GBU PostMortem - Lions fall to the Glorious Revolution

[chemiclord]

My thoughts in no particular order:

Maybe the Bye Week Hurt the Lions Rather than Helped?

Now, granted this isn't going to be a perfect analogy, but way back in my high school and college days I was a distance runner, and one of the things that you're told to never do in training or in a race is to slow down too much, or even worse, stop. And this is true in a lot of things, when you hit the wall and then stop, it is almost infinitely harder to get started again than if you just powered through the wall. The Lions had been pushing through and pushing through most of the season... then they get the bye... and I dunno, it might explain why they come off a little sluggish and not quite at their sharpest; perhaps they lost their edge in that week where they slowed down.

Did Goff Get in His Own Head?

He has had a couple fairly uncharacteristic last couple of games where he looked like 2019 and 2020 Jared Goff; trying to do too much, forcing plays he shouldn't, almost like he didn't believe what his own eyes were telling him. He had spent most of this season making damn near all the right choices... and he abandoned those moderate options far too often trying to get the big play. With a defense that was suspect at the best of times, maybe he felt forced to, but this was not the game Goff could afford to have in this situation.

What Do You Do when there Isn't a Next Man to go Up?

I have spent all my life scoffing at the idea the Lions were cursed in any way other than by poor ownership and leadership. This year was probably the first time I look back and think, "Christ, maybe there is some sacred Native American burial ground under Lions Headquarters." The Football Gods spent damn near the entire season smiting Lions players left and right... all the way to the end, where Robertson broke his arm, then Iffy, then Branch all went down. It was simply too many men in the MASH unit to overcome. Sure as hell felt like some higher power was screaming, "And stay down this time!" as it loosed lightning bolts on Ford Field.

No One Particularly Covered Themselves in Glory (Except Gibbs)

There was a point as the game wound down where I really kinda didn't care if both Glenn and Johnson took HC jobs this offseason, because both of them really kinda showed the league their asses tonight.

As much as I want to give Glenn a pass simply because he was running around outside Ford Field in the second half asking passers-by if they could suit up, I can't entirely... simply because of the mental errors that went on that are independent of talent level; things that no matter who is on the field they should be able to do. There's a saying, "Run it until they stop it" (I'll be back with this saying just a little bit later), but the Commanders offense did just that, and Glenn seemed to do very little to stop it. It looked like the Lions defense had never seen a run option play in their lives, and the Commanders happily ran it time after time after time, getting huge swaths of yardage damn near every time they ran it.

Also, when it became clear that the pressure simply wasn't happening, even with the blitz, why keep doing it and letting Daniels get easy read after easy read? If you're getting the exact same amount of pressure sending 6 as you were sending 4, maybe you should have stopped sending those two extra guys? Just a thought.

And as much as Froot likes to roll his eyes at coaches who take timeouts rather than take a penalty, we saw the exact opposite problem tonight. It wasn't even like no one on the sidelines noticed there were 12 men on the field. They had coaches screaming at someone to get off the field. TAKE A FUCKING TIME OUT RATHER THAN TAKE THE PENALTY! There was no scenario where that timeout was going to have more value than getting that 4th down stop. Period.

Meanwhile, we all know Ben Johnson likes to get cute with his playcalling. 95% of the time, that's fine. It can be fun as hell to watch, and the players are endeared to the guy for letting them have fun out there. But frankly, there was no situation where Jameson Williams should have been put on an island having to decide whether to pass the ball or not. Johnson should have never called that play in that situation.

And he also failed the very basic "Run it until they stop it" axiom. The Commanders had next to no answer for Jahmyr Gibbs. Like... none at all. Damn near every time Gibbs got the ball, he was making the Commanders defense look silly. Yet Johnson kept calling plays and formations that either had Gibbs as a decoy, or even worse on the sidelines as David Montgomery (who was very clearly not quite game ready) wasted downs.

And Yet... Hey, It's Gotta be Okay

This will most assuredly be one of the biggest "What If?" seasons in Lions history... but when you consider how damn snakebit this team was pretty much from the start, it's easy to see how they fucking overachieved this year. This just doesn't suck as hard as I thought it would. I'm not even particularly disappointed. 31 teams fail to win a Super Bowl. 30 teams fail to make it, and no matter how much it may feel like the Lions blew it... I dunno, they kinda really got everything they could out of this team.

Sometimes, everything goes wrong at the worst time. Ya gotta be able to shrug it off and get back on the horse. Bring on 2025 and let's see what happens.

[froot loops]

That was a time to take a timeout. What I'm talking about is taking a delay of game on offense when you are down. Totally different than 4th and 2 near the goal line.

[Sanders Fan]

This feels worse than last year. It’s nauseating. Before i totally woke up this morning I wondered if it was all a nightmare. Even with the fumbles and picks and the horrendous game Goff had I just can’t get over some of the coaching blunders.

