Lions News

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions CB Emmanuel Moseley not discouraged by second ACL tear: 'I'll be back'



Dave Birkett
Detroit Free Press



Emmanuel Moseley is in better spirits — and better shape, medically — than he was the last time he tore his ACL.

In his first comments since he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in a Week 5 win over the Carolina Panthers, the Detroit Lions defensive back said Tuesday he is set to begin walking on an anti-gravity AlterG treadmill this week, four weeks removed from surgery.



"I'm good. I feel good," Moseley told the Free Press. "It definitely sucks to go through but God gives his toughest challenges to the guys that can handle it. I know one thing about me is I can handle it, and I will handle it. I definitely, I’ll be back."

Emmanuel Moseley_10-8-2023.jpg

Moseley injured his knee on his second snap as a Lion, nearly a year to the day after tearing the ACL in his left knee last fall with the San Francisco 49ers.



The sixth-year cornerback said he suffered less meniscus damage with this injury, and the cleaner tear has put him ahead of the schedule he followed last year with his rehab.

Moseley spent two weeks away from the team following his injury, but has been back with the team since early this month.



"Even though I can’t be out there I want to be around the guys," he said. "Just the two weeks that I was away it sucked to not be around the guys. I’m always a team player, I want to see the guys do well. Help them out if I can, as much as I can, and we got a good staff in here that’ll take care of me and get me back right."

One of the Lions' top free-agent additions, Moseley did not play in the season's first four games after undergoing a clean-up procedure on his left knee this summer and pulling his hamstring in his return to practice in September.



He was injured on his second snap of the Panthers game, when his knee gave out while planting to chase a receiver in coverage.

Moseley said he suspected he tore his ACL at the time of his injury, but tried to remain optimistic until an MRI confirmed the diagnosis the next day.



“At first (you wonder why me), the first few minutes and stuff, but reality kicked in and what you going to do about it?" Moseley said. "You can’t cry, you just got to keep going."

Lions cornerbacks coach Dre Bly said last week it was important to have Moseley and fellow injured defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson around the team's young secondary for what the team hopes will be a long playoff run.



Moseley said he's "excited" to still be in the locker room, and will worry about what the injury means for his future at a later date. Moseley's one-year contract will expire in March.

"To be honest, man, I'm not even focusing on that aspect of it, the aspect of getting back out there now," he said. "I'm just focused on just trying to get back healthy, that’s it. And when I get back healthy I'll get into all that, but just knowing myself, I'm a competitor."



Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions QB Jared Goff proud of 'never flinching' in two-minute offense



Dave Birkett
Detroit Free Press



Jared Goff has always enjoyed running the two-minute offense.

"I’ve always liked going fast, at any point in the game — two-minute or middle of the game," Goff told the Free Press on Tuesday. "Just how I kind of grew up playing. High school was no-huddle, college was no-huddle. First time I huddled was the NFL, so somewhat of my comfort zone is being no-huddle."

Goff excelled in the Detroit Lions' two-minute offense in last week's 31-26 come-from-behind win over the Chicago Bears, atoning for an otherwise sluggish performance the other 55 minutes of the game.

Jared Goff and Frank Ragnow_11-19-2023.jpg

He threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown with 11 seconds left in the first half, had a 32-yard touchdown to Jameson Williams late in the fourth quarter, led the Lions to another touchdown (a David Montgomery run) with 29 seconds to play, and finished 17 of 21 passing in two-minute situations for 188 yards.

Goff said playing at a sped-up pace in two-minute situations - the Lions ran 10 of their 27 two-minute plays without a huddle against the Bears - helps "regulate" the defense and makes them "somewhat one- or two-dimensional."



"It allows us to play fast and that often puts guys on their heels defensively," Goff said. "You get one 5-yard gain, you get another 5-yard gain, you get a 15-yard gain, all of a sudden they look up, they don’t know what happened. That’s what our advantage is."

The Lions, like most NFL teams, operate with a large menu of staple plays in two-minute situations that are tailored weekly to what coverage the opposing defense uses most late in games.



Lions coach Dan Campbell said Goff's quick processing skills and keen understanding of the playbook and situational football make him an ideal quarterback for hurry-up football.

