The Lions' Return to the Playoffs: A Running Diary of Detroit Lions vs. New Orleans Saints

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This was the first year I've watching football actively (I used to only watch the Superbowl) so naturally I had to choose a team to follow. I asked my friends which team is young and has a lot of potential, kind of like the "OKC Thunder" of football. One of the teams they mentioned was the Detroit Lions. After watching their first game I instantly fell in love with Calvin Johnson’s game. He’s probably one of the most complete athletes in all of sports and it shows through his dominance at the wide receiver position. With their dominant offense (when Stafford plays well) and tough defense this team is great on paper. The problem with them, and this made me lose a few years of my life, is their astounding ability at making the most bone-headed penalties. Hopefully today they will be disciplined and focused on trying to stop Brees and his receivers while minimizing penalties, as well as executing on offense. If they manage to bother Brees and Stafford pulls off a great performance I could see the Lions winning, otherwise the Saints could destroy them.

Quarter 1

15:00 Kickoff!!!!

13:05 A typical Detroit penalty, c’mon Schwartz control your team.

12:26 Nice find by Stafford. Titus Young has been great this year as a rookie. Watch for him to be one of the better receivers in the future.

10:58 Touchdown by Hanson! (who is this guy?). What a great way to start the game.

10:54 Alright defense, it’s time to do your end of the job

10:47 Brees is one of the most precise passers I’ve watched. What a great throw.

8:16 Fumble!!!!!! Huge defensive stop by the Lions, great job by Durant forcing that fumble.

7:27 Burleson spins to the 1^st down line. Keep it going Lions!

5:35 Stafford and Pettigrew with a nice 22 yard connection. The Lion’s O-line is doing a great job so far.

4:20 Good defense the Saints, that would have been a huge play if Johnson managed to catch it. The defense has to keep applying pressure to Brees since I can’t see them winning any other way.

0:00 That was an entertaining 1^st quarter. I’m expecting more of the same high powered offense in the next 3 quarters.

Quarter 2

14:01 Good effort by the Lions but it wasn’t enough this time. Good running play by the Saints.

13:54 I was about to say how great of a run that was by Logan…but of course the Lions get a penalty call. No more, I just ask for no more stupid penalties.

10:47 Stafford is on point today. Good pass to Scheffler to keep the drive alive. I always get nervous with Stafford on 3^rd downs.

9:11 TOUCHDOWNNN!!! Johnson completes the catch from Stafford using his leaping ability. I love how the offense is playing today.

6:45 A nice floating pass by Brees. The Lions defense is letting the Saints get anything they want on this drive. And on cue, they force a fumble by sacking Brees.

5:11 Stafford gifts the ball back to the Saints with some poor decision making. I hate how he takes random drives off and decides to just throw the ball away.

1:43 Big blitz by the Lions. This is the pressure I wanted Suh to put on Brees. Unfortunately, the Saints easily run to a 1^st down on the next play.

0:48 Lovely, an offside penalty. They cannot allow the Saints to score a TD right now, the advantage after half is very important for their confidence.

0:16 And there’s the touchdown by the Saints. I don’t think the Lions can respond positively to this in the 2^nd half. The play is under review and the TD overturned. Lions need to play great defense for 16 seconds now.

0:00 Great defense to finish the half by the Lions, forcing the Saints to go for a field goal. It’s great that the Lions are up heading into half time since this will give them extra confidence to finish the game off strong. On a side note, Brees is amazing at avoiding getting sacked.

Quarter 3

13:09 Excellent throw by Brees for a touchdown, really not too much the Lions could have done there. It’s time to focus back on offense.

10:45 Another great example of how the Lions’ penalties have killed them. Instead of being 3^rd and 1, they were 2^nd and 19 and obviously didn’t manage to get the 1^st down. The Lions’ defense needs to stop the Saints from scoring on this play since a TD would be very hard to overcome right now.

6:32 4^th and inches can will they get it? They do, great play by Brees. The Lions defense is doing great during this Saints drive but Brees manages to come up with a huge play when they need it.

4:22 Huge throw and catch by Holston, leading to a TD by Graham. Lions need to get a TD on this next drive otherwise this game is as good as done.

