2011 Detroit Lions

[ejames01]

This Sunday I expect the Lions to destroy the Chiefs.

Prediction: 38-10

Stafford: 400 yds & 4 TD
Best: 75 yds rushing / 75 receiving & 2 TD
Calvin: 8-150 receiving & 2 TD

Defense: 4-5 sacks & 2 Int

[gnome]

for all you slathered up slappies:

[ejames01]

for all you slathered up slappies:

I'm going to get that in my car [[the Queen version) and play it on the way home after every home game.

[Roq]

[QUOTE=gnome;272452]for all you slathered up slappies:[\QUOTE]


HELL YEAH!!

[smogboy]

This Sunday I expect the Lions to destroy the Chiefs.

Prediction: 38-10

Stafford: 400 yds & 4 TD
Best: 75 yds rushing / 75 receiving & 2 TD
Calvin: 8-150 receiving & 2 TD

Defense: 4-5 sacks & 2 Int

I, too will predict a much anticipated victory over the Chiefs. I will put on gnome's Miss Cleo turbin [[if he's gotten it back from Thruster) and call it a near domination as well. I watched a chunk of the Chiefs game last week and they looked bad. Buffalo's a decent team and they just took the Chiefs' defense apart the first half; I think Stafford- if he can find that rhythm early will do the same. The Bills QB Fitzpatrick threw for four TDs against the Chiefs and with the Chiefs' Eric Berry out for the year, the corners are going to be a little softer now. And if Matt Cassel's not fully recovered from his bumps & bruises last week, he's going to find plenty more underneath his flak jacket after playing the Lions.

[sirrealone]

Poor Matt Cassel. He's going to take the brunt of Gunther Cunningham's wrath of being accused of tampering. Cunningham can spin for the press all he wants about how there's no 'revenge' factor, but you can't tell me he won't relish just a little bit if his defense were to drop a bomb on the Chiefs. And there's no reason to think that they won't. The Chiefs are going to learn the hard way that the NFL is a man's sport, and men don't tattletale like little babies. The guys love to play for Cunningham, and I predict that Suh will probably come away with some sort of penalty and fine as he and the others makes sure that the Chiefs learn the hard way that nobody likes a tattletale.

[buckster1986]

We recently had a piece written about the Lions but it goes beyond that to talk about Detroit as well...it's a good read for those who enjoy sports and even those who don't...

http://woodwardspine.com/2011/09/13/...han-you-think/

[Thruster315]

For as maligned as they are at times, rightfully and wrongfully- here's a brief moment to celebrate the effectiveness of our offensive line:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...ritethru.0765/

[Thruster315]

Poor Matt Cassel. He's going to take the brunt of Gunther Cunningham's wrath of being accused of tampering. Cunningham can spin for the press all he wants about how there's no 'revenge' factor, but you can't tell me he won't relish just a little bit if his defense were to drop a bomb on the Chiefs. And there's no reason to think that they won't. The Chiefs are going to learn the hard way that the NFL is a man's sport, and men don't tattletale like little babies. The guys love to play for Cunningham, and I predict that Suh will probably come away with some sort of penalty and fine as he and the others makes sure that the Chiefs learn the hard way that nobody likes a tattletale.

The snitch factor? I can see it but I also think that the players themselves will just want to do better than they did last week. I thought the defensive front four played very well in bottling up Freeman, but statistically they didn't have much to show for it. I'm not saying that the guys up front are crazy about personal stats but it wouldn't surprise me if they wouldn't mind taking a bitch slaps at Cassel and padding their sack stats as well. They still might not get a chance to add to their sack total though; I can see Cassel either handing off to Jamaal Charles all day long if that's effective or doing a whole bunch of dinks & dunks to the likes of Leonard Pope or Steve Breaston. At least that'd be only way I can see slowing up the effectiveness of the Lions D.

[Thruster315]

How the hell does a Lions fan even respond to a game like what we saw Sunday afternoon? I'm at a loss for words.

Do we pity Kansas City or do we praise our Lions? Someone pinch me and lift my ass from this fog because I'm still not so sure I saw correctly the score at the end of the game. I'm sure every other Lions fan is agog like myself. I'm not about to let the balloon go adrift yet but....!

[Thruster315]

This Sunday I expect the Lions to destroy the Chiefs.

Prediction: 38-10

Stafford: 400 yds & 4 TD
Best: 75 yds rushing / 75 receiving & 2 TD
Calvin: 8-150 receiving & 2 TD

Defense: 4-5 sacks & 2 Int

Criminy ejames! You must be sporting the Miss Cleo turbin this week and must've been channeling Nostradamus!