[chemiclord]

That was a time to take a timeout. What I'm talking about is taking a delay of game on offense when you are down. Totally different than 4th and 2 near the goal line.

Oh, I wasn't criticizing you more than explaining how this was the flip side of that coin, being too stingy with time out usage as opposed to too cavalier.

[GALion68]

This feels worse than last year. It’s nauseating. Before i totally woke up this morning I wondered if it was all a nightmare. Even with the fumbles and picks and the horrendous game Goff had I just can’t get over some of the coaching blunders.

Same. They should’ve got the job done in San Francisco last year, period. Campbell’s quote of how last year may have been their only shot looms large today. The ‘25 schedule is next level tough, Holmes needs to address the pass rush once again in the offseason and the offensive line will also need to be looked at.
Goff will also be over 30. It will take a lot of good fortune to make a Super Bowl run in ‘25.

[Mainevent]

Sucks that we lost because of a bad Goff game, because that means a whole offseason of Goff narratives from the media.

[chemiclord]

Not gonna lie, there was a point last night after Goff's third pick where I knew the narrative was going to be how the Lions made a championship-window-breaking mistake signing Goff to that big extension, and the dark part of mind thinking they might be right if this is the Goff we're going to see as the lights get brighter (and let's not forget that he didn't exactly light up the night two weeks ago either).

I was able to dismiss that fairly easily. Winning a championship is hard regardless of who is behind center, and almost always requires at least a couple lucky breaks throughout the season and in the playoffs. The Lions had pretty much nothing but bad luck all season.

[whatever_gong82]

Hopes raised, dreams dashed: Lions turn Detroit into Mudville, once again

Justin Rogers
Jan 19




Detroit — Mudville never expected Casey to get another at bat. But when the two hitters in front of him defied the odds, reaching base with the team down to its final out, the fictional city from Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem found renewed hope.


Famously, that hope was crushed when Casey, Mighty Casey, struck out.

The Detroit Lions put their fans through the same. They weren't supposed to survive the loss of Aidan Hutchinson or the other dozen or so defenders that ended the year on injured reserve. Many observers predicted they'd succumb to the Minnesota Vikings in the season finale, conceding the division and the chance to host playoff games.


But the defining trait of the 2024 Lions is they couldn't be rattled, not even when they turned the ball over five times in a primetime game in Houston. They seemingly had the answer to every problem, the counterpunch whenever they were pushed against the ropes, the embodying resiliency of the city they represent.

By securing the No. 1 seed in the NFC, they raised your hopes higher than ever before. The table was set. This was the year. You weren't wrong to ponder a potential parade route along Woodward.


Instead, Casey struck out. There's no joy in Mudville and certainly none in cold, gray Detroit, either.

Most morgues are louder than the Lions' locker room after the upstart Washington Commanders unceremoniously dismissed Detroit from the postseason on Saturday. What was there to say? The tomorrow that felt promised was no longer reserved for NFC Championship preparation. Instead, the roster will spend Sunday cleaning out their lockers at the practice facility. Some might not step foot in the building again.


"It's probably going to take me at least a day to take it all in," offensive tackle Taylor Decker said. "I haven't fully processed that, it sucks because you know it's not going to be the same group of guys here. And again, we don't know when opportunities like this are going to come, and we have to earn them, and they're not going to get easier."

This job requires you to ask questions, but what do you even ask? And what do you expect any of the players to say? There were plenty of long pauses and vacant stares into space. The magnitude of the falling short was only starting to set in — the recognition of the months of work and the extra effort the team had put in after a similarly jarring defeat in the conference championship a year ago, it was all for naught.


"I'm still kind of processing this and going to have some hard nights coming up, unfortunately," Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. "It's hard. I wish I could give you guys a better answer right now. It's just disappointing, it's hard, we had everything we wanted — home-field advantage, fans were incredible — unfortunately, we just let it slip out of our hands."

Goff is going to absorb a lot of criticism for the defeat. After an incredible season had him floating on the fringes of the MVP race, the resurrected quarterback delivered a dud against Washington. He fumbled in the red zone, threw a pick-six, and added two more interceptions. He was at his worst when the team could least afford it.


Of course, nothing happens in a vacuum. Receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown stumbled on the fumble, causing the QB to hold it longer than anticipated. And Jameson Williams could have done more to make a play on the ball on an interception that ended the first half, transforming into a defender on the play, if nothing else. However, those ugly stats only appear on the stat line of one player. The QB almost always eats the blame.

This performance doesn't define Goff's career, or even this season, but it will be a lingering memory until the Lions return for the 2025 season. Unfortunately, that's eight long months away.


Not surprisingly, teammates were quick to defend their QB.

