Patricia (and I presume Quinn) thought they could take the air out of the ball when the Lions had the lead in the second half of the game. Switch to conservative, run-heavy and milk the clock.
Given what Quinn has expended in draft and free-agency capital into the offensive line – more than any other position group, and it’s not close – the logic on paper is there.
Then there’s reality. This line is not good. Ragnow doesn’t look 100%. Glasgow has been moved back to G, and he’s not as good there as he is at C. Most concerning of all, Taylor Decker seems to have regressed massively. Rick Wagner can only bounce back from his season last year, but there’s no O-line depth beyond the starters, either.
How did we get to this place? It is an indictment on Quinn if our offensive line isn’t AT LEAST a Top-10 unit, given the expenditure and attention.
As a result, Kerryon and the running game were nothing special. The second half strategy didn’t work.
Trying to run such a offense requires gouge plays. Without them, you’re leaving yourself with low percentage third-and-longs. It puts a lot of pressure on the QB to execute with those few throws he’s now making and, well, I don’t want to go there in this particular thread.
For a guy that was a Chief scout for the greatest dynasty ever, he sure has a hard time recognizing this teams deficits.
Last year it was TE’s, then he cut our most productive receiver.
This year, it’s the Oline.
It’s as if he was never even in New England!
The TEs were the strength of the game and they should have stuck with it. There will be other games where the running game will be the strength imo. Maybe more RB screen passes would have helped negate the rush.
He was late in adding RB, he was late in adding DE, he totally sabotaged the team last year with his choice of TE, making that late a year… And here we are with Wiggins. Again.
Late again.
True that the OL is garbage, but they have a couple of good pieces in place. Remember when Backus had his best 2 or 3 years of his career? It was when we brought Rob Sims in. When you put a better player or two, the others dont’ have as much responsibility.
That said, they could really use 2 upgrades.
I don’t see it as fixable for Quinn, because every single other position group is light years ahead of where they were.
TE - Way better
OL - Terrible
RB - Much better
DL - Much better
DE - Much better
DBs - Much better
QB - same
ST - all same
O-line is a small group where EVERYTHING has to function correctly, if one or two players/things DON’T function well it implodes and falls apart…worse yet it looks pathetic.
I keep telling myself this oline hasn’t played together much, at least in the positions they are currently playing. Only Wagner and Decker are playing where they did last year, and Dahl hasn’t played much the last two years.
The OL lacks talent at OT on both sides. Hard to double both sides, but the Lions need to max protect at times so that Stafford can get some quality looks.
Ill have to go back and rewatch but a few stuffs aside the run game was actually working pretty well late in the game. We were breaking some nice runs. That’s why the rollout worked that should have ended the game.
I also think if we run it after showing pass on the unfortunate timeout we have a better chance than throwing into coverage
Also how many of you knew that punt was going to be blocked? Before we kicked it the playoff game against Dallas flashed through my mind. If the Lions are excellent at one thing. They are excellent at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
One of the reasons why I like the 2 TE sets. We all know when Stafford has time, he can do some really great things. Lions need to take away what the defenses do well. In this case, it was Chandler Jones and Suggs.