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I always watch the youtube highlights anyway. There are usually two sets, the NFL and the Lions official channel. The Lions' channel highlights only show Lions highlights.
I was watching the NFL highlights I had to double-check a couple times to make sure that I wasn't watching the Lions channel highlights, lol
I don’t have much to say as a recap for this game. All good except for being without Anzalone until the playoffs. Get that playoff bye week and get your LB back in the divisional round. Next man up until then.
Pure dominance of a game.
Watch out for NFL news of Baalke and Pederson being fired tonight or tomorrow. I would be SHOCKED if the Jags don’t clean house. Pathetic performance by them.
Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a game quite like this one today. They made that Jags D look like high schoolers. If not for the Anzalone injury this was perfection. They had the comfortable win I was looking for by half time.
Don’t know that I’ve ever seen a game quite like this one today. They made that Jags D look like high schoolers. If not for the Anzalone injury this was perfection. They had the comfortable win I was looking for by half time.
I agree, I thought it looked like a team playing regular season ball versus a team playing preseason ball.
One thing to note last year. Lions were good. But they got blown out by the ravens and did not put away bad teams like this. The secondary was beatable and no lead was safe.
They took a step. Depth will be tested, but with kerby jo and Branch I think LB can be handled by someone off this forum. Safeties hit like LB anyway.
Detroit — Here’s what I learned bouncing around the Detroit Lions’ locker room following the team’s 52-6 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Finish them
The word of the day is ruthless. It might be my word choice, but is there one more applicable to what we watched on Sunday? Part of the identity of this team is they don’t take their foot off the gas, playing relentlessly on both sides of the ball until the final whistle.
Let’s start with the offense, which continued to push the ball downfield and go for it on fourth down, despite having the game well in hand in the fourth quarter.
“The reality was that they’re a team who has (fewer) wins than us and we could have played down to our competition in some ways, and — not to disrespect them, they’re a hell of a squad — but, we wanted to play to our standard (of having a) nameless, faceless opponent,” quarterback Jared Goff said. “That’s not just them, that’s every week. I think we wanted to come out and stay on the gas the whole game, no matter what happened.
“If it had been a closer game, we still would have stayed on the gas,” Goff continued. “We talked about it all week, holding our standard. What is our standard, and exceeding it, and trying to push ourselves. So, regardless of our opponent, we did want to do that this week.”
The same ethos applies to Detroit's defense. Often, when a team gets up three scores, they’ll soften their coverage and allow some easy catches, trying to run out the clock.
Not this defense, run by a coordinator who preaches constant aggression.
“We are a reflection of our coaches, man,” cornerback Amik Robertson said. “Dan Campbell and (defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn) AG tell us all the time, 'Finish your food.' They harp on making sure guys don't score the ball on us because we feel like we are the best defense in the NFL.
“…They were just in the way, man.”
Even as the lead expanded to more than 30 points, the Lions continued to play most of their starters until the middle of the fourth quarter. Campbell said pulling the first-stringers can be a tricky decision.
“Normally this doesn’t happen,” Campbell said. “It’s just like the third time this has come up this season, which, it’s a good problem to have. There’re a number of things, and I think you want to know that you finish on a good note, you found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm. 'OK, now the time says, let’s get them out.'
“What’s hard is (when) you’re playing pretty good, and then you take this dip, and then it starts to taste bad,” Campbell said. “OK, now we pull them out because we don’t want to get anybody hurt, and then does that bleed into the next week. …So, some of those come in, and I think you’ve just got to feel it out.”
Another critical injury
Well before the team entertained pulling anyone, the Lions suffered another critical injury, losing linebacker and captain Alex Anzalone to a broken forearm.
The early projection from Campbell is Anzalone will miss 6-8 weeks. That means even more is going to fall on the plate of Jack Campbell down the stretch.
“I would say, with Alex, what he's meant to the team — he's just been with AG and Dan for so long — he's just meant so much to this organization,” Jack Campbell said. “I don't know the extent of (the injury) yet, but I'm just praying for him and his family. I'm going to do everything in my power to make this team better each and every day.”
Jack Campbell finished with a team-high nine tackles and also split the team’s only sack. Teammates are fully confident in his and the other remaining linebackers’ ability to step up.
“It's always hard losing a player like that, man,” Robertson said. “It's always hard. Of course, we probably don't have another Anz, but we've got younger guys who can step up and finish on a roll. If we've got guys out there playing for one another, I think we'll be fine.
“Jack is Jack, man,” Robertson continued. “We expect a lot from Jack, man. Jack seems to go out there and make plays every week. I don't expect anything less from Jack.”
Some questioned the Lions’ decision to roll into the year with seven linebackers, but arguably no group has been more decimated by injury. In addition to Anzalone, the team lost Derrick Barnes to a season-ending knee injury, recently placed Jalen Reeves-Maybin on injured reserve with a neck issue, and Malcolm Rodriguez returned Sunday after a two-game absence due to an ankle sprain.
Anzalone posted a message on Twitter/X after the game, choosing to take a glass-half-full approach to his situation.
