Going to watch this daily until the opener. Highlights are amazing by both QBs
Mahomes being Mahomes and Goff throwing accurate darts, making clutch plays, 5 TDs, runs one in, orchestrates the game winning drive…
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2nd favorite game of all time.
Kupp went out the game before. Yet Goff was able to deal to 7 different receivers to get it done. This is the secret to winning with Goff. You have to have a lot of weapons so he can find someone open and you can mix up the primaries.
Aman Ra = Kupp (Rams didn’t have him)
Jamo/Kalif Raymond = Cooks (Lions won’t have Jamo)
Josh Reynolds = Josh Reynolds
Marvin Jones = Robert Woods
Brock Wright = Tyler Higbee
James Mitchell = Gerald Everett
David Montgomery = Todd Gurley
A few unknowns in Gibbs, Laporta, and another rookie WR like Cota/Green.
When I look at the 2 rosters, the Lion’s looks a lot better to me.
Reasons why the Lions offense is better than the one in that Monday night game:
- Better health. The Lions should be walking in with all their players healthy and ready to go.
- Better Depth. The Rams pretty much used everyone they had in that game to get contributions. The Rams really had no other players to contribute than the 7 that played. Gibbs and Laporta are explosive. Montgomery should be better than Gurley in that game.
- Better OL. That was the best OL the Rams had in Goff’s 5 years there. The Lion’s is still WAY better and deeper with Big V, Glascow coming back.
- More Balanced. This is somewhat redundant but the Lions can ground and pound in a way that Rams team couldn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Lions go 6 OL early and try and dominate the KC DL, tire them out and keep Patty on the bench as long as possible.
- More Youthful. Should this be a barn burner, the very young and deep Lions team should be capable of a 4th quarter shootout.
- Ben Johnson. As the Rams lost weapons that year, McVay started putting in more blockers to protect Goff but he had no one to throw to. Ben Johnson has shown to be much more creative and will use lineman to catch if need be. He’ll use 6th stringers in Kennedy if need be. I’ve seen McVay go fetal too many times and have yet to see that with Johnson.
I’m pretty sure this Offense can be better than that 2018 Rams team.
As to the defense? The Rams were a very up and down defense that relied on turnovers. I think this Lions defense has the potential to be better , however I’m still hesitant on Aaron Glenn fielding a ready defense in week 1. They’ve taken 6-8 weeks to get better the last 2 seasons. They need to show up early this year.
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Nice critique.
I agree the defense will be the wild card against the Chiefs, with the potential for things to go terribly, terribly wrong until they get a couple of games under their belt. The first live game could stress a mostly new secondary into some blunders, even against a much lesser opponent. On the other hand, Reid won’t have much tape to exploit. It’s gonna be fun, at least until kickoff… 
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That is fair.
I will only add that the Lions fired their OC in year one and the offense got better and took a major step forward the year after they fired the OC.
Lions fired a coach on D who supposedly, @QBHATER90 can correct if wrong, wasn’t running the defense as the DC and HC wanted. Once gone the defense showed noticeable improvement. Will we see similar continuation in year two of the D scheme as we saw in year two of the scheme on offense?
Well, this koolaid drinker says, hell yea!(seen them three times in last 7years, wear your ear plugs if it is an indoor venue).
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More blockers? Well, that just gives us more receivers, Decker and Sewell have both caught meaningful passes in the NFL (in this offense).
I’m not predicting a win, but, I like our chances.
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What gets lost sometimes about that game is the backdrop
Was supposed to have been played in Mexico City, but a concert a couple of days before wrecked Aztecas playing service
LA was in the middle of a wildfire pandemic, air quality was a huge concern, there was talk about moving the game to Levi’s stadium
There was another school shooting where lives were lost a week before
What the Rams achieved that evening was nothing short of Heroic for the community, KC gave it there best shot but no way the Rams were losing that game
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Drink responsibly!
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Think about who you’re talking to.
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Wow. We usually agree, Bearly, not least on lessons related to the Rams, but I think you’re off on this one.
