When Overreaction turns into Reflection after week 1

The Den
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I was frustrated, annoyed, and reactive throughout the second half yesterday and rightfully so. However I have gone back and processed the other football I watched yesterday, looked at the box scores, and come away with this message….

It’s just a game…. Not just week one versus the Saints, but football in general, and frankly all sports. WANTING it so badly it hurts has no impact on getting there. I woke up this morning to the love of my life in tears and quickly packing a bag- before I could get my bearings she asserted that her mom just was informed she only has a few days/hours left. I am broken for her. Far more broken than I would have been “IF” that 2 point conversion was caught. Life is too short to care as much as we do.. FACTS! Poor HSV almost had the worst sports 18 hours window imaginable… so what. Maybe the Lions and Buckeyes both lose and the go undefeated? Maybe they both win those games and lose 5 in a row after?

16 teams already have a loss…. The Packers, Carolina, Rams, Colts, Chargers, etc all have some real questions to walk away with. The Cowboys, Patriots, Falcons, Texans, Saints, Bucs, commanders, etc all took tough losses…. What does that leave?

  • Miami, Cleveland absolutely suck and we don’t know who wins between the Chiefs and Broncos yet.

It looked pretty clear the 49ers, Jaguars, Bears, and Ravens played some pretty great football…. and the Lions, Bills, Eagles, and Seahawks got Ws but with plenty of warts.

Lions takeaways:

  • without any preseason action we still have J Goff who stat lines was mostly impacted by 80 missing yards and a TD from Jamo… Goff will be fine. Another game winning drive when it mattered that nobody seems to care about

  • Ra is prime Ra, and as clutch as it gets. Yet during the game we had fans worried because a defender with two hands on the ball broke up a pass and it was considered a drop?

  • Sewell played his first game in like 5 years at LT against a solid DL

  • B Miller played his first pro game ever against a solid DL.

  • we played backups at LG and C, and let’s be honest we all know what Mahogs is at LG, so a backup to a bad starter is usually a bad backup?

  • we saw TK killing on PR, and many new ST coverage folks were clutch.

  • Barnes was awesome out there for the most part, and Alim looked mostly himself and Tyliek looked stronger. Hutch with 2 sacks, Mac with 1, and 2 more from pressured…

  • we allowed 25 carries for under 4 ypc on the ground

  • we rushed for 170 plus yards and over 5 ypc

  • Laporta looked healthy and good

Yet we are mad at home many carries Gibbs got, they won’t likely happen again but yesterday it was necessary.

We trashed Shough, but he was rated over 100 and averaged 300 ypg with 67% completions and a few tds. Again the saints won 4 out of 5 to finish and also finished 5-3 in the second half of the season. THEIR D DIDNT ALLOW A TD IN THE 4TH QUARTER DURING LAST 6 GAMES

So we played a young team with a good OL, solid defense, first year coach last year that finished strong, and a solid cast of skilled players around Shough.

We played with a new OC, a new and injured OL, and the Legion of Whom in the secondary.

We won….

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Sorry to hear about your MIL. You are absolutely correct that sports are just a distraction we use to divert us from the real issues and struggles in life. Many of us dive much too deeply into the distraction. Ultimately this is a bunch of adult men playing a kids game. It is not real life. Go hug the people you love, even when you don’t feel like it, and tell them you love them. That’s what matters.

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We are probably going to lose to the Bills on a short week…. Though their D was pretty bad too. Then we have the Jets, Panthers and Cardinals. We will likely be 4-1-

We just freed up 30M intentionally and thus I imagine a Sam Laporta extension and a trade for a CB are coming.

I think if we keep our 1st and one of top 100 pick in the 2027 draft we can address the secondary again and LG and allow us to add a veteran RB and DE to rotate and keep staying competitive.

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Thank you

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We need branch back ASAP. Great post.

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Prayers for you and your family. Hopefully your wife can spend a last few good moments with her mom.

Your points are all pretty much spot on. Jamo had an awful drop on the first bomb, then fumbled the end around, but his second drop was a last second deflection. The catch in OT saved what would’ve been a terrible game by him. I think it’s clear Petzing wanted to feature Jamo in the offense and once the game was 24-0, the offense went on cruise mode and it almost cost them everything.

I know it was the defense giving up big plays, but people severely discount how much the offense has to give the defense a rest. The problem with a high pressure defense, which is definitely what it looks like we’ve shifted to, is that you can get killed with short quick passes. We are looking more like the Jim Schwartz Lions now. Fast defense that gets sacks, but also gives up big plays. Every defense used has a counter, it’s why I love football. The chess match. You have to pick a poison. The Lions poison will be QB’s who excel at short quick passes and giving up the occasional bomb.

Here’s a couple key points I take away.

  1. The Lions got rid of some key vets, and are going with a youth movement. Guess what, young guys take time to catch up to NFL speed. Remember 2022? Started terrible, finished strong. Fortunately, we have a soft schedule up front outside of the Bills game which I already had marked as a loss. This Lions game was very inconsistent, because we had guys who haven’t played football in 9 months mixed in with guys who haven’t played NFL football at all. It’s going to take time, but yesterday was far from the finished product.

