I miss Jim Schwartz

What I wrote was an incomplete version of that whole thought. It’s obviously not exactly the same team, but it’s got starters / main contributors who are either:

  • The same as last year
  • A clear upgrade from last year
  • Changed out at the direction of Patricia

The talent on offense has been upgraded, with the addition of Ragnow, Johnson, and Blount. Many would argue that Ebron was addition by subtraction, but at the very least one has to acknowledge that his touches are being aptly handled by Golladay and the TE by committee. A clear step forward from a talent perspective.

There was more churn on defense, but who did the Lions really lose? They sent away a bunch of substandard defensive linemen for a different group of substandard defensive linemen. Kennard was a clear positive add, and the rest of the linebacking moves were to fit Patricia’s vision. Quin has lost a step, which does hurt. Overall, I’d say the level of talent is the same, albeit made to Patricia’s wishes. If you’re going to argue it’s markedly worse, fine, but then it can’t be an excuse for Patricia, since the changes were by his design.

It’s pretty tough to argue that the Lions got significantly worse from a talent perspective.

That’s my entire point. There has been zero proof that Patricia is a better coach than Caldwell and mounting evidence that he’s significantly worse.

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That really sucks! That’s the hardest part about this season. We we’re told 9-7 wasn’t good enough. Naturally, we assumed expectations should be higher. Right?
The Tate trade ended any remaining notion of that nonsense!

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Yeah. Caldwell’s 9-7 was in his 4th year. Patricia is still in his first.

I’d like to see a few more drafts and off seasons before I declare Patricia a failure.

Caldwell went 11-5 in his first year… Just sayin :joy:

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I would argue that 2014 was with Schwartz players. (following the topic of this thread).

Caldwell gave us Ebron, Van Noy, Swanson in 2014 draft. (Had we kept Schwartz, we draft Donald and 2014 is more than 11 wins)

Then the next year he gave us Tomlinson, Abdullah and Alex Carter.

Caldwell and Mayhew blew up the DL that got us all those wins in 2014.

I can’t argue that he won with Schwartz’s players, but the rest is pure speculation as far as who we would’ve drafted had Schwartz not been fired. There were enough stinkers consistently drafted throughout Mayhew’s reign to assume that the poor drafting isn’t related to who the HC is.

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That wasn’t my point. I do feel the only area we have more talent is the run game / OL. The OL is more talented even without Ragnow due to fewer injuries.

I feel at just about everywhere else we’re either the same or worse in talent. I do feel that Kennard is an upgrade but Jones is a downgrade from Whitehead too. ST talent was definitely worse. I don’t know … I just feel this team over achieved last year and is underachieving this year. I agree it’s on the coaching.

Thing is last years schedule was easier than this years schedule. So I wasn’t expecting our record to be improved. I was expecting rookie HC
Growing pains but I still thought this team would finish around 8-9 wins.

I actually think we’re in agreement on most parts except… I just think this team lacks top end talent and we have less top end talent now than we did a year ago. Especially with Tate gone and Quin struggling at safety. I guess you could argue Snacks offsets some of that too… so far coaching looks worse to me too.

Ultimately I feel the talent on this team isn’t improving fast enough. I feel drafting OL so early has left the team weak on top end talent. If Bob Q. doesnt add some difrence makers in the off season than I won’t expect next year to be any better. I hate the direction this team is going and a year ago I liked the direction we were heading.

Look at the team we’re playing today. They have far better talent across the board than we do. If we want to have a record like the Rams, NO and KC than we will need the talent levels those teams have.

It’s speculation, but not pure speculation. Very educated guess, especially after the admission they didn’t go after Donald due to size. And how Ron Prince (asst HC and TE coach) begged for Ebron.

Washburn and Kocurek who were there in 2013, would have had Schwartz ear.

Schwartz used 2 first round picks on DL because he wanted a dominant DL.

We knew that Suh had his own destiny in his hands (like we were going to pay that franchise tag, please). Schwartz would want to have that kind of motor for the future… And for 2014, he would be an upgrade from Fairley.

Caldwell came in with a mission to “fix Stafford”. Schwartz thought he was a gunslinger and let him do his thing. In order to “fix stafford” he needed weapons, no? Never mind we had Pettigrew. Which still puzzles me. In 2013, he had 63 targets, the year before that 102. Then 2014, 15 targets. 15 Targets in 2015. Stranger still, Pettigrew had more snaps than Ebron in 2014. So bizarre. They clearly felt they needed a “receiving TE”. They knew they had enough DL and they foolishly counted their chickens before they hatched with regards to Suh.

There’s plenty of supporting evidence to suggest Schwartz would have taken Donald.

They SHOULD have taken Donald. I was saying that before the draft, too.

Stafford lock on.