-48-3. But damn close with your 38-10; the over/ under bet's close!
-Stafford didn't get 400 yards [[I even tossed in Shaun Hill's 28 yards to the QB's total but that still fell short) but you did call the 4 TDs dead on!
-Jahvid Best did not get 75 yards rushing, but your channeling did get the numbers reversed. He got 57 yards rushing! And he did get two TDs- one rushing and one thrown to him by Stafford.
-Calvin Johnson went 3 for 39 instead of your 8 for 150, but you did nail the two TDs!
-Defense? Not the 4-5 sacks like you predicted [[we got three) and instead of your 2 interceptions- we had that total in sacks instead.

So your crystal ball was dead on for most things- just different categories. Try a little Windex next time and keep up the good work, ejames01! That was damn fine predicting!

[sirrealone]

Do we pity Kansas City or do we praise our Lions? I'm not about to let the balloon go adrift yet but....!

I'll start with your last sentence. I too am not going to increase my expectations of the season after what I've seen the last two weeks. It's awesome that they're 2-0 and it's great that they have confidence, swagger, and talent that they have sorely lacked for over a decade. I think playoffs are a possibility but they had better fight the way that they've been fighting, because letting up even a second would be catastrophic. As much as this team is united and happy, they are also not used to success. If something gets in the way, all that could unravel quickly for a team that isn't used to it. I think that's why Schwartz pulled the trigger on benching Cherilus, because he knows that he can't have idiocy like that jeopardizing the forward progress this team is making.

As far as whether to pity Kansas City? No way. Teams had no problem laying a whipping on the Lions week in and week out. And the Chiefs? The tattletales? No way. I firmly believe that the Chiefs levied the accusations that they did on the Lions simply because the Lions were...well...the Lions. They knew, at the time, that the Lions had no respect around the league. Do you think they would have levied the same accusations against the Patriots? The Packers? And gotten the results that they did. Not a chance! But, against the Lions, they were all about trying to take advantage of a bad reputation to get something for nothing. They were probably banking on the fact that the Lions had sucked for so long, there'd be no way to get revenge.

Oops.

The Chiefs made their bed. Did the players on the field get caught in the crossfire and get humilated at decisions that others made? Maybe. But, you know what, it will hit management in the end because the talented among those players should and will lose respect for the Chiefs organization and could go elsewhere which will hit management in the end. They're going to know that they got utterly humiliated because of bad front office decisions, and while some players don't care about that and just want the payday, all things equal a talented player isn't going to stick around when they see management driving the car in the wrong direction.

If you can't yet tell, I think the Cheifs tampering charges were unforgivable. Every time the Lions scored, I kept yelling "Another one, another one" and man was it sweet watching them go and get another one time and again.

[gnome]

I believe the time has come for me to surrender the Gnomian Miss Cleo Turbin, here forever known as the MCT, to Ejames.

This award will stand until such time as Ejames decides to pass it to another poster.

[Jingles in Boofland]

I'll start with your last sentence. I too am not going to increase my expectations of the season after what I've seen the last two weeks. It's awesome that they're 2-0 and it's great that they have confidence, swagger, and talent that they have sorely lacked for over a decade. I think playoffs are a possibility but they had better fight the way that they've been fighting, because letting up even a second would be catastrophic. As much as this team is united and happy, they are also not used to success. If something gets in the way, all that could unravel quickly for a team that isn't used to it. I think that's why Schwartz pulled the trigger on benching Cherilus, because he knows that he can't have idiocy like that jeopardizing the forward progress this team is making.

As far as whether to pity Kansas City? No way. Teams had no problem laying a whipping on the Lions week in and week out. And the Chiefs? The tattletales? No way. I firmly believe that the Chiefs levied the accusations that they did on the Lions simply because the Lions were...well...the Lions. They knew, at the time, that the Lions had no respect around the league. Do you think they would have levied the same accusations against the Patriots? The Packers? And gotten the results that they did. Not a chance! But, against the Lions, they were all about trying to take advantage of a bad reputation to get something for nothing. They were probably banking on the fact that the Lions had sucked for so long, there'd be no way to get revenge.

Oops.

The Chiefs made their bed. Did the players on the field get caught in the crossfire and get humilated at decisions that others made? Maybe. But, you know what, it will hit management in the end because the talented among those players should and will lose respect for the Chiefs organization and could go elsewhere which will hit management in the end. They're going to know that they got utterly humiliated because of bad front office decisions, and while some players don't care about that and just want the payday, all things equal a talented player isn't going to stick around when they see management driving the car in the wrong direction.

If you can't yet tell, I think the Cheifs tampering charges were unforgivable. Every time the Lions scored, I kept yelling "Another one, another one" and man was it sweet watching them go and get another one time and again.

I especially liked the fact that Martin Mayhew rejected KC's GM Scott Pioli's offer of a handshake to bury the hatchet sort of speak, in regard to the tampering charges, and then to go on and beat the hell out of them was more than icing on the cake in my eyes - I am thrilled with the Lions' progress, but if they can beat Minnesota, Chicago, and Green Bay, it'll be pure nirvana.

