I LOVE Caldwell but see him as an ultra conservative coach.
I’ve stated many times → he needs to hire great coordinators & just be the mentor to these young men. He motivates, inspires, & is great in so many ways.
He should keep his mittens out of the cookie jar on all things offense. LOL.
He hax horrific rosters while he was here too…part of his lack of success. Matt had to carry those offenses too much
I mean, he was the OC when Baltimore won a SB though. They averaged 31 points a game in that playoffs
maybe he coached in Motown that way because of his roster?
See what I’m saying? Smart guy xoing the best he can with what he has …& that looks different from one team to the next…it’s why these comparisons flop almost always. It’s why the eyeball test matters more than stats.
Can someone explain why theres so many Lawrence stans in this thread? I understand he’s young and he was the next big thing coming out of college and he can run but he has yet to have a super great season as far as I can tell. This season was pretty good for him stat-wise but still sub-Goff level. So are we just listing him above Goff because of his potential ceiling?
Possibly. Let’s compare rosters from the year Caldwell was OC for the SB Ravens and the 2014 Lions.
In 2012 Ravens had the 17th ranked Oline
Ranking the 2012 Offensive Lines | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF >
QB: Flacco
RBs: Ray Rice Bernard Pierce
WR: Torrey Smith, Anquan Boldin
12th ranked Defense (points against)
In 2014 The Lions had the 14th ranked Oline
2014 PFF Offensive Line Rankings | NFL News, Rankings and Statistics | PFF >
QB: Stafford
RBs Joique Bell, Reggie Bush
WRs: Calvin Johnson, Golden Tate
3rd ranked defense (points against)
I don’t see, given the overall talent comparisons, a compelling reason why Caldwell would be limited by talent to play too conservatively with the Lions, while rolling up points with Baltimore
A-@ QB
B @RBs
D @ OL
A @ WR
Wildly overrated defense that gets help form a ball control offense & bend but wont ’ break style that is shit between 20s, but designed to stop points.
Slow pace games = less scoring…part of Lions strategy @ the time.
cuz OL matters more than most fans think.
I think you are likely the only person on the planet who would classify the 2014 Lions defense as ‘wildly overrated’ that was ‘shit between the 20’s’
Besides being 3rd best in points against, at 17.6 they only yielded 300.9 yards per game for 2nd best and led the NFL in rushing defense, yielding just 69.3 rush yards per game. and were tied for 6th best takeaways with 27
I thought we were talking during the caldwell years…not just one year.
Yup - our defense was subpar under coach Jim…averaging all over the place.
If we are going to pick one year & try to somehow hem the effectiveness of the QB into one year now?
See how the conversation goes?
We keep veering off topic & more into one specific narrow, channel where you can be “right”
I’m under the impression we are talking about the topic of how effective Matt is as a player…now we get progressively more “niche” into minutiae.
I really am not concerned with one year of cherry picked stats, man.
eyeball test tells me Matt is a great QB. All of this other running down this or that rabbit hole fishing for a shred of evidence to prove otherwise feels boring to me.
I’m okay with you thinking whatever it is that you think about Matt.
& yes…I can see where you say 2014, regarding Jim.
Love Jim.
Love Matt.
Jim is an awesome human
Matt is an awesome human
Both were good at their jobs.
Both worked for WCF…& THAT…my brother…is the real story.
Well reference the above post. It was a direct comparison between 2014 Lions (Coach Caldwell) and the 2012 Super bowl Ravens (OC and QB coach Caldwell)
Your argument seemed to be that Caldwell is and was a conservative coach offensively by nature, and had to play conservatively because of the talent surrounding Stafford
My counter is that he wasn’t conservative with similar and arguably less talent in Baltimore calling the plays when they won the Super bowl
It also supports a different argument I made or implied on another thread that Caldwell was brought in by the Lions to ‘fix’ Staffords turnover and inconsistency issues (again see 2013).
Speculatively, I think had we taken the Rams model and traded our young signal caller for a veteran we could have won the SB in 2014 when Stafford was still learning. It was his first year calling line alerts, never looked comfortable in a play action system and the offense was fairly pedestrian with a good amount of talent
We all know how much Stafford has improved since then and whichever team had traded him for an aging vet would also likely had been happy for several years (similar to us and Goff)
Sending love, my bro.
I can’t offer any more time or energy to this one.
I know if I Xon’t answer, you are left to make assumptions…
You are honored & seen.
I’m not ignoring you…just managing my own energy.
This thing was never about JC to me → it is a rabbit hole you chose to pick apart Matt’s career. You’re gonna think what you’re gonna think. Same w/me.
I love Caldwell as a man. He needs help as a HC. Everyone in here was complaining about how conservative he was when he was here…90% of us.
…you see something different. That’s okay.
JC’s biggest problem here → WCF
…same as Matts
If you think about it, the current team has three offensive lineman that are better than any one lineman Stafford ever had in Detroit. You might argue four considering Jonah Jackson went to the pro bowl last year.
This is so far from the truth I nearly puked reading this….especially 2013
Would have loved to see what Stafford could have done as a Lion behind an Oline like the one this past season that we trotted out.
I thought it was funny.
OMG yes - especially with these coaches/mentors…especilly at that age.
Matt is a very naturally gifted QB & a leader of a human.
Actually I’m trying to keep it on topic. I’m not trying to ‘drain anyone’s energy’ either but discussing the Lions is what we do here
It has been argued that Stafford always had terrible coaches and leadership. My counter was that Caldwell is a good coach and has had success including three Super Bowl runs with two different teams.
Your counter (and co-argument) was that Caldwell played too conservatively and ostensibly handcuffed Stafford
The open question is why, with similar or less talent did he not play conservatively with Baltimore with Flacco and an average to below average oline.
Why did he play conservatively as HC of the Lions with Stafford, CJ, Tate, Bell, Bush and a historically good defense?
That’s not an entirely rhetorical question either. What’s the answer? I’m not gonna disagree that the Lions Oline was average to below average that year but so was Baltimore’s Oline.
Check out the 2021 Rams! Which was even better than Detroits oline and recievers.
I mean what’s crazy about that.
Donald = Suh
Slay = Ramsey
Stafford
we had a Pro Bowl Safety
Levy was balling
CJ, Tate, Bell, Bush
There was a shit load of talent on that team
One distinction:
In Detroit he was the head coach and the offense ran the way JC wanted it to run.
In Baltimore he was the OC and, granted I am assuming here, he ran the offense the head coach of the Ravens wanted it to run.
Switching coaches every 3 years.
Calxwell was the best by far.
…thats 3 years of ultra-conservative hand cuffing of what Matt is good at.
This is just gonna go in circles, man.
I never pay as close of attention (like 1/50th the attention) to other teams as I xo the lions. Smart coaches cater to the talent they have. I promise you Jim thought he was playing to his strengths in one way or another.
We all saw what happened when he opened it up…Matt shreds 'em.
You may have to ask Jim why he calls games the way he xoes…I can only speculate.
I remember them with other worldly defense, & a really good run game, but that’s just from memory.
Our defense was not good…& our run game was non-existent.