"These are things that, for the most part, we’ve had these for two years now and we have a menu of — as all teams do — we have a pretty large menu of staple plays that we can get to by what coverage we think they’re going to play," Campbell said. "So this was a game, what they were doing, we had just some of these, 'line up and snap the ball and find the read, find the play, find your guy.' He just, I think it’s having a guy that understands those plays, understands what they’re doing in the coverage, 'Where’s your guy at? Where’s your best matchup?' And doing that all by just keeping your composure."



Goff said Sunday's game script was "abnormal" in that it put the Lions in so many two-minute situations.

"Last year we only called our two-minute menu, on the ball, I bet we only called it 12, 15 times," Goff said. "If you count the amount of plays a year you do it, typically if you’re a good team, you’re somewhere around 15-20, 25, like on-the-ball, calling out your stuff, so it doesn’t happen that often. Sometimes less than that. Sometimes 10-12. And you spend all this time on it and it doesn’t really come up 'cause you end up getting out of bounds or it’s incomplete and you huddle up anyways."

Jared Goff vs Chicago Bears_11-19-2023.jpg

When teams operate that much out of the no-huddle, Goff said it stresses the offense in unique ways. Defenses can get used to hearing no-huddle calls, and it eliminates much of the regular playbook.

"We take a lot of pride in never flinching," he said. "None of those guys ever flinched. It was like we knew what we had to do, we had to do it fast and executed really well."



On Sunday, Goff said the Lions ran only 22 "regular situation plays." And they struggled enough in those situations — Goff was 6-for-14 passing for 48 yards with three interceptions outside of the Lions' three two-minute drives —they're anxious to get back to a normal game script in Thursday's game against the Green Bay Packers.

"It does help to be able to play so quickly now and be able to hopefully go into the weekend with, obviously a win, but a good taste in your mouth for how you played as well," Goff said. "And so yeah, I’d love to come out this week and play well and get a W and be able to put that one behind me.”



Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

[Mainevent]

Chicago sports radio referring to the game as “The Meltdown in Motown”. Warms the heart just a little bit this holiday season.

[jaadam4]

There was a gal at the Motley Fool boards and her board name was Deborahborah. I have no idea why.

I prefer Deboraurora borealis

[jaadam4]

Chicago sports radio referring to the game as “The Meltdown in Motown”. Warms the heart just a little bit this holiday season.

lol.. we’ve had so many of those in this town. That’s a recycled headline

[kayrone]

https://www.si.com/nfl/lions/news/sc...rs-documentary

what a fucking child.

[chemiclord]

Either Deborah or Deb are fine, haha. I am not impressed with Mitchell's reaction at all.

On one hand, I kinda get his reaction. Dude had and has been the scapegoat for the Lions failures in the 90s (that was a Lions staple for a very long time, target one person, scapegoat that person to the point they are run out of town, then continue on with business as normal even though the process and the higher ups themselves were the core of what was rotten in the franchise), and he's very obviously tired of that shit.

He's also not entirely wrong. The Lions weren't ever really just a QB away from being a champion, especially at the time that Mitchell was the guy behind center. In the early 90s, they simply weren't the peer of that San Fran/Giants/Redskins cluster that were loaded from top to bottom (for example, even at their best in 1991-92, both games against the Redskins were absolute blowouts... the Lions weren't remotely close in either matchup), and by the late 90s they simply didn't have the horses and depth defensively to win the sort of games that playoff football tended to be.

Even putting Joe Montana behind center at that time wasn't going to get them to the promised land. They'd have been better (and have a handful more playoff wins in the process), certainly, but sadly not good enough to hoist that Lombardi in late Jan/early Feb.

On the other hand, that he thinks he would have been good enough in a better situation is hitting some hard copium. Others noted that Trent Dilfer was enough of an upgrade from him to win a Super Bowl. When Trent Dilfer is an upgrade, you're some truly stinky shit. And a lot of his own teammate's ire and disapproval can't just be chalked up the org. poisoning the well against him. Mitchell was genuinely a piece of shit person to go along with being a piece of shit QB, completely on his own merits.

He was certainly not the only problem, and I'd argue he was far from the biggest problem as well, but he was never going to be part of the solution for the Lions (or any franchise).

[-Deborah-]

I prefer Deboraurora borealis

One of my online gamer IDs was Deborahhh.