"I will ride with Jared Goff until the day I die," center Frank Ragnow said. "Any aspect of life, football, it doesn't matter what it is. One of the most standup human beings, players, leaders, you name it. I'll always have his back."


Of course, the reality is the culpability for defeat is shared. Not only did Williams not do enough to prevent that one interception, he threw one of his own. Coach Dan Campbell said the speedy receiver should have kept the ball and tried to create something with his legs on the trick play. There's a stronger case to be made that the play call was the wrong one at the wrong time. Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson's big bag of tricks has been one of the most enjoyable parts of the season. Still, it backfired spectacularly in this moment, serving as one of the final nails in the coffin on Saturday.

And the defense didn't deliver, either. Yes, they got put in some challenging situations with the turnovers. They also surrendered three fourth-down conversions that led to two touchdowns.


Linebacker Alex Anzalone, who fought hard to return for a playoff run after breaking his forearm in November, summed up his emotional state as numb.

"You kind of just have to process it," Anzalone said. "It's like grieving. You go through the different stages. You go through denial, you go through sorrow, whatever the five stages are, it's just like that."


Lions fans will undoubtedly do the same. Go on social media and you'll see they've already progressed to stage two, anger. You'll have to forgive them; they might hang out at that step for a while.


They'll get to acceptance, eventually. They always do, for more than six decades. So will the players. And we'll run this whole thing back next season.

The good news, if you'll indulge a silver lining — this success has been built to sustain better than it ever has in the past. There's a rock-solid foundation in place. Maybe Detroit won't always be Mudville. But today, we have to deal with the Mighty Lions striking out.



Email: jrogers@detroitfootball.net

X: Justin_Rogers

Bluesky: Justin-Rogers

[froot loops]

No team that I can recall ever won a Superbowl on the basis of outscoring everyone. We were hoping the Lions could be the first or we were hoping the defense against Minnesota wasn't a mirage. Goff is going to get a ton of criticism and deservedly so, but it cracks me up that Brady was calling the game. Brady used to have playoff games where he kind of stunk and threw picks early in the game but defense and special teams held the Pats in the game until the 4th and then he would turn on his magic, they would win and nobody would remember the stupid stuff early in the game

What sucks about this loss and season is this team going into the season this team was much deeper with redundancies in all the positional groups. This is in stark contrast to some of the good teams Stafford helmed. Those teams had some great front line players but as attrition over the season mounted they never had enough. This team was built to withstand that but the hits just kept coming, but the end we had Moochie Norris and Stantley Thomas-Norris playing in the secondary. They had Chris Smith taking snaps on the d-line. By the second half it was a preseason defense out there I have never seen a team have so many games where three to four players go out with bad injuries.

[Sanders Fan]

I watched Matt Dery last night and he criticized Jack Campbell for basically running into Amik’s arm like a sledgehammer. The hits really did keep on coming.

[chemiclord]

On one hand, I think we're going to start seeing teams littered with injuries as the season continues to expand (the league really wants 18 games, fyi). Green Bay had an eerily similar injury disaster in their playoff game last week.

That said, what happened to the Lions in terms of injuries was pretty much unprecedented. The fact that they got to this point with this record is honestly a testament to the depth the team had built.

As I said in the OP... I honestly think the Lions got pretty much every drop they could out of this roster in retrospect. That doesn't excuse some of the horrible mistakes that were made yesterday, but it would have taken pretty much a perfect game for this team to have won with the talent they were running out by the final gun.

[chemiclord]

I watched Matt Dery last night and he criticized Jack Campbell for basically running into Amik’s arm like a sledgehammer. The hits really did keep on coming.

Now this is ridiculous, though not surprising from Matt Dery. What is Jack supposed to do there then? Not make the tackle?

Broken bones are some the flukiest and unlikely injuries you'll see on the field. It is exceptionally rare to see more than a couple across the league on any given season, and the Lions had to deal with three.

Just in case you needed an idea of just how snakebit this team was this year.

[NewOrleansLion]

I was watching the d-line on the “too many men” drive in the 4th quarter and they were cooked. Their first move after the snap was standing straight up. There was barely any talent starting on that line, and the rotational guys were CFL caliber. (My apologies to the Hamilton Tiger Cats.)

Ugly: I bought tickets to the NFC championship game and flights for my son and me. Everything will be refunded, and I knew this game wasn’t a lay-up, but that would have been so cool.

[froot loops]

I had to remind my son that he played against Chris Smith in high school in football in two games. He honestly had no memory of him at all and my son was the left tackle.

[froot loops]

One thing that really bugged me about the game was that non-call on the hit on Goff on the pick 6. In real time I noticed it and thought that was a penalty. The previous game the refs were calling ridiculous roughing calls on Mahomes and we get to this game and they don't call it. And you can't tell me that hit didn't concuss Goff, he was in La-La Land.