Are the Lions a good "Bad Team"? Or a bad "Good Team"?

Here’s my question for the day. Are the Lions a good bad team, or a bad good team? Let me explain.

A good bad team outperforms expectations given their talent level, but will never be great. They win most (if not all) of the games they are supposed to win, but rarely (if ever) win games against elite opponents. Good bad teams are often well coached and play well as a team, but just don’t have the talent to compete with the best.

A bad good team has all the talent they need to win against anyone, but isn’t consistent. So they will lose to teams they shouldn’t, but they’ll also occasionally show up for the big games and play really well.

I’m willing to ignore the good good team and bad bad team options, as we obviously aren’t good good, and we haven’t been bad bad since about 2008/2009, in honesty. But where are we now? And which would you prefer? Would you rather have a good bad team, that rarely disappoints you, but also rarely surprises you? Or would you rather have a bad good team, that lets you down some weeks, but also surprises you?

For the record, I think we’re a bad good team this year, or at least we were before all the injuries. And Carolina is another great bad good team example- they’ve got plenty of talent, and sometimes they are on (like against us last year) and sometimes they just aren’t (like this year).

By your definitions, it sounds a lot like youd consider the 2016-2017 Lions a “good” team, and the 2018 Lions a “bad” team.

I think you are pretty close. The Lions are capable of winning games they shouldnt. They are also capable of getting run out of the building when things go wrong, they go very wrong. To me, we cant gauge the Lions fully because the secondary collapsed the minute we lost Agnew. I think our secondary depth was overrated. With Slay-Lawson-Agnew-Diggs-Quin, we are pretty capable of locking down passers. With no Agnew, its been guys playing over their head, and finally the coaches have or are giving up on the Tabor project.

As for my preference, Id have to say a bad team. I think a lot of football boils down to confidence. If you start beating some good teams, you can get on a run. You can say “hey, if we do right, we can beat teams we shouldnt and start beating teams we should” On the other hand, a “good” team is going to be a team of “yeah, but”. You get capped. Sure, you can beat an Arizona or Buffalo, but as soon as you run into a New England or Pittsburgh, the game is over before it started.

While it seems like a lot of whiners are longing for the days of 9-7, that doesnt get you to the playoffs, and certainly doesnt make you competitive IN the playoffs if you squeak in. In my book, whether you are 9-7 and just miss, or 6-10 and miss by a few, you had a bad season. At least the 6-10 team has better odds to add talent at the end of the year. Just missing the playoffs by one game is a terrible outcome. Only thing worse is the Super Bowl loss. Then you played longer than everyone, and have the 2nd worst odds for finding talent and no ring for compensation.

The Lions are an incomplete good team.
I had a thought pop into my feeble pea brain recently. What if we hired a Coach that complimented our personel, rather than getting personel that compliments our coach, after the hire? Seems we’ve been rebuilding around our “new” Coach for 60 years. It doesn’t seem to be working?

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They are coached poorly and don’t have enough talent.
They suck.

I’m watching two examples of “good” teams, on MNF.

The Lions are light-years behind the Chiefs and Rams.

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Two complete teams! Amazing!

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When you take into account some players being disgruntled over the work load early on. IMO, the talent is there, the total commitment to what this coach is selling is not complete. I think Patricia has something to offer, especially after learning players were not happy having to work so hard. When everything is equal the hardest workers will be successful. Take that for what it’s worth.

The Lions don’t have enough speed and athleticism on defense. There are other warts for sure but that is the main deficiency IMO.

In case anyone watching this MNF game forgot:

We passed on Aaron Donald, to take Eric Ebron.

Happy Thanksgiving…

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LMBO! Gotta get that dig in.:rofl:
I hated that pick before it happened. Ebron was known to be a project.

The Lions are a mediocre average team.

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Best of the worst, worst of the best. Cream of the Crap.

They’re like burnt bacon, cheap macrobrew,or a solid 6 chick at the bar at 130am that is a little tipsy…

They are a cable rerun of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Blade Trinity or Star Trek Generations…

They are Burger King at 2am, Applebees anytime or fucking Chipotle.

They are reruns of Night Court, Fall Guy or Remington Steele

They are Thor 2, Arrow or Tobey McGuire Spiderman #3

They are driving the lane, dropping a bounce pass on the switch and seeing your buddy miss the bunny. They are scooping a one hopper in centerfield while the runner is just starting to round third, uncorking a dialed in laser and having the pitcher cut it, or foosball with spinners.

They are Supertramp, Cheap Trick or Chicago with That Guy after Peter Cetera.

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Those are some… surprisingly detailed comparisons…

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Jessica Biel makes that movie tolerable…

Great list though :joy:

She could make watching the Lions tolerable, too. I wonder if she can play CB? I guess it doesn’t matter, none of our other CB’s can, either (except Slay, of course. Wouldn’t want you guys thinking I’m stupid.)
Get her agent on the phone.

This is a great question. I have to fall on the side of this is a “bad” team that’s played well enough in two games to make that seem kind of confusing. But it should not be.

As great as the Lions looked against New England and Miami, those wins were fool’s gold. I’d love to tell myself that that’s exactly what Quinn and Patricia had in mind here, and we’re close to being able to do that on a consistent basis. But you don’t have to look to hard at the rest of the season to see the flaws in that argument.

Barring two EXTREMELY fluky days by two of the league’s best kickers, the Lions are a 2-win team. Deservedly. Sure, there’s definitely more talent here than when we went 0-16. There’s probably more talent, on offense at least, on paper, than some other bad teams this year. (For the record, I think we are legitimately better than Miami. Yay?)

But in practice, this is a team with huge holes on defense, poor coaching and preparation, and an average QB. We are bad in our own unique way (compared to a team like the Browns, that has huge holes on offense, bad coaching and a defense that should be better on paper). But we’re a fairly typical bad NFL team.

I think they are both.