Hard to compare a team that played (2018 season Rams) with one that has yet to suit up (2023 Lions). We can all agree that Gibbs and LaPorta are talented players, but disagree by a lot about the impact they’re likely to make as rookies.
Let’s compare the 2018 Rams O and the 2022 Lions O, which ended the year ranked #4 and clearly the engine of the team’s success.
All these numbers are from Pro Football Reference.
The 2022 Lions rushed for 2,179 yd (4.5 ypc) in 17 games.
The 2018 Rams rushed for 2,231 yd (4.9 ypc) in 16 games.
The Rams rushed for more yds in fewer games w/a much higher average.
The 2022 Lions passed for 4,281 yd (7.0 NY/A) in 17 games.
The 2018 Rams passed for 4,507 yd (7.5 ypc) in 16 games.
The 2018 Rams were clearly the more explosive passing team. Looking at the rushing vs passing it’s also not clear that the Rams were less “balanced” than the Lions of 2022. Certainly, the Rams played with a lot more leads, and therefore probably ran more late so there’s that.
The 2022 Lions scored on 43.2% of their possessions.
The 2018 Rams scored on 48.6% of their possessions.
Course, whether the teams are scoring 3 or 6 matters and we know the Lions scored a LOT of 6’s inside the red zone. Bu, all in all, I think it’s fair to say the 2018 Rams offense was clearly better than last year’s Lion’s O.
As it relates to the Lions’ chances against KC in the opening game: course, it’s true that in game 1 the Lions O should be pretty healthy. But the same logic applies to KC’s D. As for all the rest, fact is that the Rams scored 54, including on the game winning drive late. Pretty hard to find fault with all that you point to - health, depth, OL, balance, youth - given that.
This is a very interesting can of worms by itself.
Dan fired Lynn as he should have. He presumably hadn’t worked with him much with Lynn prior and there was so much change that I lay ZERO blame on Dan for hiring and firing Lynn.
As to the defense, the Pleasant firing came 1.5 years after. The defense had much more time to gel. It was starting to get better by the end of 2021. Then it was bad again starting 2022. Here I say that Glenn and Dan should have had an inkling of the issue but still they were turning over the roster and dealing with a crazy amount of injuries and youth.
For 2023, I don’t think the same causes can exist if Glenn is a legit DC. He’s had 2 full years. He’s got most of his defense coming back with 2+healed DEs, a few FA upgrades on the back-end and some good rookies. He hasn’t changed many coaches on defense. If the Lions start very slow again for 2023, it’s a Glenn problem, wouldn’t you say?
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Agree with you on Glenn. I’m just not a fan.
Regarding the offense. The Rams had 3 studs at reciever in Kupp, Cooks and Woods. The Lions have one proven guy in St.Brown. For Detroit the potential is there but reciever production could be the weak spot.
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I agree no excuses for Glenn, we got lots of talent on defense now. We did change a lot of coaches on defense though. Pleasant out, Dre Bly in. New D-line coach from Penn State and hired John Fox, who is really going to help AG. IMO Fox is the most underrated move of the entire offseason, dude has lead several top 10 defenses in his career.
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I’ve heard the defense is morphing a bit and did so even after the 1-6 start. That’s not easy to do mid-season and speaks to his abilities. The narrative has always been he got the most out of limited resources. The issue is he changed the scheme to HIS idea to start the season but brought back guys who excelled in the previous scheme. He realized the struggle and made the changes…now he has more of his dudes. There is talk of a 5-2 front. I don’t put any bearing on what happens vs the chiefs. We are suppose to lose but keep it close. Week 1 games are always a crapshoot. I won’t put much weight into the outcome. Offense could better, could be “worse”……we could go 10-7 and be head and shoulders better than last years squad…….AG is not an issue, he is a hell of a coach. Stud.
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I sure hope you are right! We will find out for sure. If he does lead a top 10 defense, he’s as good as gone to be a head coach! And then we get beans. Lots of magic beans!! Then make John Fox the DC!
