Detroit Lions Vs LA Rams Week 1 Wrap Up

what is up though Lions fans and Welcome to our week one Detroit Lions wrapup I'll be doing a quick recap of the game and then giving my opinions of what went right what went wrong what's positive what's negative what we need to clean up and things of that nature all right so we know what happened in the game obviously the Detroit Lions won that game 26 to 20 in overtime in stunning bully fashion as David montg gramy bullied his way down the field and into the end zone to steal the hearts and the minds of the Los Angeles Rams and their fans and I don't know about the staffords okay I don't know if they were in attendance I don't know if they were not in attendance there's conflicting reports but guess what we don't care I'm here to tell you right now we don't care all right so let's get into a quick recap C per ESPN the Lions the Detroit Lions Open the season by outlasting the Los Angeles Rams with a balanced offense grinding out yards on the ground and going to the air for some pivotal plays just as they did in their NFC Wild Card Game David Montgomery's one yard touchdown run in overtime lifted the Lions to a 2620 win over the Matthew Stafford LED Rams on Sunday night early in the season a lot of games come down to who makes the fewest mistakes Lions coach Dan Campbell said we make made one less than they did the Lions lost a two touchdown lead in the third quarter but extended the game with Jake Bates tying 32 yard field goal in the final minute of Regulation Detroit won the coin flip and took advantage of having the ball gaining at least nine yards on his first four plays in overtime to set up Montgomery's winning score the Rams were in a position to spoil Detroit's season opening party when Stafford threw a go-ahead nyard touchdown pass to Cooper cup with 43 or four minutes and 30 seconds left in the fourth quarter they had uh just could they just couldn't make enough plays on both sides of the ball to hold on for the win Los Angeles put up quite a fight despite losing Pro Bowl receiver puka AA and two linemen on its banged up line I'm really proud of this group Rams coach Shan McVey said we had a lot of guys go down and a lot of people stepped up we just uh came up short the Lions had a 17 to three lead in the third quarter after jarro G threw a 52 yd touchdown pass to Jameson Williams we had that double move worked out all week and he smoked them on it g said Detroit uh Detroit though lost the comfortable cushion because its former star quarterback picked them apart and its current one through an interception early in the fourth John Johnson intercepted golf's pass over the middle at the Rams 20 taking away Detroit's chances to kick a field goal and restore its seven-point lead Stafford took advantage leading a 10pl 80 yd drive that he capped with the scoring past the cup he could not compete uh he could not complete enough passes late in the fourth to keep the ball and seal the win leading to a punt that gave G another shot from his 31 with 2 minutes and 11 seconds to go I had a chance to win it Stafford said every game there's plays you want back and Stafford definitely knows about plays he wants back playing in Detroit we'll talk about that bit the Lions searched the Rams the Lions reached the Rams 14 and settled for baates tying field goal that sent the game to overtime McVey insisted he did not regret a decision he made in the second quarter with a chance to attempt a 40-yard field goal when it was tied at three McVey elected to go for it and turn the ball over on Downs when Stafford threw an incomplete pass that targeted cup obviously there's a lot of situations where you can say well if you had done this or that in the in the first quarter or the second quarter then the game would have been different well I can guarantee that the game would have been different because things would have been played differently calls would have been made differently on either side of the ball defense would have played in a different way offense would have played in a different way special teams would have done this special teams would have done that and there would have been other decisions that led to the final outcome so if you did something in the second quarter you didn't kick a field goal you didn't take the points whatever the case may be that doesn't ultimately affect how the game is going to play out because it's just going to be a different outcome of some sort you understand what I'm saying so it's like a par parallel universe or or a Multiverse like the butterfly theory if you do this one thing you change this one thing everything else has to change so we look at it in a vacuum like well you didn't get these three points here so that means that's why you lost that game because it went to overtime and you would not have been tied had you done that again Butterfly Effect you never know what's going to change if you change one thing so it's really kind of a silly argument when we say well if you took the three points here this would have happened because the only thing that we do know that happened is the actual thing that happened you understand what I'm saying that's the point uh Stafford completed 34 of 49 passes for 317 yards with a touchdown and an interception lobbing a ball in the middle of the end zone where Kirby Joseph was waiting early in the second quarter he took some hits particularly on his right ankle and popped up each time and made more plays give Matt Stafford a lot of credit he played lights out despite taking all those hits Campbell said and we're going to talk about cam uh we're going to talk about him taking all those hits uh in a little bit uh cup matched a career high with 14 receptions and had 110 yards receiving Goff was 18 of 20 for 217 yards with a touchdown and an interception cup had 14 receptions for 110 yards I'm just saying J Mo had five receptions for what was it 121 so I'm just saying who had a better game um Williams had a career high with five catches and a personal best with 121 yards receiving I'm proud of him Campbell said he still has a lot of room for growth that wasn't his best ball but he made some plays Montgomery had 17 carries for 91 yards and jir Gibbs ran 