[ejames01]

How the hell does a Lions fan even respond to a game like what we saw Sunday afternoon? I'm at a loss for words.

Do we pity Kansas City or do we praise our Lions? Someone pinch me and lift my ass from this fog because I'm still not so sure I saw correctly the score at the end of the game. I'm sure every other Lions fan is agog like myself. I'm not about to let the balloon go adrift yet but....!

This game was not a big deal to me. I expect them to destroy bad teams. I did get tired to giving people high fives after every score and turnover.

[firstandten]

I'll tell you this, I went over to the KC message boards just to see what their fans were saying. The only positive they could come up with was " we're in the Andrew Luck sweepstakes yea ! "

I am so glad that we aren't in that place now. I finally feel like we are a competitive team, capable of winning even on the road. Usually we would be good on offense but bad everwhere else. We finally have a competitive team on offense, defense and special teams.

If we can squeeze 8 more wins out of the next 14 games, we could have a double digit win season.

[ejames01]

I believe the time has come for me to surrender the Gnomian Miss Cleo Turbin, here forever known as the MCT, to Ejames.

This award will stand until such time as Ejames decides to pass it to another poster.

I will post my week 3 predictions on Friday afternoon.

[smogboy]

Do we pity Kansas City or do we praise our Lions?

Now I watched the game from the neighborhood watering hole on gigantic televisions with all sorts of people around me; most cheering and a few who had a tad bit too much cheer. But when it comes to pity for the Chiefs? No way! No one had any pity for us when we were being demolished the last few years. One of the semi-drunken folks that I was with even conjectured that Schwartz was being “classless” for running up the score. He was quickly shouted down and I couldn’t have disagreed with him more.

This is professional football where the athletes are being paid a hefty sum to play a game. Seriously if the Chiefs didn’t like what the Lions were doing, I defied them to do something about it on the field. I thought the Lions had a game plan and executed it very methodically. Jim Schwartz always seemed to have this philosophy of taking care of our own team first. What he showed out there on the field was to situate his players to do well; it wouldn’t have mattered if it was the Chiefs, Packers or any other opponent. He’s got the Lions playing in a smart professional way- something that hasn’t been seen in these parts in a long while.

What I saw in yesterday’s game was the Chiefs attempting to establish a running game. And they did fairly well with Charles to the outside but even before he got hurt, I saw the team adjusting to stop that. Defensively we did what we had to do to stopping them as evident by the first half stats. Did the Chiefs implode? Sure, but a better team [[such as the Lions now) will capitalize on another team’s gaffes. We shouldn’t have to apologize for that either. Jim Schwartz and his team took what was given to them and scored continually- whether it was a field goal or a touchdown. Again, if the Chiefs didn’t like that, simply stop giving the ball away like it was a live hand grenade.

Another aspect that I liked was that Stafford distributed the ball evenly [[seven different receivers). He went short to Burleson, long to Calvin, a few to Best and pretty much scattered them to all of his targets. Stafford and Titus Young looked amazing and that young man proved he was worthy of that high of a draft pick yesterday; some of his catches were highlight worthy. And when given the opportunity, I was pleasantly surprised to see Jahvid Best running between the tackles for some gains. I think part of his maturation this year is knowing that the speed to the outside doesn’t work as effectively in the NFL the way it did in college. Best seems to understand that sometimes his speed isn’t always going to save his bacon. Sometimes just lunging it forward with some authority opens up things.

Other things that I really liked were the discipline that the team seemed to have. Only four penalties for 35 yards? The Chiefs imploded horribly in the first half and gave the ball back to us numerous times. The discipline not to start Gosder Cherilus also made sense too. Who cares if he was a high draft pick? Make stupid mistakes and one gets benched. I for one was happy to see Corey Hilliard get the start and stay in the game. If Cherilus truly wants to be a part of this team, be contrite, apologize and play like the professional he wants to be. Nothing on this team is given out like obligatory Halloween candy any more. We have depth at positions; no one is sacred and it also forces each and every player to be ready at a moment’s notice as well as forcing them to be their very best for every play.

And as fans, isn’t that what we craved for so long?

[gnome]

Looks like Gosder will be back on the first team this week - at least according to the gossipgirls who hawk the Leos Wednesday practices - but we'll see about that. Gosder is one of those guys that is just plain out frustrating. Bigger than big, quicker than quick, Boston College grad makes him smart but then he plays like a dishrag. A swinging door. A chump.

grrr.... like Kalimba Edwards, Mr. Universe who'd break a tooth eating marshmellows. Sometime show up, most times get shown up.

