sucks in 2019.
Kind of sums things up for me.
The offense is better, except on the line, where they’re about the same.
Defense isn’t even in the ballpark, despite a couple bright spots (Coleman, Tavai).
You have to wonder what ever happened to the defense from 2018 to 2019.
Below are the players released from the 2018 roster:
The Lions lost Ziggy Ansah, Ricky Jean Francois, Kerry Hyder, Mitchell Loewen, Eric Lee, Trevor Bates, Nicholas Grigsby, Eli Harold, Kelvin Sheppard, Andre Chachere, Marcus Cooper, DeShawn Shead, Charles Washington, Nevin Lawson, Glover Quin, Quandre Diggs, and Teez Tabor.
Ansah, Hyder, Loewen, Chachere, Washington, Lawson, Diggs, and Tabor are currently employed by other teams. Grigsby - XFL. The rest are unemployed.
Added Tavai, Harris, Bryant, Oruwariye, P.J. Johnson (Unemployed), Coleman, Flowers, Andrew Adams (49ers), Melvin, Carney (Unemployed), Lamar, Moore, Pittman (Unemployed), Ray Smith (Unemployed), Strong, Juwon Young (Unemployed), Mike Daniels, Fred Jones (Unemployed), Tarvarus McFadden (Unemployed)
On paper, the 2019 D looks good and the talent level looks to be upgraded imo. Injuries have to be a big part of the problem that’s for sure.
Maybe the Lions defense is limited to what they can do because of all the injuries.
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Defense makes us look like we went 0-16.
Sad thing is, we had the 10th ranked defense last year (2018). I figured this year we would improve with all of our acquisitions. Somehow we took a step backward and we are the 30th ranked defense this year (2019).
Last year (2018) our offense was ranked 24th. This year (2019) it is ranked 8th.
I had reason to be optimistic this year, Bevell did transform our offense, it is a lot better, as I had hoped. But our stupid defense just fell off a cliff?!? I thought our defense would have been better this year, like ranked 5th or something with the off season acquisitions and another season under their belts in the system.
Combine last years defense with this years offense and we are a playoff team.
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2018: More injuries on the offensive side. Bawden, Ellington, K. Johnson, Marvin Jones, T.J. Lang, Roberts on IR. Tate trade. Banged up guys throughout the season - Stafford, Golladay and some others I’m sure missing.
2019: More injuries to the defensive side. Flowers, Daniels, Davis, Snacks, Slay, Walker, Hand, A’Shawn, Killebrew, Harris, Atkins, Okwara, Kilgo, Strong, Bryant
And Diggs traded.
Last years defense wasn’t really that good, we played a bunch or horrible offenses and it fluffed the numbers. In addition to that with the offense being so bad we ran the ball a ton and we reduced the total possessions of the game.
Every one hated what Caldwell did in 2016 but it was smart because he used the short passing game as a ball control offense and kept a shitty defense of the field.
God bless Bevell but our quick offense is making a shitty defense look even worse because its putting them back out there more often and even though we are scoring points we aren’t winning time of possession.
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