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Healthy Kupp is better than Aman Ra and Healthy Gurley is better than Montgomery or Jamall Williams/Swift. By that point the offense was missing both but still put up 54 points.
I thought about doing a comparison ><= by position Rams 2018 versus Lions projected 2023. Seemed like a lot of work and in some cases like Kupp > Aman Ra but it’s not that huge of a difference.
Whitworth > Decker but Sewell > Havenstein. It’s splitting hairs.
Still when I look at this Detroit 2023 projected offense, I think it will be better and deeper than that 2018 Rams team. There are more and better linemen. More receiving weapons even if Kupp, Woods, and Cooks were a better trio than any of the Lions this season. It’s the depth of the Lions WRs + add in Gibbs and Laporta as likely contributors.
One other factor your Pro football reference doesn’t include is the way the offenses progressed. Lions got stronger as the year went on. They had injuries early in the year. The Rams offense got worse in 2018 pretty much after that KC game.
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I agree the Lions don’t have a trio as good as the Rams did that year.
What the Lions do have is a more veteran Goff. A more veteran Josh Reynolds.
Marvin Jones is more physical than Woods and savvy like him. Kalif Raymond is a poor man’s cook but he is reliable and makes some of that production. Wright is pretty close to Higbee.
Mitchell is a TE that has only shown glimpses but the staff is very high on. I think he can contribute as much as Everett ever did.
Jamo could be huge but is missing 6 games. Gibbs/Laporta bring new dimensions Goff hasn’t had. These are 3 first round talents the 2018 Rams didn’t have. The potential is there.
Goff seems to need a lot of trust in pass catchers. It’s hard to say how quickly those 3 will contribute if at all. Even St. Brown needed half a season to really get going.
Can’t wait to see what the season brings!
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There’s a lot to like for Detroit. I’m just not one who tends to think all draft picks workout geat and everything goes according to plan. Every team in the league has draft picks with potential theoretically. Only so many will be true difference makers. Though Holmes has done a tremendous job.
Reynolds is the same as he was in LA. Arguably worse which is why the Titans weren’t having it and he’s produced less in Detroit despite having much more opportunity and playing time.
Marvin Jones? I mean yeah 4 or 5 years ago.
Kalif seems like a awsome dude. Reality? He’s a solid 4 at best. But he is a serviceable player.
Jamo? I have no idea about that guy, and my gut says he might be a headcase. Obviously, the talent is there. But I wasn’t blown away by anything I saw from him last year. Very possible he’s more Robbie Anderson than Tyreek Hill. Though if your a Lions fan, entertaining that possibility isn’t ideal.
We’ll see what the rookies do. I think Gibbs does some nice things. LaPorta could as well though rookie TE’s are notorious for struggling.
I think the Lions could be a top 5 offense again. I just think the limited reciever room could limit them in some aspects. Key word “could”.
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I think they can as well, top 5 offense, especially when you consider how limited the WR room was for much of last season.
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At the moment the Lions’ skill players are pretty much pretty “average” (e.g., Marvin Jones, Kalif Raymond, Josh Reynolds) or all “potential” (Jamo, Gibbs, LaPorta). The two exceptions are Goff and ARSB, who are well above average. Of all those players, no Lions’ skill player would start over his 2018-19 Rams counterpart - Gurley/Gibbs-Montgomery, Cooks/Jamo, Woods/Jones, Kupp/ARSB, Everett/LaPorta, Higbee/Mitchell-or-Wright. I’ll call ARSB/Kupp a wash. Kupp was already very good in 2018-19, but not yet not the all-World player he’s become.
In 2023, the Lions’ offense will be elite if these things happens:
- The rookies show out (i.e., prove themselves as good as some already think they are, sight unseen)
- The OL stays healthy and plays consistently at their 2022 best. They were good-not-great last season, largely because of injuries, including to guys who played (Ragnow, Decker). They’ll need better luck w/injuries.
- Johnson and Goff combine to shepherd the offense at an elite level, as they did in 2022
This much we agree on: can’t wait!
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