They talked about this on the morning shows (yes, Detroit’s “collapse” is actively being discussed everywhere, as predicted), but holy god, I can’t recall a time where we had that many opportunities to salt a game away.
God, it kills me. It just … ■■■■■■■ hurts.
Any of those things happen or don’t happen and we’re in the Super Bowl.
literally all the warts we talked about during the season happend in that 3rd quarter
3rd Quarter offense falls flat on its head once again (we are a bottom 5-10 team in the 3rd quarter by all metrics)
Ben Johnson goes away from whats working (Running Dmont, Play Action, etc.)
Player execution (Drops from Recievers, Goff making some iffy throws, turnovers, missed tackles)
Coaching issues (Im fine with playing to our aggresive nature, though i think Dan should have atleast attempted a FG on one of those 2 tries, the Run where we burned a Timeout was inexcusable, terrible by Dan their, just go hurry up and try again.)
Literally every issue that we had this season came out, its actually impressive
I didn’t really see it coming either. We definitely had a pattern of better first half play in first two playoff games, and then hanging in there in the second half. But still very unexpected.
The fact that we dominated early is what makes it even more difficult. It wasn’t a fluke either … we ran it straight at them, skill players did their thing, and the defense was holding up well.
The fact that it took 8-10 plays of either really poor execution, or just bad luck in the second half, to only lose by three is crazy. I can’t think of more than one or two plays for SF that went like that, where someone just really made a fundamental error (Reynolds/Gibbs/Jamo/missed sack), or bad decision (Lucas, CJGJ, and to a lesser extent Campbell).
We are a young team. We will be back, with a better defense.
I was in the last mass of the evening [8:00 p.m.]. When I went in, it was 24-10 in the 3rd quarter.
Couldn’t believe the score when I came out. My initial reaction, without seeing anything, was “did Goff throw some picks or something?”
So many things went wrong to get to the point of losing.
Anyway, I don’t know that I’d call Jamo’s miss a “drop”–it looked like the ball went right through his hands without him ever touching it. Should’ve caught it.
also Sutton did play injured a bit and one of my few big Gripes of AG lately has been the lack of safety help for him at times (but he also needs to blitz to get pressure on the QB, so yeah idk what else to say on that, we need CB big time)
Yes and no, my friend. It’s about perspective. It’s about how you’re looking at that list.
You know what that list represents? That list represents what it took to keep us OUT of the Super Bowl. Any of those things DOESN’T happen, and it’s a different game we’re discussing today.
San Francisco, the supposed “class” of the entire NFC, and we were absolutely having our own way. No asterisks, no BS, we were dominating them backwards and forwards, and lest we forget, who did we beat to open the season? Oh yeah, the other Super Bowl team.
All of this despite gaping personnel deficiencies and a perception that we were lucky to be there. It wasn’t luck. We are the team to beat going into next year. We’re going to improve on some of those personnel deficiencies. Our stunning rookie class is going to have all of this experience under their belt. We’re going to stay hungry.
We’re the best team in the NFL starting next year, period. That’s what you’re list means. Chin up, my friend, we’re going to dominate.
Would you like to guess how many times the Lions outscored their opponents in the third quarter this season over 20 games?
Four.
Interestingly, the Lions tied their opponents nine times in the third quarter this year. So all they had to do yesterday to win was just be a normal level of third quarter bad. And they couldn’t manage that
Like I feel like its to the point at times that AG gets way too much blame for the failures of the offense at times (not all the time, but some of the time)
And the lack of talent on the defense. No pressure from anyone not named Hutch/Alim the entire year and literal garbage at CB. It’s amazing we even got to the NFC Championship with our corners.
Before the game, tv posted a graphic with 5 stats of where the Lions D ranked against where the Niners O ranked. The Niners O were ranked anywhere from 1 - 3 in 5 of their stats, the Lions D was ranked anywhere from 27 - 30…point is, everybody knows the backend of this defense is ass. The offense needed to respond and carry the team in the 2nd half, but they scored ZERO meaningful points in the 2nd half (that last TD was a garbage time, against a prevent). The D is bad, we all knew it was bad, but the consistently Turd qtr offense is what lost this game.
The defenses he has been calling throughout the playoffs had people in the right position to make game changing plays, time after time. Short of suiting up and getting on the field himself, I don’t think it’s reasonable to put the failure to execute on his shoulders. It’s up to position coaches to get those guys to execute, and it’s up to the front office to close the gap on having scrub-level cornerbacks.
I really don’t know who to blame for the third quarter awfulness. Yesterday Ben Johnson definitely changed up the play calling, away from Montgomery and the run generally. Of course, even with suspect play-calling most of the loss was on execution. Catch the balls that hit us in the hands and we win.
This is just my gut, but over the course of the season it’s probably the offense sometimes, probably the defense sometimes, and sometimes both. Sometimes it’s going to be the coordinators, sometimes it’s going to be the players. But when you have a pattern of bad performance in the third quarter over 20 games, the fault goes all the way to the top. It’s Meathead’s fault for allowing it to continue. And so it’s kind of fitting that that’s how the season ended, with the one glaring defect in this team ending the season.
