Morton sucks. Shepp might be fine, but not stopping the run today is concerning. Thats suppsoed to be what they’re great at.
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Watching the Lions offense under Morton is like going to your friend’s dysfunctional family’s home for Thanksgiving. It’s just so fxxked up but occasionally interesting.
I think once Morton realizes that TeSlaa can block better than Brock Wright the offense will start to take off. Last year it was the same thing with Tim Patrick. It really started to work when Goff trusted Patrick as a 3rd down option.
The problem lies with the OL. It’s atrocious. When you have a QB that needs 5 seconds untouched to function the pass pro has to be elite. It’s not close. Goff crumbles under pressure and he’s under pressure on 60% of his drop backs. Our run game is gross too. It all starts upfront and this team is horrid right now at blocking on OL. The only possible saving grace is that the rest of division is incredibly mediocre. They might sneak in but this team has gone from a world class squad to a middle of the road team with more questions than answers. Is this team beating LAR, SEA, PHI in a one and done situation? Highly unlikely. Then don’t even get me started on the upper class of the AFC. Unless Ragnow reinstates himself the OL is cooked. With a mid defense our only shot was keeping the Lambo Lamboing and right now this offense is a beat up F150 base.
we only lost by less than five points and it easily could-have been far worse, we have all these offensive weapons and seem to be afraid to take deeper shots downfield, I don’t mind 10, 12, 15 -yard screens downfield, it’s better than throwing it sideways or behind the LOS (which has been proven to fail.)
Another statistic that shows Morton is to blame (I feel like we could do this all day):
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The question at this point is, what is going to be done about it?
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I like to think that Dan & Co. are well aware of all of these things. What’s most concerning is you’d think that would be surfaced during the bye week.
Which we know now didn’t happen.
They talked about analyzing it and trying to fix it during the bye week. Then the exact same thing happened yesterday. It was almost like they wanted to quiet down the critics but didn’t actually intend to do anything to fix it.
This was the bye week discussion by the coaching staff:
Dan Campbell knows Lions offense has to be better on third downs - Yahoo Sports
Detroit Lions determined to fix third-down woes after bye
Dan Campbell has turned into mad scientist trying to improve Lions
The coaching staff knows what the problems are. They just chose to ignore them in the Minnesota game instead of fixing them.
You can analyze and change things all you want. But if your blockers can’t block, it doesn’t matter. There is no OC or play design that is going to work when your OL lets pass rushers through on a regular basis.
The idea that the coaches don’t know there are issues and aren’t trying to fix them is comical. They can change anything they want, but if you can’t block in the pass game or the run game, it’s gonna be a bad time.
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Can’t you scheme around the OL issues?
The coaching staff seems to be trying to run the same failed plays over and over again expecting different results.
Why don’t they adjust the scheme to make up for OL shortcomings.
Cincinnati is able to produce some offense with Browning and Flacco and a putrid OL. They have 2 good WRs (like we do) and tend to get those WRs the ball.
Better yet, why doesn’t the front office address the OL?
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While I agree that Morton is likely a downgrade, I am not willing to underestimate the value of Ragz’n’Zeitler. Big downgrade at 2 positions. Replaced 225 starts with 2 starts. LOL. Thaaaaaat’s brutal. I see OL issues, especially vs Packers in game 1.
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Decker has been a mess all year too.
Our offense will not work with all the problems on the o-line. Regardless of who is calling the plays.
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If all things were equal with regards to players playing for Morton also were starters for Ben, then sure, point the finger strictly at Morton.
Yet, it isn’t equal, and talent drop-off and more to the the experience level, is drastic. It’s an over simplication to simply point the finger at Morton.
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Shep is a solid DC. His scheme was actually good. The problem came when players didn’t maintain their responsibilities and got too aggressive.
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In what universe is that what it shows? The offense is to blame. As hard as it is for some to grasp you can’t just separate out Morton from all of the other intricacies that go into playing high level offensive football at the NFL. There is blame to go around. It is the ultimate team game.
But who cares. Blame is a loser’s mentality.. Dan isn’t a loser. I’m with Dan.
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As for Morton …. I think he’s fine and will continue to improve. I think people forget Ben had struggles early on too.
He’s definitely not as creative as Ben was but he’s also not as risky. I’m ok with that. I just want to see a top 5 offense….
It’s a well known fact that Goff needs a clean pocket to be his best. It’s a little disappointing to me that Brad decided to enter the season with two youngsters in the middle. Especially knowing there was a high probability with Frank retiring. I know Ragnow retiring put us behind the 8 ball a bit but the OL depth has been a concerns for a few years now. I’d really like to see us make it a bigger priority this offseason. Put more resources into it. I strongly feel we need more talent on our OL both starting and depth.
I realize our offense is in flux. New OC and several new faces on the OL means you’re going to have growing pains. This was expected for me…. I’m not surprised we lost to MIN. I think it’s good to have your weaknesses exploited at times. It confirms where we need to concentrate our efforts on improving.
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But creativity usually comes from sequencing. Sustain drives and the creativity will show.
Ben averaged 30.5 points per game against Flores. We couldn’t execute worth a damn and were still a FG away from 27 and y’all are acting like your the crew in Armageddon.
Chillax. We failed a Mad Scientist’s pop quiz. It was one week. We’ll find answers. If we get this right the O may be even more explosive than prior years.
Also, how soon we forget that the glorious Ben went away from Gibbs averaging 10 per pop in a winner go home game. These guys are human. They are fallible.
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My take is the Lion’s will be a better playoff team this year than the previous two.
Morton=Downgrade from Johnson
Sheppard=Upgrade from Glenn
Defense matters in the playoffs. While we will be less on offense we will have a better defense which I think carries us further
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