Detroit Lions winners and losers from pre-season game #3

It may only be the pre-season but thumping the New England Patriots and QB Tom Brady 40-9 will make Detroit Lions fans smile as much as the drumming in Cleveland last week made us frown. A win is a win, and while winning in the pre-season means nothing there were some positive signs last night, and a few negative ones too. With that being said here is a look at the Lions winners and losers from the impressive win over the Patriots:

Winners:

• The Defense- an opportunistic defense help create four turnovers and gave the offense great field position at least twice. they also kept the Pats out of the end zone, and limited Brady to 185 yards. Granted they still let the Pats pass for nearly 300 yards but we wanted to see something out of this unit and we did. The defense could be very good and if they can play like this they can keep games close and hopefully the offense can take advantage and we see a great swing from the 4-12 record of a year ago. 
• Jim Schwartz- After Willie Young took a stupid penalty he was benched. This team needs more of this and I really wish Jim had come to town with this kind of attitude. the team would be far better if he had. The team still took too many dumb penalties but hopefully they will learn this lesson. 
• Sam Martin- He is exactly what a struggling special teams unit needed. He books kick offs through the end zone or gets enough hang time with them that the coverage team can get down the field to make plays. Although he has struggled with the punt game he was outstanding there last night. 
• Louis Delmas- Limited action, but he is a leader on defense and the secondary always plays better with him out there. It was good just to see him on the field. 

Losers:

• first team offense- They did score a TD but they still cannot run the ball and they seem to be struggling. Some of that may be a play calling aberration this pre-season but the defense but this team in position to score a lot more points and far too often the offense leaves points on the field as drives stall out. Reggie Bush is a huge addition to the passing game but has done nothing to improve the ground attack. Add to that the issues along the offensive line and we may see Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson break more record out of necessity, 
• The ground game- this is some kind of combination of the Lions being a pass first team and the problems along the right side of the O line. 124 yards on 29 rushes for a 4.3 average is an improvement but doesn't seem good enough. 
• Wide Receivers- They are having a hard time creating separation. That doesn't matter so much for guys named Calvin Johnson but I am fairly certain the Lions only have one of them on the roster. Beyond him and maybe Ryan Broyles there is no one in this unit stepping up. If the Lions cannot figure out a way to run the ball to at least keep opposing defences honest they will be very easy to stop. 

Related Links:

• Detroit Lions news and notes
• Detroit Football Examiner

Detroit Lions get busy making defensive personnel changes

Thursday night the Detroit Lions first team dense got shredded by Brandon Weeden and the Cleveland Browns. there is no nice way to say it. those are the cold hard facts. So Lions' General Manager Martin Mayhew has spent the last two days looking for veterans who can help his struggling defense. It is hard to find any fault in bringing in veteran OLB Rocky McIntosh. A move the team looked at awhile back. They also brought in DT Justin Bannan.

It may seem a little odd to bring in another DT to a team that already has Ndamukong Suh and Nick Fairley (and a few capable backups) but the Lions are very young at DT and having a guy who has been around and can help guide that unit makes a ton of sense. It is not a grand slam move, but a solid base hit to add a veteran to the D line. It seems very likely Bannan will make the final roster as the rest of the Lions DT all have less that five years of experience at this level.

Adding McIntosh makes even more sense as the LB corps have looked particularly awful so far this pre-season. It seems a virtual lock that Stephen Tulloch will once again start in the middle and DeAndre Levy has one of the outside spots locked up. Adding McIntosh creates competition with late round draft picks Tahir Whitehead and Travis Lewis to make the 53 man roster as well as pushing Ashlee Palmer for the other starting OLB spot.

There is no way to know what kind of impact these moves will make right now. They seem to be solid moves as the Lions look to fix their issue this pre-season. It has also just been announced that the team has brought in 11 year veteran Rashean Mathis, a DB who played with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Given what happened in Cleveland on Thursday night this signing could very much affect who winds up making the 53 man roster at the DB positions. Look for Mathis to push Ron Bartell for a roster spot.

In the end the team is being proactive in finding a cure for their defensive blues. That is all a fan can ask for at this stage of the season and it should make their fans happy, and help erase the memory of a pitiful effort Thursday night in Cleveland.

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How bad was the Detroit Lions loss last night?