And during Halloween, it was DeBOOrahhh. 🤪

[froot loops]

They had a really good start to the 90s, but losing the two lineman and never really getting a quarterback put them behind the 8 ball. They were always chasing a QB and lineman.

They also let guys go early because they were still cheap. You can make a great all star team with the players of the 90s that could compete with any franchise, but you wouldn't ever see a roster with those guys at the same time. It was a lot harder to build those teams back then, free agency wasn't full fledged and if your team was cheap you were limited to the draft

Mitchell was only there 3 seasons and his only good year(95) was really the last gasp.on a true contending team. I thought Ross was a square peg, but his teams battled with a diminishing talent base.

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions don't need an elite defense, just an average one. Can they get there?



Shawn Windsor
Detroit Free Press



The Detroit Lions have given up 38 points in two of their last four games. The Bears — THE BEARS! — scored 26 on them this past Sunday.

If not for a last-second field goal and a last-minute touchdown the last two weeks, the Lions would be 6-4 facing very different questions than they are now.


These are immutable facts.


But facts deserve context, and while the defense hasn’t been great lately, or even for most of the season — and that’s reason to worry if you’re a congenital worrier; or if you’re a longtime Lions’ fan — the facts aren’t as worrisome if we change the context.

For example, the Lions rank 22nd in overall defense, allowing 22.9 points per game, a fraction behind the Cincinnati Bengals. This is obviously below average. Too far below for a Super Bowl contender, although a handful of teams have won titles with even lower-ranked defenses.

Aaron Glen Detroit Lions_11-19-2023.jpg

Those teams — the 2006 Colts (ranked 23rd), the 2011 Giants (ranked 25th) — played in a different offensive era. Teams score more now, and no team has won the Super Bowl in the last five years with a defense ranked in the 20s.

So, yes, the Lions rank is concerning. Consider, though, the ranking of last year’s champs — the Kansas City Chiefs. They came in at No. 16.



Which leads us to this question: Is it possible for the Lions to move up from No. 21 to the middle of the pack?

Sure, it is, but they’ll need some health luck.



Right now, they are missing their second-best pass rusher and their best safety. It’s possible that both James Houston and C.J. Gardner Johnson will return before the end of the season. If they do, that’ll help stabilize the front and organize the back.

Even if neither returns, or if they return and aren’t the same as they were before their injuries, there is still another way of measuring the Lions defense.


DVOA is an acronym for defense-adjusted value over average, which basically accounts for the strength of an opponent’s offense. It’s a helpful number because it considers what an opponent’s offense had done and what it is expected to do.

In this metric, the Lions rank 10th, with their passing rank just outside the top 10 and their run defense just inside of it.



This is passable.

Is passable good enough to win shootouts in the playoffs?

Aidan Hutchinson and Darnell Wright and Justin Fields.jpg

Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s not like the Lions can’t compete.

Why?

Because the offense is elite. Only Miami averages more yards per game. Only Miami, Dallas and San Francisco, Philadelphia and Baltimore average more points per game.


But even here the difference between the teams is minimal. Miami and Dallas score 30 points a game. The other three teams score 27 points a game, and so does Detroit.



Of these, only the Dolphins are more explosive, and it’s not by much. When the Lions are healthy, especially up front, and have David Montgomery, they are as good, and certainly as balanced, as anyone, which is to say their offense is good enough to win it all.

It helps that offense is what wins in the NFL these days. This doesn’t mean defense is irrelevant. Of course, it isn’t.



No team makes a run in the playoffs without at least a few playmakers on defense. Guys that can wreck a drive or force a turnover.

Speaking of turnovers, the Lions are minus-2 on the season. They’ve given the ball away more than they’ve taken it.



That they are 8-2 despite this is another sign the games they are winning aren’t a fluke. Last Sunday is the latest example.

Four times the Lions handed the ball to the Bears. Twice in their own territory. And yet they gave up only 10 points.
David Montgomery scores TD_11-19-2023.jpg

Now, you can say: But it’s the Bears! They stink.

In some ways, you’d be right. But they also got better recently, adding a good pass rusher. They also got back Justin Fields, who played as well as he had all season.



No, this wasn’t just because of the Lions’ defense. Fields is a load to bring down and he threw as well as he ever has. He deserves some credit.



