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Wow talk about a roller coaster start. Our offense rolls to two tds, but our defense looks like they left 3 or 4 guys off the field and Lions score on first 3 drives, rolling up almost 200 yards of offense in the process.
From there, we definitely looked like a Super Bowl caliber team on both sides of the ball, and for a change we actually got a bounce of the ball a couple times go our way. We outscored them 28-0 from that point on (including 21-0 after halftime and the defense which looked hopeless took apart the Lions O)
1) I don't listen to Steve Young much, but I am in 100% agreement with his postgame assessment of Prescott. He was speaking with his 30+ yrs working knowledge of the NFL and said rookie QB's cannot do what Prescott is doing. It just isn't, and has never been possible. What he is doing on the field is not explainable and he is having almost assuredly the greatest rookie season ever for a QB this year. This while being a guy not selected with the 1st or 2nd pick overall, but a guy selected at the end of the 4th round when other options didn't work out. Sometimes a team hits the jackpot, and it appears we did just that with Prescott. QB rating of 105.7. Yds per attempt of outstanding 8.05. Ridiculous 68.1% comp % and a phenomenal TD to INT ratio of nearly 6-1. Now has team record 11 games of QB rating of 100+ (and he had a 99.0 last week vs Tampa, had Dunbar's TD not been called back it'd be 12 out of 15 games). Phenomenal. Pretty exciting thinking about how good he might be in another year or two.
2) Elliott has showed all he needs to, and I hope they resist the urge to suit him up vs Philly Sunday. He's going to fall a little short of Dickerson's rookie record but he is going to win the league rushing title (has a 363 yd lead) and he should probably be the league MVP. He took some pretty big shots last night and I think the body slam Robinson put on him we dodged a bullet on. Elliott could have easily sustained an injury there. We don't need to expose him to injury or the extra pounding next week, let McFadden and Morris carry the ball 15 times or so each.
3) I don't know what happened with the defense on the first three Lion drives, but the adjustments Marinelli and co made were damn good and they did it despite being greatly shorthanded on the DL (down to 5 bodies after McClain and Davis went out) and then losing rookie CB Brown early as well. After giving up all those yds and three tds on 3 drives, the Lions were shutout and managed only about 120 yds the rest of the way. I don't have any delusions after this being a great defense or anything, but they are showing progress. We're up to 34 sacks on the season now after getting 4 more last night. In December we've had 14 of those 34 sacks, and the amount of times we're pressuring or knocking a QB down has greatly improved over the first 3 months of the season.
4) David Irving is turning into a legit force on the DL. Had 1 1/2 sacks, another pass deflection and 3 other QB hits. Doesn't seem to matter if he lines up at DE or DT, he messes up plays regardless. If he can continue this kind of play we should all be giddy. Benson Mayowa has gone from free agent flub to decent player as well, and now leads the team with 6 sacks, with 4 sacks in the last 4 games and some pretty consistent pressures. Maliek Collins now has 5 sacks on the season and is starting to cause regular disruption vs the run and pass and could be a legit playmaking 3T for us for years to come. Have my doubts Lawrence is healthy for the playoffs, but if he and Crawford are both ok for January and though McClain got dinged last night and didn't return, but sounds like he is ok. He's had a nice yr as well. We could be in pretty decent shape at DL.
5) I wasn't expecting too much from Gregory and other than one or two explosive first step plays early, he looked kinda bad and also got himself hurt early in the game. However as the game wore on he seemed to knock some of the rust off and he made a few plays and had a big hit on a Lions RB and Stafford too. Showed some of that quality closing speed he has on both those plays. With another game to get a ton of reps, he could round into form pretty quick. Unfortunately the downside is Jones said after the game Gregory might not be available for the playoffs (my translation, he KNOWS this already, otherwise he wouldn't have said a word IMO)
6) How many interceptions have we dropped this year? Its an epidemic. I'm not talking about these diving plays where maybe a guy gets a hand on the ball either, there's a ton of them that are thrown right into the bread basket and we drop them almost every time. Carr got his mits on a ball on a nice play for the 2nd straight week but ball got through (fortunately Wilcox was there to catch the deflection this time). Scandrick and Wilcox both stone headed picks though. Collectively they get into position quite a bit, but they cant catch a cold in Alaska.
7) Speaking of Wilcox, he may have made himself some money this year. Is a real enforcer back there when he is on the field and the number of plays where he has a blown coverage or takes a horrible angle are greatly down from the prior two yrs. DB/S coach Greg Jackson deserves some props for the work he has done with Wilcox, Jones and Church (and dare I say, even Jeff Heath). Church and Wilcox are both free agents after the season I believe (along with Carr and Claiborne) but Wilcox I'd like to see us retain, even if its just as a backup safety & special teamer.