2:32 What a huge catch by Johnson. He pulled off 3 great catches on this drive, saving the Lions.

1:44 Stafford needs to make smarter decisions than throwing it into traffic. Now they are at 3^rd and goal and need to get a TD.

1:08 Stafford fakes and runs in for a TD but it might end up being overruled since it looks like he was down before he hit the pylon. Ruling is confirmed, Stafford gets the TD!!

Quarter 4

11:46 Lions coming up with some big stops but the Saints get the 1^st down on 4^th and 2.

9:53 Sproles waltzes through the Lions D and scores a TD. He’s been having an great game so far.

9:43 Stafford makes a poor decision by throwing a hail mary…resulting in a turnover. I don’t understand why this was necessary since there is still plenty of time left to come back in the game.

7:40 Brees just raped the entire Lions defense and threw to Meachem for another TD.

6:14 Johnson with a nice catch and stiff arm gaining the first down. He has been the Lions’ best player by far tonight.

4:45 Johnson with his 2^nd touchdown of the night from a great play call that led to him being isolated.

4:39 Onside kick is unsuccessful. This play is always really risky and it puts Brees in a good position to throw a TD.

3:45 Brees throws another beautiful pass to the Detroit 1.

3:36 Touchdown by Thomas. This game is finished, unless they could make a trade for Tebow.

Summary: Good first half by the Lions where they were attacking offensively and were good on defense. The second half was the complete opposite. Offensively, Stafford made some poor plays and their defense was picked apart by Brees. Congrats to the Saints for a good win and a great job by their coach with crucial half time adjustments. I’m happy that the Lions made the playoffs and am excited to watch them as a more mature team next year. The rest of the playoffs should be fun to watch, especially tomorrow’s playoff debut for Tim Tebow.

Playoff Predictions: Wildcard Round

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The regular season has finally come to an end, which means that the REAL season starts this weekend. I know I haven’t posted in quite some time, but I’m finally back and ready to share my thoughts/observations on this year’s NFL playoffs. Luka and I were discussing some potential playoff scenarios and here are my predictions for this weekend’s Wildcard Round.


AFC

3. Houston vs 6. Cincinnati
If I turned the clocks back to the preseason and told you that this would be a playoff matchup, I guarantee everyone would have laughed at me, but here we are. The beauty of the NFL is that you can never know for sure which teams will be good and which teams will be bad (I’m talking to you Philly). Earlier in the season I said that the Texans were playing some of the best football in the AFC, but then Matt Schaub got injured and everything has been going downhill since. Though the Texans have an excellent D and great run game, I’m going to be putting my money on the rookie Andy Dalton to “upset” T.J. Yates and the Houston Texans. However, if Matt Schaub decides to pull a superman and play, I’m picking the Texans to win the super-mediocre AFC championship.

Texans 14 – BENGALS 21

4. Denver vs 5. Pittsburgh
I hate most NFL owners and NFL fans, but I especially hate the NFL media. Tim Tebow has been mediocre at best all season, yet every household with access to the internet and/or a television knows the name Tebow. It took him an entire season to complete enough passes to even QUALIFY to have his QB rating calculated, and with a score of 72.9, he sits 27th out of 33 passers...garbage. I’ve been saying for most of the season that the Steelers are headed downhill, but even with a broken Ben Roethlisberger and an aging D, Blitzburgh will bury the Broncos and hopefully shut this Tebowmania up, at least for the duration of the offseason.

