Jim Schwartz made two questionable calls. Going for it on fourth down way to early (the opening drive of the game) and the really ill conceived fake field goal in that weather with rookie punter Sam Martin being asked to make a first down with his feet. On a team with Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson, and Reggie Bush this team tried to get a first down with their rookie punter in bad weather. Schwartz post game reaction to that situation reaffirms the fact that he suffers from some kind of inferiority complex, like he feels the need to prove he is one of the 32 men deserving a NFL Head Coaching job. He also seems to think that the media, or someone, is questioning his manhood. All I can say to that is guys who deserve NFL head coaching gigs, do not need to concern themselves with that kind of stuff. Jim made a bad call and he would have served himself and his team better by just admitting that fact. Instead he tries to keep up the myth that the folks who coach and run the Lions are the smartest people in the room. Even though we have 50 plus years of history the proves that is simply not the case.
The Lions need to learn to step on an opponents neck. They need to learn to carry themselves like a winning football team. They need to learn how to act like a good football team, and they had a chance to do all of that this weekend and they simply failed. That does not make them the 'Same Ole Lions', but it does give off that perception and that is what this team is always fighting.
With that being said, here is a look at the good and the bad from week 11:
The Good:
- 27 points- the Lions scored 27 points in the 2nd quarter. Which only proves that when this offense is in sync it is nearly unstoppable. Granted the Lions did not score in any other quarter and that is bad, but Scott Linehan needs to look at what he did in this quarter and find a way for the Lions to do that all game long.
- Joique Bell- Joique came up big in the bad weather. And yes I agree that Bush was largely unused because of that and nothing else. Joique had 9 carries for 49 yards and a TD plus 3 catches for 48 more.
- Nick Fairley- Nick continues to be a disruptive force and that is good. Maybe teams pay to much attention to Ndamukong Suh freeing him up but that jut makes the drafting of Fairley that more astute. He got to the QB this week and if he becomes more consistent well that could be very good for the future of this team
The Bad:
- Matthew Stafford- 19 for 39 is ugly. I do not care about the weather conditions because the Lions should have had a plan in place for that. This exposes two different problems, game planning and when Stafford isn't sharp this team struggles. Stafford needs to step up and do what he did against the Cowboys on the road.
- Penalties- 8 for the game for 45 yards. Bad penalties, dumb penalties, and it remains fact that this team is not good enough to over come the holes it puts itself in.
- 6 for 16 on third down- first of all for a team that only had 13 possessions having 16 third downs seems like an awful lot. Second of all it seems this team is not so great on third down and that they waste downs. This is a game where the running game should have been more featured, given the conditions, but either the Lions cannot do that or the coaching staff has no faith in the running game. It is sometimes that simple, this team needs to trust in the ground game more.
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