Quote:
Originally Posted by TheHip41
Settling for the 40 yard field goal at the end was so lol
It's defensible. You're never throwing the ball once you get this close, and Prater is about 90% from this distance, especially when you can get him on the left hash which was why they ran that last second Stafford scramble & slide. Maybe you can get lucky and bust one open and set up a 95+% er, but most likely you get stuffed for one yard while exposing the ball to getting punched out, or drawing some hair-brained holding call that knocks you back 10 yards. I'd want to see some analytics on it, but it wouldn't surprise me if settling down and kicking there was the higher percentage play.
As for the rest of the game, a win is a win but this wasn't exactly confidence inspiring. The pass rush was at least a bit better today. Game ball to Jamie Collins here. He shed two blockers to set up Murray's first overthrow and INT, then he jumped Fitzgerald's route for a pick of his own. They held AZ to a more respectable 4 YPC on the ground, but they still had too many 5+ yard runs. Murray also did a pretty good job picking them apart through the air, he just made a few really really bad throws (Harmon dropped another easy INT as well). But in the end the Lions kept it close, didn't make any unforced errors, and took advantage of AZ's mistakes, which is the formula for beating teams better than you. It would just be nice to see the Lions actually dominate a game for once.
The offense seemed a bit more conservative today. When they signed AP I would've predicted his season high in carries to be around 12. They fed him 22 times today. He got stuffed a few more times than I would have liked to see, but even at 35 he's clearly the best pure runner on the team. I'm glad to see they're milking him for all he's got left. Stafford sometimes overcompensates after a bad game where he was too aggressive, and you saw that here. He had a respectable line of 22/31 but it felt like he airballed a few throws trying to keep it away from the defense even though he had a window to make it if he tried. I would rather have gunslinger Stafford. For 11 years now we've been watching him lead impressive 4th quarter game winning drives at an unbelievably successful rate. I'm shocked that no coach has at least tried to run the 2 minute drill more often during the game given his skill at it.