“Thank you everyone for the well wishes!” Anzalone wrote. “As an athlete, a lot of times you think “Why did this have to happen?” But I like to think about all the countless reps something bad didn’t happen. I’m beyond blessed! I’ll be back in no time, fresh legs and all.”
Holstered weapon
For the second straight time against the Jaguars, and the third time of his career, Jack Fox didn’t have to punt. I asked him if he ever gets bored during these games.
“Nah, it's awesome,” Fox said. “We had like 600 yards of offense.”
Honestly, the reality is there's no time to get bored. Fox had to go out there to hold for eight kicks, and it’s not like you know while the game is going on that you won’t be called to execute your primary duty.
“You never expect you're not going to punt, so the whole game we're waiting,” Fox said. “We're really ready, as funny as that sounds. We're preparing ourselves throughout the game like we would in a game where we punt 10 times. Mentally, really, just making sure you stay locked in.”
A little push from your friend
On David Montgomery’s second touchdown run, a 6-yard effort in the second quarter, he was pushed the final one or two yards across the goal line by right tackle Penei Sewell.
I joking asked Sewell if he gets half-credit for the score. The response wasn’t nearly as playful.
“Oh, no, that was all him,” Sewell said. “I was doing my job, being there.”
Sewell was likely still locked in, even though the game had ended 15-20 minutes earlier. He was coming off a down performance against Houston the previous week and was a man on a mission Sunday.
“I took this one kind of personally,” Sewell said. “…I kind of had a mindset coming into this game of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to show the coaches, the team and everybody in the organization. I've got to watch the film, but I think I did that.”
The assist on the score wasn’t lost on Montgomery.
“It means everything, knowing the kind of guy he is,” Montgomery said. “He's already an elite player, but for him to be the guy giving his all, all the time, it shows he's elite beyond his physical abilities. It's a blessing to be able to run behind a guy like that.
“But I did feel that hit.”
Can’t believe he was caught
Montgomery scored twice against the Jaguars, while the other half of Detroit’s dynamic backfield duo, Jahmyr Gibbs, only got into the end zone once. That’s only because linebacker Ventrell Miller made a remarkable diving tackle in the open field on a swing pass Gibbs took 54 yards before he was tripped up.
“He was skating,” Gibbs said, still in disbelief he was caught. “On Jamo's touchdown, (Miller) was right behind him too, so I don't feel as bad. But Jamo scored, so I'm kind of behind. Good hustle by him, though.”
I asked Gibbs what he saw on the swing pass and what goes through his mind when he sees that much open space ahead of him.
“I said ‘ooh,’” Gibbs said, laughing. “I ran the route and nobody ran out there with me. Jamo did a good job blocking downfield, and (Amon-Ra St. Brown), too. I just didn't finish. That's on me.”
Fighting through the pain
The first starter the Lions pulled on Sunday was cornerback Carlton Davis. He was playing the contest with a cast on his left hand after breaking his thumb during Thursday’s practice.
Davis admitted he was in a lot of discomfort while playing the first half, but was trying to fight through the ailment for his teammates.
“I never got used to it,” Davis said about the club. “The break had just happened in practice on Thursday and I don't really feel like it had enough time to just heal as much as I would have liked it to. So it was weird. I was having pain the whole game and I was just trying to fight through it for my team, trying to be there, make sure my presence was felt.”
You know when you know
After scoring touchdowns on their first seven drives, I asked Sewell when he sensed the offense was having its way. The answer was different than I expected.
“I think it really depends on the second half, what you do coming out,” Sewell said. “That first drive, we knew we had the ball coming out. When we marched down and put the ball in the end zone there, you kind of have a sense.”
So even after racking up more than 300 yards of offense, and putting it in the end zone on all four possessions, it wasn’t until the team maintained its intensity after the break that Sewell was convinced.
I suppose it's a boost when even the opponent’s hypothetical adjustments can’t slow you down.
Greatest show on (Ford Field’s) turf
Detroit’s offense is on pace to break franchise records. They did some of that on the micro level on Sunday, setting a new bar for single-game yardage, racking up 645 yards of offense in the victory.
Within that, St. Brown set a new personal best with 161 receiving yards on 11 catches. And while he’s trying to appreciate what he’s experiencing while it's happening, he’s not going to allow himself to stop and smell the roses for more than a moment.
“It's really fun,” St. Brown said. “It's a lot of fun to be part of it. Looking back, probably a few years from now, I'm going to be able to say I was part of one of the best offenses the Lions maybe ever had.
“But we've got to keep going,” St. Brown said. “Now is not the time for me to sit down and really admire the offense I'm in. I'm in the thick of it. We have to keep trying to win games and move forward. …10 games left. I think that's the number.”
Within that, the Lions aren’t shying away from being looked at not only as the franchise’s best offenses, but one of the league’s.
“Yeah, we’ve got that capability, certainly,” Goff said. “We’ve got to do it for another. I don’t know how many games are left in the year now — eight, nine, regular season. Yeah, we got some work to do still, but we’ve certainly got that capability. I think that’s kind of been something we talked about in the offseason is history and how great we can be. We know the group we have, we know what our capabilities are, and today was a good example of that.”
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