He should shadow Keenan Allen this weekend.
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Slay is one of my favorite Lions CB’s…EVER!
Yes sir. “Big Play” Slay shut down his guys. I thought all the DBs played pretty well especially Coleman and Melvin. Agnew and Walker struggled some. Coverage was good. Larry Fitzgerald just made a great catches.
I wasn’t as fired up about him as you guys were, the first couple of years. One thing I love, is this dude has literally gotten better every year. I’m on board now.
I still like Dre Bly best!
I loved me some Dre Bly and I also really liked Ray Crockett.
Melvin Jenkins and Crockett were probably my favorite CB tandem. Combined with William White and Blades and that was probably our best secondary ever.
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Melvin Jenkins was awesome! He doesn’t get the credit he deserves because of injury shortened career. Great KR/PR too.
Crocket was fun to watch, and his buddy @ Safety Blades!
I would have to say that Dre Bly is my favorite of all time when it comes to corners, and then Slay is second. Bly’s shelf life as a top corner was short, but my god was he good in that short stint. At his best he wasn’t just locking down his man. He was keeping an eye around him and making plays (and even a few interceptions) by coming off his guy to go after another receiver.
As far as Slay, apparently he’s a film rat…which is something I never thought of him as becoming. He prides himself in knowing every single thing there is to know about the opposing receiver he matched up against. Slay even studies the receivers twitter accounts to see workout videos and what the guy is talking about, to learn more about him. Slay said something like “if the guy had spaghetti for dinner on Thursday, I wanna know about it.” LOL
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That’s awesome! Seems I remember something about Quinn helping him become a film room dude. Converted him from a great corner who covers, to a guy who takes the freakin’ ball away. these days, they pay for throwing his way, and I love that.
Bly is the only DB jersey I ever owned.
Why come no Terry Fair love up in here? 
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Why wasn’t Slay covering Fitz in the 4th quarter?
He did, but only once.
Fitz was the one that calmed the rookie down and got them a tie. You could see him talking the frazzled rook off the ledge on the sidelines. I wish Mathew would have done the same with Bevell
I had a Ray Crocket jersey.
Then, heavy on QB’s…Landry, Danielson, Hipple, (Billy) Sims, Barry, #9.
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The announcers were all over Slay for having a “terrible game” against Allen.
8 catches out of 15 targets, under 100 yards, no TD. Just over 50% completion percentage isn’t good. YPA a tad over 6, also not great. Add in the INT at the end and Slay won that battle.
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I go back to something Bill Walsh said and apply it to what you just said. He had 6 yards per attempt and you shrug it off like it was nothing. But take the exact same yardage and attempts and convert it into rushing, and it sounds completely different…that RB had a good game. Hence what Bill said he loved about the short passing game. You can sneakily grab 5 yards on a passing play, and the defense considers it a win and will keep giving it to you. But if you run the ball for 5 yards, the defense tightens up and tries to take it away. So you just keep popping them 5 yards at a time, and next thing you know your in the endzone.
Paraphrasing of course.
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that’s a really good way to look at it.
the only way I can think of a defensive mind looking at it is, passing the ball you could have more go wrong, tipped, picked, sacked so maybe they’re willing to let the short passes get attempted. Not to mention running the ball at 5 yards a pop is exhausting for a dline.
I mean the cover 2, back when it was all the rage, was all about letting that short stuff go and just wait for the offense to screw up and capitalize, and punish those catching the ball in the middle.
but I agree, I’d rather have “long handoffs” of 5 - 8 yard catches, I mean even that will bring a D down a bit where something could pop over the top.
That was the Jim Bob Cooter offense the Lions just got rid of.
JBC’s version of it was much more predictable too, though. Not even close to the Walsh version. I know, I know, Walsh had 7 pro bowlers in his - true. Still, they were creative with it. With Cooter, we knew what the play was presnap. He was pretty bad. We look more like an NFL team now. Bevell has been very creative with making things happen. So far, I am liking the upgrade. We get some better horses up front, we should be able to move the wagon quite nicely.
Its incredible to watch the ebb and flow of football, and how it changes and morphs over the years. To get overly simplified…Walsh dominates with an offense that steals yards bit by bit and systematically moves the football down the field. Part of the greatness of his offense though, was being able to break tackles and get chunk plays over the top and over the middle. Dungy comes in and has a defense that is designed to give Walsh’s offense the short stuff they want, but they make the tackles (no run after catch) and take away the chunk plays. With JUST the short passes left and no bigger gains thru YAC and chunk plays, Dungy’s defense dared any QB to come in and grind out a TD drive a few yards at a time…banking that most guys would make a mistake before they could dial in that many short passes in a row.
But then part of the death of Dungy’s defense as a pure base was the changing of the guard, with QBs who WERE able to make those throws down after down, and also hit holes in the defense that were further downfield…which used to be too difficult for most QBs of yesteryear. And the chess game continues.