11 times for 40 yards with both scoring a TD injuries Rams ncua knee was hurt in his in the first half after catching four passes for 35 yards and didn't return left tackle Joe Joe Noteboom ankle was carded off the field in the second quarter after starting in place of allic jacks who's serving a two game suspension for violating the NFL's personal conduct policy left guard Steve Avala KNE went down later McVey said after the game that he did not have an update on the team's injured players Lions defensive tackle DJ reader leg and safety eatu malanu ankle were inactive no injuries coming out of that game everyone came out 100% healthy for the Detroit Lions and that is great uh um so up next the Rams stay on the road and play at Arizona on Sunday which we don't care about obviously we want the Rams to lose Arizona already lost um this has implications for seating as we look forward to you know absolutely our goal is to have the number one seed as lions fans um and then to go on and win the Super Bowl and the playoffs come through Detroit uh on the way to New Orleans so the Lions host Tampa Bay on Sunday in a rematch from the divisional round of the playoffs a game Detroit won 31-23 all right so that is it for the recap portion uh of all of this now let's start with the offense the offense for the Detroit Lions wasn't particularly great there were some positives I did think definitely J Mo was a positive let's talk about J for for a second all the haters all the J Mo haters let me talk to you all the people that said that he couldn't do it all the people that said he was a bust all the people that said he's never going to a mountain anything well you look silly I'm just saying I'm just saying you look silly now that was just one game and just like J said he said he doesn't expect this to be the best game of his career he's looking for many many more um and that I can Echo that sentiment 100% but for him to put in all of that work in the off season and all the work that he's been putting in over the three season that that that he's been here and maybe he didn't pay off and you didn't see it and he started off injured and then the next season he got suspended and he was slow out of the gates and he had problems with drops and so on and so so forth all the work that he put in this off season and Dan Campbell told you he was a man on a mission well that came to fruition that paid off in the first game of the season prime time okay and Jameson Williams definitely was Prime Time Jameson Williams definitely was must C TV I told you guys a few times mentioned this now this offense when everything gets going okay because it's going to have to get going um I feel like Ben Johnson was was still trying to get that balance of going okay Jameson Williams has expectations this season that we've put on him it doesn't matter what the national media and the fans have put on him we've put uh expectations on Jameson Williams um jir Gibbs has expectations that we've put on him it doesn't matter about the media it doesn't matter about the fans these are people that we want to work into this offense and get them going early we wanted to get them going early and often to the point where everybody was asking about Monty is he injured because he was in in the first quarter and everything and it seemed like we didn't see him until like overtime like he was in in the second half didn't see him until overtime okay or I'm he wasn't in right we didn't really see him that's the point um yeah so those were the things right um I I feel like Ben Johnson was still just trying to to get a rhythm with the new guys okay the new and the old okay how do we work in Jameson Williams and jir Gibbs with Sam laap pora and I'm in R st Brown now jir Gibbs isn't a new player that needs to to to be worked in or anything like this but he just needs to have a bigger role uh and I believe that that's what they were trying to do they were just trying to jump start him it was good that we had Monty fresh because he just rolled down um on that um in that overtime period he just rolled on through no fatigue nothing he was fresh I think he said himself that he was able to to be fresh and to roll that way because of the split uh between him and jir Gibbs so obviously look for those things to be tweaked look for I'm and R st Brown to get more targets look for Sam leapor to get more targets and we see that J doesn't need that many targets he doesn't need need that many receptions because he knows what he can do with the ball and he said this before he said this recently when they asked him about his expectations and his personal goals he said I don't care about catches when he was talking about having the most yards and the most touchdowns he said I don't care about catches because I know what I'm going to do when I get the ball in my hands this man has six touches six Touches for 143 yards six Touches for 143 and a touchdown okay you really could if you wanted to you could say he had five touches because there was one that was just a a smoke screen that went for nothing and it was a wasted touch okay but I mean we're talking about stat so we're going to have to talk about everything so of course you can't take it away but I'm just saying if you wanted to do that I would look the other way I wouldn't tell nobody all right so that was the thing that stood out to me most in the offense Ben Johnson is still kind of working things out is this a symptom of not playing starters in the preseason it could be um getting to have your your play calls in with those starters it could be it's possible obviously because those people weren't the people that you were calling plays for on the field you were doing it in training camp and in practice and all these things but it might just have been a little bit more difficult um the protection was good obviously offensive line was good you know everything everything that we expected from pan pan did okay uh again I touched on the Amin St Brown targets he had like four targets or something like that um six yards I it just wasn't it wasn't an almond Rod St brown type of game but as I was alluding to once this gets going it is going to be a pick your poison type of game uh type of