2019-20 Detroit Lions Football Preview

Posted on September 7, 2019 by Jeff

Courtesy of a busy work schedule this bad boy is coming out later than ever before…but I had to throw up something.

Last year I drank a lot of the Matt Patricia Kool-Aid and did not think the growing pains would be as brutal as they were. I thought 10-6 was possible and 9-7 was likely but man, oh man was it bad. The defense was bad, the offense was bad and it was just a complete debacle. This year, after watching the preseason and looking at the roster, I am not drinking the Kool-Aid. Could they make the playoffs? Perhaps…especially after what I saw out of the Bears and Packers offenses this week. Only issue is, the Lions want to be a run a similar offense to what the Packers just did.

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2019-20 Michigan Football Preview

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Jeff

It’s about that time of year….fortunately or unfortunately depending on your outlook for this coming season. The 18-19 season finished with yet another thud…a pathetic performance against Ohio State and a disgraceful one against Florida. I do not love the comments coming out of Ann Arbor from Don Brown saying that they’re not going to adjust or go away from their perceived strengths because they do not want players to lose confidence in what they’re currently running.

To me that’s a pretty asinine way of thinking. If you’re getting absolutely pummeled, that’s going to make you lose confidence in yourself and your team more than a coach trying to adjust to an opponent gameplan. It’s surprising that this has been said publicly when Jim Harbaugh has shown he will do absolutely anything and adjust in any manner necessary to try and win.

This year he brought in Josh Gattis to run the offense. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you will have heard all about the “Speed In Space”…for me, it’s catchy, but until I see it have success, I’m not going to drink the Kool-Aid. I’m glad that the offense will have more tempo in it. In year’s past they struggled mightily to do anything quickly and a two-minute offense was really about a six-minute offense. Gattis is a first time playcaller so we’ll have to see how comfortable he is. I’s one thing to design an offense and gameplan…it’s another to call plays and dial up everything at the right time to have success.

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2019 NFL Draft Losers

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Jeff

I’m going to end up cheating a little bit with the NFL Draft Losers but since this is my blog, I think that’s going to be alright.

(Check out the 2019 NFL Draft Winners here)

Steve Keim

I liked what the Arizona Cardinals did in the NFL Draft. I think Kyler Murray is a stud and I think they did a good job of surrounding him with weapons. Byron Murphy is a great second round pick. So listing Steve Keim/the Arizona Cardinals here has nothing to do with the actual draft that they had this past week. It’s a good one and I think it made them a lot better. BUT, to only get a late 2nd round pick and a 2020 5th round pick for Josh Rosen is truly terrible. Continue reading →

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2019 NFL Draft Winners

Posted on May 3, 2019 by Jeff

I really need to just come up with a blanket opening paragraph for the NFL Draft Winners and Losers article. It’s getting harder and harder to limit the winners list and to find teams to put on the losers list each year. Then you fast-forward 4 years and you look at the 2016 NFL Draft class and you see 14 1st round picks not having their 5th year options picked up and then it’s like oh yeah, that’s why picking winners and losers immediately after the draft is so difficult and such a crapshoot.

At any rate, here are the top 5 teams that I thought did a particularly good job at addressing needs and made their team better. We’ll get to see how well this ages.

(Check out the 2019 NFL Draft Losers here)

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2019 Detroit Lions Draft Recap

Posted on May 1, 2019 by Jeff

This gallery contains 11 photos.

The Detroit Lions draft class was yet another polarizing one. Or perhaps it’s just the loudest members of the fan base are also the most negative ones. I’ll be the first to say that I do not think this was … Continue reading →

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2019 Detroit Lions Draft Preview and 7-Round Mock Draft

Posted on April 24, 2019 by Jeff

After the complete and utter disappointment of the Michigan football season, I could not bring myself to write anything recapping the season or talking up spring ball. It just did not seem like there was much of a point/nothing could be added to what happened. The results spoke for themselves. Expectations were not too high until after the win streak started…and then everyone’s hopes/expectations got raised, mine included. At the last second, the clock struck midnight and Michigan turned out to be exactly who we thought they were.

Having had the proper amount of time to reflect on it, the Detroit Lions had a little bit of a similar arc/season. The only difference is that expectations were high at the start and then as the year progressed, they showed us their true colors and just how bad the roster actually was. Feel free to disagree, but having had the time to digest it and process the season, this team was actually not good and the fact they missed the playoffs should not have been a surprise. I had high hopes going into the year with the new coaching staff and figured a few tweaks would help the Lions take the next step, but the overhaul that is needed and the actual roster were much further behind than I initially anticipated.

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2018-19 Detroit Lions Season Preview

Posted on September 9, 2018 by Jeff

I have to say, I do not have a good feel for how the Lions are going to do this year. Matt Patricia has to overhaul the entire defense and there’s been a lot of turnover on the roster. I’m not a big Jim Bob Cooter fan, but he’s back and still calling plays. Hopefully Patricia will take the reins off a bit…it was understandably vanilla in the preseason, but they must be more aggressive and less predictable than last year. There is one thing that I’m 100% confident about and that is if Matthew Stafford gets hurt and misses significant time, the Lions will not win a game without him.

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2018-19 Michigan Football Season Preview

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Jeff

After the disappointment that was last season, it is tough to say that I’ve been really looking forward to this Michigan football season. It’s not often that I can say that, but the Outback Bowl left a really sour taste in my mouth and I was bitterly disappointed in the team’s performance and the coaching staff. Fortunately, it’s a new year with new players and quite a few new coaches. Jim McElwain and Ed Warriner are joining the offensive side of the ball with Sherrone Moore and Al Washington is going to work on the defensive side of the ball. McElwain is going to work with the wide receivers, Warriner with the offensive line and Moore with the tight ends. Suffice it to say that they are re-working the offense and the departure of Tim Drevno should mean they are going in a new direction. The offensive line is supposedly working on simpler calls and schemes which are supposed to work this time around. The most important new person at Michigan is obviously Shea Patterson. He is the real deal…but the offensive line still needs to protect him and the coaches need to gameplan better and call better plays to put players in a position to succeed. Will that happen this year? I hope so, but it’s far from a guarantee. This should not be considered a dig at Jim Harbaugh or Don Brown…but Pep Hamilton. The coaches have said they’ve simplified things on offense quite often this offseason, but we have not seen it work in a game yet. Harbaugh has the final say on all of the play calls and he is supposedly taking more ownership of calling plays this year (I don’t think he ever gave it up) so hopefully he can work some magic.

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2018 NFL Draft Losers

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Jeff

This year I tried to avoid including teams that had previously traded away their first round pick or second round pick from the losers section. The Texans and Rams are very clearly happy with Deshaun Watson and Jared Goff and do not care that they are missing their early picks and I cannot blame them.

(You can see the 2018 NFL Draft Winners here)

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2018 NFL Draft Winners

Posted on May 23, 2018 by Jeff

It feels like I’ve said this before, but I think there were quite a few teams that had good drafts. This draft may not have had an abundance of elite players but I thought the depth of it at a lot of positions was great and that led to some teams having an easy job to do. As always, we will not know who the true “winners” and “losers” of this particular NFL Draft are for another 2-3 years, but these were the drafts that I liked the most right off the bat.

(You can check out the 2018 NFL Draft Losers here)

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