Anyway, the guy I'm looking at this week is Mike Williams of the Vikes. He's been suspended for the first two games due to a long-running steriod masking charge, but this week he'll be back and is rather hungry. I'd like to think Rob Sims will be able to handle him but that means Backus will be singing solo all day. I'm liking Backus, but I like him better when he has company.

The point is that Mike Williams use to spend more time in our backfield than our quarterback and he still scare me. Now he might be out-of-game-shape, he might be a steriod casuality, he might be used up at age 31, but there is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal.

And Williams is an animal.

Another issue which hasn't been really mentioned around town is Suh being a trap-block magnet. Last week he was not nearly as "there" on running plays due to traps, look for more of the same unless Gun devises some scheme which counters Suh's natural tendency to go hard, fast and deep.

One game would be to position him as an End looping inside, but that means the outside pass rush - and contain - would be compromised. The nice part is McNabb, because of his age, he isn't much of a scrambler anymore. He makes a nice target back there, but that also means his blocking pocket knows where he is and where he will be.

The issue is going to be Adrian Petterson. A pure rushing machine. This will be a real test for how Gun reacts to early rushing success.

[Thruster315]

Gosder Gosder Gosder [[shakes head in disbelief at times)...

I agree with you brother gnome. The lad's got the physical skills to be a rock on that O line but despite his Boston U cred, sometimes I think he's just not the sharpest guy on the block. I think Schwartz benching him is his way fo trying to get the guy to mature. Simply put- "you want the job? You perform it well- if not I've got a dozen of other big bodies who can fill your spot."

I'm not too worried about Adrian Peterson just yet although this will be the week I see the linebacking group having to really step it up filling those gaps. AP is a bruising back who wants to take it up the gut and we've got some beef there. A guy like Charles last week exposed us a bit on the edges until he took a wipe on the yard marker [[bummer deal because he's a pretty exciting guy to watch). Guys like Hill, Williams and Fluellen are going to have heir hands full and Tulloch had better be prepared to meet the hammer this Sunday. McNabb really doesn't scramble too much any more so we should be able to key on him if he wants to air it out but i don't think Minnesota will. I think we're going to see the Vikings going to the one proven commodity they still have on offense and that's Peterson.

Or at least that's what the Turbin is telling me.

[Downriviera]

I'm still a bit disappointed in Pettigrew. He is still dropping the ball. With Scheffler playing so well and Heller in the mix, does anyone think Pettigrew could be trade bait?

[Thruster315]

I'm still a bit disappointed in Pettigrew. He is still dropping the ball. With Scheffler playing so well and Heller in the mix, does anyone think Pettigrew could be trade bait?

He's a young big body. I don't know what his contract is but I still see him having a huge upside. Trade bait? I don't think there's anyone on the Lions that is that sacred that Mayhew wouldn't listen to an offer. Listening and pulling the trigger are two different things though. He had a pretty damn good season last year and I like the twin tower tight ends with him and Scheffler.

I wouldn't trade him yet but if there's an unreal offer on the table, I can see Mayhew sending Mr. Pettigrew packing.

[Thruster315]

And as fans, isn’t that what we craved for so long?

After Millen cleaned off the shelves, hell we were ready to take the cheese off of the trap.

[sirrealone]

Can we make it two in a row on McNabb?

That's the question I'll be looking for with this week's Vikings game. McNabb and the Vikings have struggled. Last year, McNabb was supposed to be the savior for the Redskins, but turned out to be anything but. His time there was marked with disappointment almost from day one. In spite of promises made by the coaches that he was 'the man', and in spite of a meaningless contract that he was awarded [[that the Redskins could and did walk away from with no recourse), the end of his time effectively came to pass in last year's game against the Lions.

In that close game, Rex Grossman was brought in even though the game was close, to attempt a possible comeback. It failed. The Lions eventually won anyways. Grossman is now the QB of the Redskins, so the Lions effectively were the nail in the coffin when it came to his Redskins career.

Can they send McNabb to the bench two years in a row? The Vikings are 0-2. McNabb threw for something like 30 yards in his first game and didn't impress all that much in his second. If the Lions defense comes anywhere near doing to McNabb as what they did against Matt Cassel and the Chiefs, would it be any sort of surprise to see rookie Christian Ponder get called to duty? A potential 0-3 start would have to give the Vikings pause to consider seeing what they have in their first round QB.

McNabb was one of my favorite NFL players back in the day. I rooted for him and the Eagles against every team they might have played outside the Lions. I shook my head at Philadelphia fans who never realized how good they had it. But, he has clearly been on the decline for the last couple of years. Can the Lions show him the way to that proverbial ride into the sunset?

Let's hope! Go Lions!

[old guy]

The Vikings can't seem to finish. 1st half is usually pretty good but their 2nd half always falls apart. That was also true last year without McNabb.