offense you see when the Rams lost their minds and decided that travius white needs to be man up on Jameson Williams that Jameson Williams burnt him like a piece of toast that got stuck in the toaster right it got stuck in the toaster and it was just cooking it wouldn't pop up completely burnt smells bad got to throw it in the trash that's what Jameson Williams did to travius White he he was so far in front of this man when Jared G threw that deep ball that he had time to turn around catch it turn back around and he was trying to do a little Superman Dive by the time the dude caught up caught up to him and you know smacked his ankles down as he crossed the uh as he crossed the goal line so now this is going to force defenses it's gonna Force defensive coordinators to lose lots of sleep 100% you're going to lose lots of sleep as a defensive coordinator because now you know what you are dealing with now you know when I'm in R st Brown and Sam laap pora don't absolutely gut you in the middle of the field and they don't go off to the tune of you know Aman R st Brown is a regular 100 yard machine we know the type of season the type of catches and the yards that s Porter was getting last last year in his rookie season we know that so now even when they they don't you know gut you and and and cause you all types of problems then you got this other guy that can go over and get 100 almost 150 yards and six touches he can get almost 160 yards or 150 yards in six touches what do you do now do you try to limit those touches even further do you try to say well we'll be good as long as Jameson Williams gets two to three touches a game uh okay now if he's not getting the touches he's still running those routes and you still got to cover them right so now if you're trying to limit his touches that means that you are doubling him that means you are hitting him with that bracket coverage and when you do that you're opening up the middle of the field so it's going to be a pick your poison situation do you want to leave the middle of the field open do you want to have try to do some sort of hybrid where you're able to to double him and and cover the middle of the field now if you're doing that it's going to be Aman R st Brown on linebackers which isn't going to be good for your defense so it's going to be very very difficult man it's it's going to be very very difficult for opposing defenses uh and I can't wait I'm so very excited to see how this thing plays out for the rest of the season all right defense uh defense I'm actually going to be pleasantly surprised with this defense um obviously there were a few things that could have gone a different way Matthew Stafford put the the ball In Harm's Way quite often uh he put it in harm away I counted at least four times Brian Branch came flying in he had two pass breakups one of them was just shy uh and it just went over his hand Cooper cup was able to catch it on the sidelines and then go out of bounds so Matthew Stafford just wasn't seeing him he wasn't seeing him breaking on the ball he wasn't seeing he was being confused by the coverage Kirby Joseph on his interception didn't understand how Matthew Safford didn't see him he was just playing center field in the middle of in the middle of the end zone and Matthew Stafford still threw it over there and Kirby Joseph picked it off which is something I called for I said pick on Kirby Joseph if you want to you know it's going to be your own demise but here's the thing did he even see Kirby Joseph because I don't know how you make that throw if you saw Kirby Joseph you know I I feel like if you saw Kirby Joseph then you would have done something different trying to throw the ball to that player going to throw it higher put it in a place where only that player behind Kirby Joseph could get it so again our coverage our schemes while we're looking at the game in real time we're just going like why is Aaron Glenn playing so much Zone blah blah blah blah we have man cover corners and safeties and you know we can press we can do all these things but I was saying that Glenn was setting him up okay and he it worked out once for sure it could have worked out three more times okay now I'm going into the whole Butterfly Effect situation but there were three different opportunities where Brian Branch alone could have had interceptions uh terion Arnold played a good game now he had a couple of penalties but that first penalty I I didn't agree with it and I don't think too many lions fans agreed with it the second one I'm gonna say if that was in real time it was a bang bang play he may have reached a little bit early so there's an argument that can be had you can say it was clearly pass interference you can say that maybe maybe not okay so we'll just say maybe maybe not leaning towards clear but the first one I really don't think um should have been pass interference at all um I'm I'm with terion he was surprised in the end zone as as Matthew Stafford threw the ball over the head of Cooper cup uh and it was called the offense of the Los Angeles Rams and we're talking about our defense the offense of the Los Angeles Rams had to work really really hard Cooper cup ran something like 430 yards of pre-slap motion which is insane 430 yards of pre- snap Motion in order to get himself 110 yards receiving on 14 catches who runs 430 yards before they snap the ball so while the defensive product didn't look like exactly what we wanted it to there weren't like big downfield throws the biggest throw with the with the the the largest gain that they had wasn't a downfield deep shot it was a Miss Tackle by Carlton Davis right and I think that that missed tackle was aided by the turf the turf was an issue all night there were people slipping and sliding all around um you know it was new Turf so I don't know it maybe it was just too slippery but there was a lot of footing being lost even on the touchdown where Cooper cup uh caught it um Caron Davis slipped pre- snap He Slipped pre- snap like he was trying to chase Cooper cup to the other side and as he was chasing him he slipped they snapped the ball cup was wide open right cup wasn't wide open because we didn't have the right coverage call cup was wide open