Broncos 10 – STEELERS 24


NFC

3. New Orleans vs 6. Detroit
WHO DAT SAID DEY GON BEAT DEM SAINTS?!? This has been a fantastic season to be a Saints fan and an even better season if Drew Brees is your favourite player. Brees has had a once in a lifetime type season and broken many prestigious offensive records. This isn’t another Saints article, so let’s take a look at this game real quick. The Saints easily handled the Lions in their game earlier this season, but had it not been for Detroit’s 67,000 penalty yards, the game could have actually been much closer. Lion’s QB Matt Stafford is extremely inconsistent, but in the past few weeks, him and Calvin “Megatron” Johnson have been piling up the stats. Even with a very volatile offense and a tough defence (when they don’t give up 200 penalty yards), the Lions are no match for the Saints. If Detroit puts up 50 points, Drew Brees will find a way to put up 51, it’s as simple as that. This is almost guaranteed to be a high-scoring shoot out, but I don’t think there’s any real chance that the Lions can upset the Saints. One thing I predict that most people probably don’t expect is that the Saints will shut down Megatron. New Orleans’ defensive coordinator Gregg Williams firmly believes that you shouldn’t let the other team’s best players beat you and always comes up with a way to take the opposition’s most dangerous weapon out of the game. If you don’t believe me, go to 0:42 of this link and you’ll see what the tactic was the last time these 2 teams faced off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX0JjyTgme0

SAINTS 42 – 35 Lions

4. New York vs 5. Atlanta
ELLIIII MANNNINGGGGGGG!!! What an absolute stud! To say that he hasn’t had a great year is simply retarded. With the game on the line in the 4th quarter, when it mattered most, only Aaron Rodgers had a better passer rating than Eli. He deserved the Pro Bowl spot and showed me that he is one of the top 5 QBs in the league. Atlanta on the other hand has coasted for much of the season and faced an extremely easy schedule all year. I personally don’t think they’re very good, but on any given Sunday, anyone can come out on top. The G-men are built very similar to the Giants team that won the superbowl in ’07, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they made another deep playoff run this year. Atlanta lucked out by not having to play (re: lose) to the Saints for the 3rd time this season, but I don’t think they have enough experience against good opponents to come away with this game.

GIANTS 24 – 21 Falcons

That’s it for this week. Next week I’ll talk about my take on the Wildcard Round and put up my predictions for the Divisional Round.

A Cabrock Rant

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The way this season is playing out, I’m not going to have any incentive to write any more articles. Obviously the Saints won another game by a convincing margin and Drew Brees played excellent. If I’m beginning to bore you with my repetitiveness, I apologize, but there really isn’t much else to talk about.

The Saints offence is a well oiled machine and there isn’t a single defence in the league that can shut them down. Brees continues his pace to break some of the leagues prolific passing records and doesn’t even seem phased that the MVP trophy has almost certainly been given to Aaron Rodgers already. The only thing that Brees and the Saints want to win is the Lombardi trophy after taking Superbowl 46. The only part of last week’s game that I want to talk about is how retarded Detroit is.

The Lions are without a doubt the most undisciplined team in sports and look more like a bunch of hoodrats in pads than football players. They claim to be playing with intensity and ferocity, but that team as a unit is an embarrassment to professional athletics. As a pro football player, you’re not only supposed to be competing to win games, but to set an example for the millions of kids that watch the sport and look up to the NFL and it’s players. Suh, Titus Young, Coach Schwartz, and the rest of that sad bunch of human beings all disgust me. One of the first articles ever written for this blog, by Luka, was about how fans shouldn’t be cheering for one team to lose, but rather rooting for their team to win. I would agree with that assessment in most cases, but there are cases where that’s just wrong, and this year’s Detroit Lions are one of those cases. The Detroit Lions don’t deserve to have any fans and I hope they lose every single game they have left this season. Stomping on players, throwing punches, taunting the opposing team, and racking up about 44,000 personal foul penalties in less than a season is an embarrassment, but for Jim Schwartz to not step in and try and straighten out the thugs that play for his team is just sad. The Lions deserve to fall back to their 0-16 ways because they have no respect for their city, the fans, or the game that is paying for their delinquent lifestyles.

Barring a surprisingly close New Orleans game or another huge event in the NFL that I feel I have to rant about, my next few articles will probably focus primarily on college football and the awesome (re: useless) BCS bowl games.

Saints Report Week 12

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Another week, another win! Like Daki, I’m going to keep this week’s article short and sweet.

The New York Giants visited the New Orleans Saints at the newly named Mercedes-Benz Superdome and came heavily unprepared. The Giants were on a 2 game losing streak and things weren’t looking good. Many fans and analysts will probably talk about this season and say that the Giants were all hype and that they weren’t ever a true playoff contender but the truth is that the Giants might be the most injury-plagued team in the entire NFL. Before this season, there wasn’t a chance you could name ¾ of the players that are currently starting, which is never a good sign for any team. The Giants will likely miss the playoffs this season, but Eli Manning has proven that he is an elite QB and that, if the Giants could stay healthy and play with some passion, they could be a serious threat.

