Detroit Lions Weblog

Lions vs. Skins:Disgusting!

The great, raging beast that is the “American Dream” is expectorating, urping lost hope upon itself. My favorite collegiate football team, the Michigan State Spartans, have had spectacular late game flame-outs in consecutive games. The Detroit Lions have brought new meaning to the standards of poor effort and dazzling ineptitude. Lastly, Rock and Roll is dead. To say my mood is black about these troubled times is an understatement.

The Detroit Lions lost their third game in a row at home Sunday. That in itself, is palatable. The monumental fashion in which they have been losing these games is the cause for great concern. Losing by a combined point total of 85-33 (an astounding deficit of 52 points or average of 2 TD’s and a FG per game) doesn’t even begin to present the whole picture of the manner in which this team has been dominated in front of it’s loyal home crowd. The Lions have an utterly non-existent rushing attack, a QB and Head Coach/Play-Caller who don’t exhibit the brass to “sack up” and face the difficult circumstances the lack of a rushing attack presents for them. Mariucci, gives lip service to establishing the running game, yet does little to establish the rhythm of the running attack and seems too preoccupied with personnel packages and schemes to utilize the high round draft picks (McDougle, Raiola, and Backus who have been harvested from collegiate backgrounds that have featured ground game-oriented offenses)and run between the tackles. This is partially attributable to the ineffectiveness of the aforementioned Offensive Linemen, two of whom (Raiola and McDougle), are in contract seasons and should be exhibiting better performances than they have thus far. Kevin Jones also deserves some criticism. He has the tools necessary to potentially be a sucessful back in the NFL. That being said, he must learn to grit his teeth, stick his head down, and get a three yard gain by pumping his legs and driving the pile. It is fundamental football, if he is ever going to gain any measure of success, he will have to learn when the situation calls to “gut it out” and when it time to “kick it out”. He is too often looking for yardage on the edge of the defense that honestly isn’t there. Many Lion fans didn’t like James Stewart as a feature running back. They thought he was injured too often, lacked the game-breaking explosiveness, and paled in comparison to the back the organization featured just prior to his arrival in Detroit (Barry, stupid!). At this point, I would gladly take his tough running style. He was fearless between the tackles and always exhibited great effort. In the current Lions running attack, how many second effort yards do you see being gained?

Acknowledging the Lions have a non-existent ground game, the Lions have been very vanilla in the ways in which they have chose to address their offensive situation. A typical series of downs will be: 1st down)Kevin Jones to the oustide no gain 2nd Down and 10 yds)3 yd slant to Streets/Hakim/Alexander that was not thrown accurately so no yards were gained after the catch. 3rd and 7yds)First, a major shuffling of the personnel package,then either a “Wayne Fontes Draw”, Screen to Bryson, or a 5 yd pass after the defense has blitzed causing Harrington to decide to “check down” due to the incoming pressure. Tell me I am wrong about this! Teams are bringing their safeties up and often times are loading 8-9 players into the “tackle box”. They are showing blitz and blitzing. David Loverne and Dom Raiola are blocking like turnstiles and Harrington when feeling the onset of pressure is throwing underneath where the heart of the defensive personnel are lying in wait, to quickly snuff out the play for little gain. Loading players around the line of scrimmage makes the already non-existent ground game even more ineffective. Teams are essentially daring Steve Mariucci and his protege, Joey Harrington to throw down-field against man-to-man coverage over the top of the defense and they are refusing to do it. I realize that Harrington is facing pressure, and doesn’t have the league’s strongest passing arm, but sometimes you have to stand in there and throw the 15-20 yard pass that the defense is giving you. Not to be-labor a point, the increased emphasis on calling a penalty for defensive contact more than 5 yards down field has given the offense a distinct advantage that most teams have had the awareness to adjust their play-calling to. Heck,the Lions got one called for them yesterday when they threw downfield to Reggie Swinton. This philosophically-determined approach to calling plays will be this team’s undoing this season. They are going to have to take the onus off of trying to establish the run and will have to work even harder to throw the ball accurately and efficiently, if they are going to be able to feature any offense whatsoever for the remainder of the season.

After the coaching, Joey Harrington, has to answer why he has so consistently played poorly at home. He has appeared flat emotionally and their was a noticeable lack of urgency throughout the day. How could he, or the team for that matter, be so unaffected by the unexpected and emotionally charged retirement of Robert Porcher. Not only that, seem so flat when they are playing a feature game on the Fox network, where it’s pre-game broadcast team, actually were broadcasting from Detroit. How could they seem so flat when it was a milestone game for their teammate, Jason Hanson, who tied the team record for most games played, with the team’s honorary captain, Wayne Walker. This is utterly inexcusable! Joey Harrington never threw an accurate pass to an open receiver all day. Furthermore, the total lack of time or game management during the Lions 2:00 min drill at the end of the game was an embarassment. Again, there was no palpable sense of urgency, in a situation where they might be able to reclaim victory from the jaws of defeat. Enough Said!

Through all of this, the Redskins played poorly as well. At no point were the Lions ever out of reach of winning but yet they did nothing to improve upon thier chances either. They lost the field position game and time of posession game. They suffered from many costly penalties, though not nearly as many as Washington. Mark Brunell was incapable of connecting with his receivers and other than Clinton Portis the team’s best “offensive” player was Tom Tupa, who kept the Lions in bad field position the entire day. One last thing, why did Chuck Priefer keep sending Jody Littleton in to snap if he was injured and had snapped poorly twice in a row? It was very poor coaching to have Littleton snap on the punt that was blocked. You don’t think the Redskins had taken notive of that situation? I am thoroughly disgusted as a Lions fan.