And while it’s easy to point to the offensive explosion the last four minutes of the game, and easy to point to Jared Goff’s calm and Jameson Williams’ speed and Montgomery’s bruising running and say: that’s why they won!

I’d say: that isn’t the only reason.


Yes, the Bears were too conservative during their penultimate drive and that helped the Lions stop them. Yet the defense made a few plays, and not just Aidan Hutchinson’s safety at the end of the game.



Any time a team holds an offense to 10 points after four turnovers, then the defense shows something. Maybe it’s not much more than spunk and opportunism, sure. Then again, maybe what we watched Sunday was a defense displaying a sense of the moment.

“Our defense put out the fires,” Dan Campbell said Monday, after he’d watched the film. “I thought our defense did some really good things. Certainly, at the end of the game, that sequence with just under four minutes was pretty big, so.”



The Lions are young defensively. This means they can still get better these next seven games.

At their best, even if they are healthy, they are average. Yet average is good enough when the offense is cooking like the Lions’ offense can.



They don’t need the defense to dominate. They just need the defense to make a couple plays and get the ball back to the offense.

Do that, and there are few places this team can’t go.



Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him@shawnwindsor.


Next up: Packers


Matchup: Lions (8-2) vs. Green Bay (4-6).

Kickoff: 12:30 p.m. Thursday; Ford Field, Detroit.

TV/radio: Fox; WXYT-FM (97.1).

Line: Lions by 7½.

[jaadam4]

Honestly I feel kind of bad for Mitchell. He’s taking heat rounds 20+ years later in a documentary that really didn’t need to be made. Barry retired because he didn’t love the game anymore and Detroit didn’t have a chance to win a SB. That’s not a news
flash. Nothing changed.

Now everyone and their brother are beating a dead horse. Mitchell isn’t helping though. He should have had a much more classier response than to rip some of Barry’s playoff performances and dropping F bombs.

[whatever_gong82]

Lions' Goff thankful for quick turnaround to wash away bad taste of last performance


Justin Rogers
The Detroit News



Allen Park — Jared Goff isn't coming off his best game. In fact, you could easily argue the Detroit Lions quarterback is coming off his worst individual performance of the season.



It's admittedly a tough one to dissect. On one hand, Goff threw three interceptions for the first time in his three season with the Lions. On the other, two of those turnovers were fluky, with an accidental collision between tight end Sam LaPorta and a Chicago Bears defender disrupting a timing route leading to the first turnover, and a deflected pass at the line of scrimmage causing the third.

Then again, Goff got away with two interceptable throws that weren't picked off by the Bears, making the three turnovers feel fair. Of course, any and all struggles are far easier to swallow with the way the QB finished the game, leading a pair of touchdown drives in the closing minutes to erase a 12-point deficit in the come-from-behind victory.



Winning unquestionably makes everything better, but professional athletes will often tell you they are their own harshest critics. Goff would readily say the performance against Chicago didn't come close to living up to his personal standards. So what he's feeling thankful for heading into Thursday's Thanksgiving matchup with the Green Bay Packers is he doesn't have to wait long to erase the memory of the outing.

"It does help to be able to play so quickly now and be able to hopefully go into the weekend with, obviously a win, but a good taste in your mouth for how you played as well," Goff said. "So yeah, I’d love to come out this week and play well and get a W and be able to put that one behind me."



Within games this season, Goff has done well rebounding from his mistakes. Following the majority of his eight interceptions in 2023, he's responded by leading the Lions on a touchdown drive immediately after the giveaway. And what better way to negate three picks in an afternoon than to captain a successful comeback?

But he's been less successful shaking off his worst games earlier in his career. The two other times he's thrown three or more interceptions, he's tossed another the following week in a losing effort both times. That said, the last such occurrence was 2019, and Goff has filled in many of the holes in his resume since that time. Against Green Bay, he'll simply be looking to check another box.



jdrogers@detroitnews.com

@Justin_Rogers

[jaadam4]

One of my online gamer IDs was Deborahhh.

And during Halloween, it was DeBOOrahhh. 🤪

lol.

that’s hilarious

[jaadam4]

MCDC is so awesome

[froot loops]

Shawn Windsor needs r to consult pro football reference before he writes columns. Teams are not scoring more in the NFL. Scoring is down in the NFL. But the main takeaway should always be teams in the NFL generally average 22 points per game and the deviation from that is small.