That being said, Drew Brees did his thing throwing for 363 yards and 4TDs and also rushing for another TD. The Saints offense simply outmatched the banged up Giants defence and made it look like they were playing against a Division III college. Jimmy Graham and Lance Moore had huge games, each recording 2 TDs. New week, same story: Brees and the passing attack light shit up and look fantastic doing it. There’s no point in me writing about this aerial show anymore cause I’m starting to sound like a broken record. Instead, I’m going to talk about an interesting article I read on NFL.com today.

I tried to find the link to the article but NFL.com changes every 4 seconds so it’s pretty much long gone at this point. Basically, the point of the article was that the Saints have the power to defeat Green Bay and win their 2nd title in 3 years. The Saints offense is pretty much unstoppable and can throw 30 points on the board whenever. The question will be whether the defence can step it up. Some people (re: mainly Daki) believe that the 49ers are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the NFC championship and that GB is the only team that can stop them from reaching the superbowl. I feel silly even discussing these shenanigans, because the 49ers wouldn’t even be able to challenge the Saints. The Niners have an excellent defence, i’ll give them that, but matched up against the Saints offense, they won’t be able to hold them to less than 25+. That means Alex Smith, the perennial loser, would have to lead his team to outscore New Orleans AND keep the ball out of the hands of Brees and Peyton’s offense....yea right. So what then is the real question? At this point in time, I would not be able to honestly say that the Saints are a better football team than the Packers. It has been years since a team has existed in the NFL with this much talent in every aspect of the game. Their offense is methodical, their defence is ferocious, their special teams can strike at any given moment, and their coaching staff has done an amazing job with their ball club this season. However, the argument isn’t whether New Orleans is the better team; the argument is whether the Saints would beat the Packers, and the answer is yes. Opening game of the season saw the Saints lose to the Packers on a failed goal line rush from the 2 yard line. The ICU at Sick Kids Hospital could have fielded a better defence than the Saints did in the first half of the game and they were absolutely TORCHED by Rodgers and the Pack-attack. However, in the second half of the game, Rodgers didn’t even throw for 100 yards and the defence managed to slow down an offense that has looked unstoppable this year. Since then, the Saints defence has become extremely opportunistic and has shown glimpses of the swagger that they had in 2009 when they won the Superbowl. The Saints still have a long way to go, but if they keep improving and getting better when the playoffs come around, I can promise you that the Saints will redeem their season-opening loss to the Packers and go on to win Superbowl 46.

New Orleans faces a very inconsistent Detroit Lions team this week, but with the Lions needing this win to make a push for the playoffs, hopefully I’ll have a more exciting article to write about.

NFL Week 4 picks

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Week 4 Lines:

Sunday:
Carolina Panthers at Chicago Bears (-6.0)

Buffalo Bills (-3.0) at Cincinnati Bengals

Tennessee Titans at Cleveland Browns (-1.0)

Detroit Lions at Dallas Cowboys (-1.5)

Pittsburgh Steelers at Houston Texans (-3.5)

New Orleans Saints (-7.0) at Jacksonville Jaguars

Minnesota Vikings (-2.0) at Kansas City Chiefs

Washington Redskins (-2.0) at St. Louis Rams

San Francisco 49'ers at Philadelphia Eagles (-9.0)

New York Giants (-1.0) at Arizona Cardinals

Atlanta Falcons (-4.0) at Seattle Seahawks

Denver Broncos at Green Bay Packers (-12.0)

New England Patriots (-4.0) at Oakland Raiders

Miami Dolphins at San Diego Chargers (-7.0)

New York Jets at Baltimore Ravens (-3.0)

Monday:Indianapolis Colts at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-10.0)

The Picks:

panthers
bills
titans
lions
steelers
saints
vikings
redskins
49ers
giants
falcons
packers
patriots
chargers
ravens
colts

Last week: 6-10

Overall: 23-25