I do respect your opinion, but I have to say them being #10 last year may be the most misleading stat ever. We had ZERO offensive weapons left. We played a bunch of rookie or back up QBs down the stretch as well as some back up QBS. We also played a couple teams that I believe were obviously tanking. So, sure, our defense didn’t give up 50 points and 500 yards per game, but the other teams were exactly needing to get into a shootout with us, because our offense was absolutely terrible and had nobody left on it that could even test the opponent.
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I think the real truth is that we weren’t or aren’t a top 10 D. We’re also not really the 31st D. Our D is very middling, doesn’t strike fear in anyone, and wouldn’t be exceptional even if everyone magically healed. Like Line said, we need a true edge rusher. We also need a VanderEsch-type LB. I think our secondary would be fine if these two pieces could be had.
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To me the biggest issue has been the Snacks regression. He’s been just awful this year.
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Yeah, big drop-off…for sure. Wish he was healthy…and A’Shawn…and Daniels. Sucks that all 3 of them got injured. Playing gimp, when they are playing. Beginning to wonder if they will be healthy this year.
You forgot Hand, Flowers, and Bryant. Too many injuries this season. Last year they Dline was pretty healthy. Stafford was the biggest injured player.
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It is really difficult to overcome more than a couple of injuries within a specific position group. It will always impact quality of play. 6 injuries across 6 different groups (accepting QB) is far less devastating than 3 or 4 injuries in the same group. We have a d-line that is crippled and now we have a safety position that is crippled. This may get worse before it gets better. Only way we win right now is to do the best we can at bend/don’t break to keep time of possession close and outscore our opponents. I hate bend/don’t break but I don’t think we have enough healthy horses to do much else. It would be really nice to see what this d-line can do together when healthy before the end of the season. It will make assessing team needs more difficult if we never see them play as a unit.
I see other teams lose 2 starting dlinemen still perform better than the Lions have.
Houston was missing 3/5 starters in the secondary, JJ Watt and every other dlinemen was on the injury report.
Hell the Chiefs were missing 2 starters on the dline and the MVP and damn near beat the Packers.
There is no excuse for the defense to be this bad.
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There are so many factors that go into these things it is hard to compare 1 with the other. But I don’t disagree that our defense is playing well below expectations even with the injuries.
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The 2019 Detroit Lions are on pace to be the worst team in total defense in a decade.
Not the worst Lions defense, the worst of any team in the NFL from 2010-2018
That ain’t injuries that’s a total schematic failure.