8) I was against them bringing Darren McFadden back from injury, but he has looked good and he is obviously fresh. I also like that put him back there for KO returns and he had a really nice one for 30+ yards last night. He was a pretty dangerous KO return guy at Arkansas, I hope we make him the primary KO return guy for the postseason. I also wonder if they might roll out Dez for punt returns some in the postseason. Whitehead looks pretty hopeless back there and Bryant was pretty good at it as a rookie (had two punt returns for tds, including a 93 yarder). McFadden and Bryant could have a big impact on field position if they get the chance.
9) Hopefully we dodged major injuries, but Tyron Smith, McClain, Ryan Davis and Brown all got hurt and didn't return last night. With the number of other teams suffering really bad injuries the past two weeks, I really hope Garrett and the staff give serious consideration to sitting a few of the guys we absolutely cant lose for the playoffs. I suspect Smith will be out for sure, but I'd definitely hold out Zeke and Dez, and maybe Fred and/or Martin too. Lael Collins might be activated this week and if so (and if he is in shape) he could start for Martin at RG and Looney at C. Defensively, they are running short on bodies but I'd confiscate Lee's helmet and uniform and not let him anywhere near the field. Maybe Jones should tell Lee he is flying him via private jet to Philly and then instead take him to the beach or something to keep him off the field. Prescott I know they think needs the PT, but obviously he shouldn't play if a number of backup OL are going to be out there.
10) I thought Garrett should have challenged the 4th down completion inside the 10 late in the game, but as it turns out the outcome was even better with Irving getting the nice hit and forced fumble on Stafford. The only other thing that bothered me about Garrett last night was the sloppy pre snap penalties we had early in the game (what was it, 4 or 5, some were false starts, one was too many men on field etc etc). They need to clean some of that up pronto.
11) 7-1 at home this yr with 7 consecutive wins. The crowds really seem into the games and for the first time since we opened that monstrosity it appears we have a home field advantage for our guys. We averaged just under 30 pts per game at home and the average margin of victory was almost two tds per game.
12) I've mentioned it a few times before, but this draft is looking like one of those epic franchise altering years. Elliott and Prescott alone would have been gold, but adding in how good Collins and Brown have been and then potential additions of Smith and Tapper next yr- amazing. There's definitely an element of luck to every draft and the Smith pick was a huge gamble that almost none of us (including me) agreed with at the time, but the scouting department and whomever made the actual picks do deserve some kudos.
Awesome season for sure and one nobody reasonably expected. I'd love to see us get the W Sunday and get that franchise record 14th win, but getting out of the game healthy is CLEARLY the priority, especially after the way they played vs Tampa and Detroit.
From there, we definitely looked like a Super Bowl caliber team on both sides of the ball, and for a change we actually got a bounce of the ball a couple times go our way. We outscored them 28-0 from that point on (including 21-0 after halftime and the defense which looked hopeless took apart the Lions O)
1) I don't listen to Steve Young much, but I am in 100% agreement with his postgame assessment of Prescott. He was speaking with his 30+ yrs working knowledge of the NFL and said rookie QB's cannot do what Prescott is doing. It just isn't, and has never been possible. What he is doing on the field is not explainable and he is having almost assuredly the greatest rookie season ever for a QB this year. This while being a guy not selected with the 1st or 2nd pick overall, but a guy selected at the end of the 4th round when other options didn't work out. Sometimes a team hits the jackpot, and it appears we did just that with Prescott. QB rating of 105.7. Yds per attempt of outstanding 8.05. Ridiculous 68.1% comp % and a phenomenal TD to INT ratio of nearly 6-1. Now has team record 11 games of QB rating of 100+ (and he had a 99.0 last week vs Tampa, had Dunbar's TD not been called back it'd be 12 out of 15 games). Phenomenal. Pretty exciting thinking about how good he might be in another year or two.
2) Elliott has showed all he needs to, and I hope they resist the urge to suit him up vs Philly Sunday. He's going to fall a little short of Dickerson's rookie record but he is going to win the league rushing title (has a 363 yd lead) and he should probably be the league MVP. He took some pretty big shots last night and I think the body slam Robinson put on him we dodged a bullet on. Elliott could have easily sustained an injury there. We don't need to expose him to injury or the extra pounding next week, let McFadden and Morris carry the ball 15 times or so each.
3) I don't know what happened with the defense on the first three Lion drives, but the adjustments Marinelli and co made were damn good and they did it despite being greatly shorthanded on the DL (down to 5 bodies after McClain and Davis went out) and then losing rookie CB Brown early as well. After giving up all those yds and three tds on 3 drives, the Lions were shutout and managed only about 120 yds the rest of the way. I don't have any delusions after this being a great defense or anything, but they are showing progress. We're up to 34 sacks on the season now after getting 4 more last night. In December we've had 14 of those 34 sacks, and the amount of times we're pressuring or knocking a QB down has greatly improved over the first 3 months of the season.