because he slipped in the pre-ap motion during the time when Cooper cup was running 430 yards you know for pre- SNAP so I was encouraged by the defense um Marcus Davenport seemed to live in the backfield Hutch lived in the backfield um Levi o got in there split a double team got a sack Makai Wingo got in there um didn't get the sack you know but had the pressure so I think that this defense I think the addition of Terrell Williams listen if you don't get the sacks and they're coming right Marcus Davenport had two that he could have gotten um there was one when Matthew Safford was simply able to just slip slip out slip away from him you know he got his hand on him he was able to slip away from him and throw a little shovel past to Kiron Williams uh if you can live in the back field and if you can have the the quarterback under constant pressure Matthew Stafford is a good quarterback okay uh my thing with Matthew Stafford has always been the turnovers okay I've never had a problem with his arm angles or you know I've never had a problem with his arm you know his arm Talent um I've never had too much of a a problem with his accuracy you know it's been the turnovers it's been the poor decisions doc maon had a tweet that he was saying the same thing he said when you go back and rewatch The Game the amount of times that Matt Stafford put the ball In Harm's Way and made poor decisions to that regard shows you why he never won anything in Detroit and that's what I've been saying I've been called a hater I've been called a lot of things but that's what I've been saying go back and watch Matt Stafford in Detroit that was par for the course and that why that's why I was never a huge Stafford fan however um you you take a quarterback that's not on the level of Matthew Stafford you put him under that much duress you put him under that much strain you put him under that much hey I got I gotta get this ball off because if not I'm gonna be in the dirt there's G to be turnovers there's going to be interceptions Matthew Stafford was getting the ball out in like 1.5 seconds okay there just wasn't any opportunity to do that the the downfield shots weren't able to consistently develop because there was this constant pressure okay now you may say okay well it's because the the Los Angeles Rams in their offensive line situation Hutch had what a 40 47.8% pass rush win rate like that's insane almost half of his snaps where he was rushing the passer he was able to get pressure he won he beat his man now maybe that is that that's insane so maybe that is a product of um the backups being in but is it really that big of a drop off that Hutch can get almost 50% win rate every other snap almost that you went and rushed the passer you won on that snap whether you got the sack or not whether was just a pressure maybe you maybe you made him slide up into the pocket slide over in the pocket into the waiting arms of Marcus Davenport okay how many how many tackle Duos are just going to be able to just straight up handle Marcus Davenport and Hutch I don't think there's too many and DJ rer didn't even play okay so with these J rer in the middle taking up double teams I hey this defense has the makings to be top 10 I said before I think I predicted I just went out on a Ledge and said this could be a top five defense okay we're all upset ER Glenn and why is he calling so much Zone coverage well they were being forced to eat on the bottom on the on the underneath routes on the shallow crosses the Deep stuff was largely eliminated it was largely eliminated tackling was poor okay there we need to clean up tackling 100% need to clean up tackling um but coverage when amek Robertson got in sticky all right uh terion Arnold sticky terion Arnold said after the game Cooper cup told him he was one of them ones if you don't know what that means you can look it up but basically it means he's a dog he's one of those dudes that's going to be at the top of the league in short order right he looked good out there you know for a for a rookie in his first game Prime Time against a quarterback like Matthew Stafford against a a receiver like Cooper cup throw a little smattering of of Puka AA in there okay I I think Carlton Davis Kind of killed The Narrative of him not being able to deal with the the shorter shiftier receivers because when he was on cup remember he had that big third down knock away where he knocked the ball away and then they had the punt okay Carlon Davis was locking stuff down okay now as we as we get into more man and maybe we go up against people that aren't as good as Matthew Stafford and Shawn mcy this straight up man coverage smothering people where do you go with the football so we have the makings of a top something defense okay I don't I don't consider I I don't consider 15 top like I oh you're a top 15 that's pretty much like if you're top 15 you can be number 15 and you're pretty much the middle of the pack I don't so I don't when I say top it's got to be top 10 or top five and I think we have the makings of at least one of those at the very least we have the makings of a top 10 defense Alex anzalone was flying flying around the field laying the smackdown laying the wood shout out of a cannon from the very first play of the game setting tones this team has the makings man they didn't play a great game lots of things to to improve upon but man is this exciting this is exciting so that is going to be it guys for our week one Detroit Lions wrap up we put a bow on it for the game we'll have some other content coming out about the game about the players particularly maybe do some player spotlights and profiles and things of this nature so watch for those coming out throughout the week and um it is what it is man let's go Lions let me know what you think in the comments below agree disagree um what do you want to see improve what do what do you think was good what did you think was bad let me know in the comments below uh smash like buttons share subscribe all those great things as always you know where to find us it's all great it's all day peace thank you for watching the all grit pod if you enjoyed this content make sure you like 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