29 Comments
User's avatar
Myth2ry's avatar

Game ones are not terribly indicative of the rest of the season.

Expand full comment
Eric Petrick's avatar

It was an awful performance! Nothing to hang your hat on that looked even decent. The pass rush was exactly what I thought it would be, nonexistent. I'm blown away by Brad and Dan's confidence in their pass rush, almost everyone knew it wasn't good enough even with Hutch healthy.

Expand full comment
Paul S's avatar

The only part I didn’t love was him saying they put too much on their plate but then saying they had to master “bread and butter”…seems contradictory to me. Agree we won’t really know who they are until like week 6 though and as long as they are like 3-3 none of this matters.

Expand full comment
Brian Mullins's avatar

Problem was the Lions have been to good the last few years. But we were 1-1 last year and were 1 for 6 in the red zone against the Buccs and lost. Had to go into OT to beat the rams in week one. Gotta give the OL a few games to really get it together. Opening at Lambeau was a tough matchup for sure. Still a whole lot of football to be played. I’ll be shocked if we don’t look better against Chicago.

Expand full comment
David Wojcik's avatar

Not playing the young O-line in the preseason was a big mistake

Expand full comment
John Lawton's avatar

I'm sure all the post game one complainers would love to have Matt Patricia back. Look what a great job he's doing at Ohio!

Expand full comment
TPaz's avatar

Is he picking up trash on the highway or something?

Expand full comment
TPaz's avatar

Is he picking up trash on the highway or something?

Expand full comment
kwasny.james10@yahoo.com's avatar

Watch and write about game 6 Lions good or bad performance. The coach knows that tells a story for the season.

Expand full comment
Jane's avatar

I am definitely going to overreact.

I no longer trust the words coming from Dan Campbell's mouth. Dan, you lied. You said they were ready. No one was ready. You said, "We're good." You were not. Your staff and your players didn't have a clue.

Best roster top to bottom? What a joke.

Expand full comment
John Lawton's avatar

Wow. So one game undoes the last three years? Did you lose a bet or something?

Expand full comment
Andrew Jazdzyk's avatar

Calm down Jane. No one is lying.

Expand full comment
Jane's avatar

I believe I said I was going to overreact, yes? Pretty sure I overreacted.

Anyways, that's how I *feel*. Betrayed.

Expand full comment
Andrew Jazdzyk's avatar

Sarcasm is difficult to discern through text

Expand full comment
Nicole Plott's avatar

Sack percentage this year roughly 9%, last year roughly 5.5%. Only 2 NFL quarterbacks were sacked more than Goff, 3 others were sacked as much as Goff. Definitely room for growth as O line settles into new positions. Ragnow was a force that is hard to replace.

Expand full comment
Tim Bowers's avatar

I'm not overreacting to Week 1, but I do wonder if scrimmaging the Dolphins (yikes) and the Texans (9 points vs Rams) and then going against themselves were not good barometers for what to expect heading into the season.

Expand full comment
Crixcyon's avatar

TeSlaa would likely replace Raymond who made a few plays when called on. First game in Packer Land on Parsons day...I expected better. As with any loss, there are a handful of plays that make the difference. Heck, the Ravens scored 40 and still lost.

But I am getting really tired of the phrase "we gotta clean up some things" as even the players are using it. How about something like wax on-wax off that hasn't been used in 40 years. Anything that is not so obvious.

Expand full comment
Robert Honeyman's avatar

And yet, every time he's said that in the past, things got cleaned up. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Expand full comment
Philip Fracassi's avatar

I've read a few articles from other legit Lions writers ripping into the offensive game plan. I think everyone allows that the O-Line determined a lot of the timidity, but jumping jacks, folks, that was borderline panic button bad. If they get run over by Chicago at home, things might need a more serious shakeup. If they perform well and take care of business, it's a different story, obviously. We'll see.

Expand full comment
Josh Boeve's avatar

1 game long season everyone needs to relax

Expand full comment
Gary Clinton's avatar

Man, I hope Isaac TeSlaa can play center.

Expand full comment
Tyler's avatar

I don't know if it's more concerning he's saying the offseason meme of "we've got to make the system simpler" or that he thinks Morton did a good job

Expand full comment
Don's avatar

No doubt about it. I think that’s what was exciting about Ben Johnson’s offense. You had an identity. Run the ball and pass protect — even if that means an extra OL and RB helping. Then he disguised those looks for explosives. We got away from that this game. And, rightly so, the GB helped us get away from that.

Expand full comment
Jason's avatar

Personally I didn’t find anything he said concerning. I thought it was an articulate and well-reasoned analysis of what happened and where they intend to go next. It doesn’t make Sunday look any better, but i appreciated DC’s answers.

Expand full comment
James's avatar

It'd be bad leadership to go out and talk smack about your brand new hires. Give them a chance to settle in a bit at least.

Expand full comment
Tyler's avatar

There's a wide range between saying they did a good job and skewering them.

The phrase he used concerns me because it's what coordinators usually say in the offseason when their units did bad the previous year

Expand full comment
Tim Bowers's avatar

People hating on Morton were probably hating on Ben Johnson at some point too. Haters gonna hate.

Expand full comment
Peter's avatar

It concerns you because you don't believe him

Expand full comment
Lousifer's avatar

I've learned to take Campbell at face value over the last few years. I'm personally going to give him a week or 2 to sort things out before I panic as a fan.

From my armchair, it was impossible to see whether there was a good or bad game plan when the offensive line executed so incredibly poorly. RBs were hit behind the line of scrimmage at a record rate for this regime, and Goff had zero time to make reads.

As far as the other piece here, Dan Campbell has never been one to throw young players under the bus rather than take the blame himself. I bet he's tearing his assistant coaches a new one this week behind closed doors though.

Expand full comment