If we just look at the scoreboard it is pretty bad. 24-6 is about as ugly has NFL losses come. Granted Calvin Johnson didn't play but if this is the offense the 2013 Lions will have when Calvin is not on the field this team has issues. The point here I guess is that this was a pre-season game, but we saw a lot of the issues that have plagued this Lions team for years. A small list:

• three personal foul penalties...this team still plays with a lack of discipline
• the running game was pretty awful: 51 total yards and just 2.4 yards per carry
• the tackling, or lack there of which has been a hug problem for a long time

Even though the story of this game is gonna be how bad the Lions looked on the road, I think there is one positive and that was the play of Reggie Bush. Sure he only rushed for 15 yards on 8 carries but he did add five catches for 44 more yards, And he has proven he is a weapon that this offense needs, and he is a good locker room guy. If the Lions O line can step up he might be bale to put together a special season.

However, Lions fans are fed up. This game was the epitome of 'Same old Lions.' It looks like Detroit fans are just sick and tired of this team looking like that on the field. Here is a sampling of texts I got during the game last night from random Detroit sports fans:

• The Lions are getting beat like a tone deaf Jackson kid
• They could not beat Stephen Hawking and the Golden Girls
• The Lions are as effective as sandwich bag birth control
• George W. Bush thinks the Lions make bad decisions under pressure
• Offensive line is less productive than a circle jerk
• How did the Lions manage to go out and make Detroit look worse?

The good news the for the Lions is their fans are still engaged enough to be pissed off at the losing. Things could be much worse just ask Joe Dumars and the Detroit Pistons who have become irrelevant in the world of Detroit sports, and not just because their own is actually in Auburn Hills. 

Sure, it was just one pre-season game and in a month no one is likely to remember that, but let us not forget they did play this game in a town that not that long chanted 'Detroit is bankrupt.' the real problem I see is a lack of pride. The utter lack of caring what the team looks like, and today they look like buffoons. 

If the Lions defense made Brandon Weeden look that good what is going to happen next week when they play Tom Brady?

This loss is a tough one to swallow, but at the end of the day it is one loss, a pre-season loss at that. Let's hope the Lions put it together and come September 8th they are ready to play for real. 

Related Links:

• Detroit Football Examiner
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What to watch for: Detroit Lions pre-season game #2

The Detroit Lions will make the short trip to Cleveland tomorrow night to take on the Cleveland Browns in what has become a pre-season tradition. Both teams are in similar spots as they are both sort of rebuilding towards something better, and while the expectations might not be as high for the Browns playing this regular pre-season game will up the ante a little. 

While pre-seasons is more about evaluating talent and seeing guys perform in game situations than the final score it is still nice to win. With the larger picture in mind here are some things to watch for when the Lions take on the Browns tomorrow night:

• The Running game- two concerning numbers from the Jets game. 7 yards was the longest rush by any Lions running back and they averaged just 2.8 yards per carry. The O line did a poor job of opening up running lanes and that needs to be fixed sooner rather than later. It seems a little odd that potential starting RG Larry Warford played 7 series against the Jets but the offense rarely ran at that side of the line. He is supposed to be a road grader and the Lions need him to be exactly that. Look for more running plays to the right side as the RT spot is also open for debate. 
• Offensive quick start- The offense was plagued last year with slow ineffective starts. When your offense is loaded with the weapons the Lions have they need to go out score quickly and take some pressure of their defense. Matthew Stafford needs to show and be the player we know he can be. 2013 might very well be a make or break year for him. 
• Linebackers in coverage and the Secondary- one of the defensive backs on this teams needs to step up and make an impact. Someone needs to be ready to lead this unit if the very brittle Louis Delmas cannot play due to yet another nagging injury. The linebacking corps did not look very good in coverage against the Jets and the Lions gave up 292 passing yards and 2 TD's last week and while shootouts might be fun a quick look at the Lions' secondary would suggest that they would not fair well if a lot of their games become shootout type scenarios. 

Other than that the kicking battle will continue between David Ackers and Harvard Rugland. The Lions are still evaluating kick and punt returners and hopefully those two units are much improved over what we saw a year ago. The Lions did not get a chance to return a kick against the Jets so we still don't know exactly what this team has there. 

Again, more than the final score of the game and let us not discount the pride taken in beating the Browns and going to Cleveland and showing up their classless fans who like to chant things that are way out of line, but the ultimate goal here is for the Lions to progress from what we saw last week against the Jets. 

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• Detroit Lions news and notes