  2. Saints aren’t a bottom tier team. I had thought the Lions would win by 10, but that it would start a slow slog with the Lions up 3, and a late TD got them to 10. It would be a dogfight game. I didn’t expect us to come out so hot to be up 24-0 (should’ve been 24-7) in the 3rd, and I didn’t expect the Saints to come ALL the way back from that. It’s the NFL, no one expected the Cards to beat the Chargers either.

  3. You covered the positives really well, but this team for sure has some questions. We heard that TeSlaa had a bad camp, well he was completely invisible yesterday. The Saints clamped down hard on Amon Ra, Jamo was dropping open looks, this game was a great candidate for TeSlaa to make a few catches and take some heat off of ARSB. Nope, the dude is invisible. This is very sad to state, but the Lions have taken a step back since we lost Tim Patrick at outside WR, and I think it’s not too long before Tay Martin starts getting some WR3 playing time.

Here’s a summation of the game. Lions started out way hotter than expected going up 24-0. They then collapsed way harder than expected and ended up going to OT 24-24. In OT, the offense put together a very balanced and effective drive and got the TD. The defense had the Saints on the ropes multiple times, but the Saints answered with a TD. Then on a play to decide the game, the Lions made the one extra play. That’s the difference between 1-0 and 0-1. Or 0-0-1? It is what it is.

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Prayers brother…

I purposely try to not get as addicted as I used to…. To a game

Love the lions and would love a SB

but it’s still a game

Life happens and it’s way more important as is my God..

I probably come here now more for you guys as a type of long term fellowships

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Football is just a game. Family first. Sorry to hear about what you and your wife are going through. It’s clear that your love for your wife is profound and for that both of you are blessed. Thoughts and prayers, friend.

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Sorry for the jarring news, prayers and internet hugs.

TeSlaa being invisible to me is something Petzing has to address in his playcalling. We don’t know how many plays or if any he was the primary read and was covered and Goff moved to the next read, but I thought I saw a couple like that.

Interested in SHGs snapcount with Levi cut.

Edge pressure not named Hutch seemed to be blitzes and not Wonnum/Moore winning. Gotta check that, because gotta have that. Thr blitzing was good, especially Harper.

Reed needs help over the top. He seems sticky early, but we need a Kerby type eraser because neither of our corners look like they can run deep with speed receivers.

I thought Harper/Maddox/Clark did fine overall at S.

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The Packers, Bears and Bills gave more points than we did to worse offenses in only 4 quarters while we had 5

There was a lot of bad defense which is why I still think we will win the division.

But those corners aren’t good enough to win the Super Bowl even if Kerby and Branch come back 100%

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Prayers for your wife and you. Sounds like you have your priorities in order. Be there for your her, I’m sorry she is going through this.

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Not sure it matters. Either he was primary and didn’t get open or the staff doesn’t trust him enough to make him primary. 52 snaps, 0 targets.

He should be emerging this year. This is concerning.

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Life will hammer home the point in an instant that football (and so much else) is but a trifle.

I wish you, your wife and family well as this unfolds.

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Also, the offense didnt have many sustained, long drives, especially in the 2nd half…more offensive snaps = more opps to get Teslaa some looks. But they def need to get him worked in. This team had their most success when they had that 3rd WR to go to when they had Reynolds and Patrick worked in for instance.

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This is the one to keep an eye on. I look back at St’s 1st year, for his 1st 10 games I don’t recall him being a target or catching a pass. Was it because he wasn’t capable? Didn’t get open? wasn’t targeted? OR… did he not have the trust of JG?
Seems like Josh Reynolds and Tim Patrick did get targets from JG, is it a trust factor, or was Patrick and Reynolds able to get open looks and Teslaa is not.
I truly don’t know, but I’d like to…

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This again is a chicken/egg thing. The whole offense went through St Brown and Gibbs.

I have a hard time believing that was the game plan going in

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If the bears gave up that many points to Carolina, we will probably score in the mid 150s

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Why? On average a WR3 has about 350 yards and 1-3 TDs per year. Consider these guys all finished #80 overall by WRs in yards over the past 3 years.

I’d argue that our combo of Gibbs and Laporta makes takes more targets to feed than at least 24 teams given their talent, and I’d say Amon and Jamo (aside from yesterday) deserve at top 6-8 (at least) target share among WR1-2 combos. Let’s hope our top 4 targets stay healthy all year and we only see 50 targets and 30-34 catches to Teslaa, and let’s hope he get 400 yards and 5-6 big TDs from those

Van Jefferson 350 yards 1 TD- 25’
David Moore 357 yards 3 TD- 24’
R Bateman 367 yards 1 TD- 23’

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While he didn’t become a bigger receiving threat until Josh Reynolds showed up, Amon Ra did have targets and some solid games even early on.

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When your top perimeter weapon is treating a football like a wet bar of soap it limits you a bit. Hopefully that is resolved. And by resolved I mean 8-9% drop rate. We don’t need Jamo to be Steve Largent but he can’t play like he’s a first half of movie WR on the Little Giants.

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