4) David Irving is turning into a legit force on the DL. Had 1 1/2 sacks, another pass deflection and 3 other QB hits. Doesn't seem to matter if he lines up at DE or DT, he messes up plays regardless. If he can continue this kind of play we should all be giddy. Benson Mayowa has gone from free agent flub to decent player as well, and now leads the team with 6 sacks, with 4 sacks in the last 4 games and some pretty consistent pressures. Maliek Collins now has 5 sacks on the season and is starting to cause regular disruption vs the run and pass and could be a legit playmaking 3T for us for years to come. Have my doubts Lawrence is healthy for the playoffs, but if he and Crawford are both ok for January and though McClain got dinged last night and didn't return, but sounds like he is ok. He's had a nice yr as well. We could be in pretty decent shape at DL.
5) I wasn't expecting too much from Gregory and other than one or two explosive first step plays early, he looked kinda bad and also got himself hurt early in the game. However as the game wore on he seemed to knock some of the rust off and he made a few plays and had a big hit on a Lions RB and Stafford too. Showed some of that quality closing speed he has on both those plays. With another game to get a ton of reps, he could round into form pretty quick. Unfortunately the downside is Jones said after the game Gregory might not be available for the playoffs (my translation, he KNOWS this already, otherwise he wouldn't have said a word IMO)
6) How many interceptions have we dropped this year? Its an epidemic. I'm not talking about these diving plays where maybe a guy gets a hand on the ball either, there's a ton of them that are thrown right into the bread basket and we drop them almost every time. Carr got his mits on a ball on a nice play for the 2nd straight week but ball got through (fortunately Wilcox was there to catch the deflection this time). Scandrick and Wilcox both stone headed picks though. Collectively they get into position quite a bit, but they cant catch a cold in Alaska.
7) Speaking of Wilcox, he may have made himself some money this year. Is a real enforcer back there when he is on the field and the number of plays where he has a blown coverage or takes a horrible angle are greatly down from the prior two yrs. DB/S coach Greg Jackson deserves some props for the work he has done with Wilcox, Jones and Church (and dare I say, even Jeff Heath). Church and Wilcox are both free agents after the season I believe (along with Carr and Claiborne) but Wilcox I'd like to see us retain, even if its just as a backup safety & special teamer.
8) I was against them bringing Darren McFadden back from injury, but he has looked good and he is obviously fresh. I also like that put him back there for KO returns and he had a really nice one for 30+ yards last night. He was a pretty dangerous KO return guy at Arkansas, I hope we make him the primary KO return guy for the postseason. I also wonder if they might roll out Dez for punt returns some in the postseason. Whitehead looks pretty hopeless back there and Bryant was pretty good at it as a rookie (had two punt returns for tds, including a 93 yarder). McFadden and Bryant could have a big impact on field position if they get the chance.
9) Hopefully we dodged major injuries, but Tyron Smith, McClain, Ryan Davis and Brown all got hurt and didn't return last night. With the number of other teams suffering really bad injuries the past two weeks, I really hope Garrett and the staff give serious consideration to sitting a few of the guys we absolutely cant lose for the playoffs. I suspect Smith will be out for sure, but I'd definitely hold out Zeke and Dez, and maybe Fred and/or Martin too. Lael Collins might be activated this week and if so (and if he is in shape) he could start for Martin at RG and Looney at C. Defensively, they are running short on bodies but I'd confiscate Lee's helmet and uniform and not let him anywhere near the field. Maybe Jones should tell Lee he is flying him via private jet to Philly and then instead take him to the beach or something to keep him off the field. Prescott I know they think needs the PT, but obviously he shouldn't play if a number of backup OL are going to be out there.
10) I thought Garrett should have challenged the 4th down completion inside the 10 late in the game, but as it turns out the outcome was even better with Irving getting the nice hit and forced fumble on Stafford. The only other thing that bothered me about Garrett last night was the sloppy pre snap penalties we had early in the game (what was it, 4 or 5, some were false starts, one was too many men on field etc etc). They need to clean some of that up pronto.
11) 7-1 at home this yr with 7 consecutive wins. The crowds really seem into the games and for the first time since we opened that monstrosity it appears we have a home field advantage for our guys. We averaged just under 30 pts per game at home and the average margin of victory was almost two tds per game.
12) I've mentioned it a few times before, but this draft is looking like one of those epic franchise altering years. Elliott and Prescott alone would have been gold, but adding in how good Collins and Brown have been and then potential additions of Smith and Tapper next yr- amazing. There's definitely an element of luck to every draft and the Smith pick was a huge gamble that almost none of us (including me) agreed with at the time, but the scouting department and whomever made the actual picks do deserve some kudos.
Awesome season for sure and one nobody reasonably expected. I'd love to see us get the W Sunday and get that franchise record 14th win, but getting out of the game healthy is CLEARLY the priority, especially after the way they played vs Tampa and Detroit.
