You certainly can't pencil in a W, but the Lions remaining schedule is pretty laughable. They have upcoming games against NFL juggernauts such as the:

Jaguars
Falcons
Football Team
Panthers
Texans

2 of the teams on the schedule have already fired their coaches. While it's still early in the season, Only 2 of their remaining 12 games are against teams that I think are actually contenders (Packers & Bucs). Finishing the year 8-8 is in play even with their WOAT defense. But of course it's all fools gold, this team is not competitive against good teams. That has been the main knock against the Lions going back to 2011 (and before that they weren't competitive against anyone).

The expectation was meaningful games in December. With the expanded playoffs this year, I expect to see Lions on the playoff trackers. But anyone who looks deeper knows that's just a mirage. Even if they squeak into the final WC spot, they get crushed. Patricia is running an antiquated defensive scheme with players incapable of running it. I would hate to see them "earn" another year by looking like a decent team playing against the NFL's bottom tier.

feel pretty confident they don't win 3 of those 5 games listed. a few of those teams can put points on the board and with how bad the defense is, I don't really think the offense is efficient enough and/or good enough to consistently put up points.

this is a very bad team, imo. would really only feel comfortable betting on them straight up against both NY teams, Wash, and maybe ATL but that's just because I view them as basically the same team. would say they're a dog vs everyone else.

Were only favored to win by 3 vs the Jags this week. This was a team considered to be tanking this season.

Panthers are playing well this season and maybe favored to beat us. Another team expected to be in the top pick race who're likely better then us.

Texans have one win but also have played likely toughest schedule in the nfl. Cheifs,Ravens,Steelers,Vikings, and Jags. Firing one of the worst coaches in the NFL should make them better as well. I expect they will also be favored over us.

Sure we should beat Atlanta and Skins. Skins have a good pass rush though so its not like we couldnt lose to them.

I really wish we would of took a QB this draft. We can now we see why neither the Chargers or Fins moved up. They 100% knew what we were doing which was easy to read. Also the Chargers were spot on with being happy with either Hebert/Tua. If we took one of those guys I feel like we automatically would of got some extra draft capital as it was a must the Chargers got a QB. Worst case would of been we had some hope on the bench and could of moved Stafford next season.

Taking Tua was clearly the play in last years draft. The most likely scenario is you win that fight and MIA or LA give up the goods, and you probably still get Okudah. Even if they don't budge you have your future QB who can recover from injury behind a Matthew Stafford coming off back to back broken vertebrae.

One thing I will give Patricia a little credit for, and part of the reason they have now set a record for blown double digit leads, is game planning. It's how they've managed to either beat or play really tough against good teams occasionally (Pats, Rams, Chiefs). That's about the one thing taken from Belichick that's actually sort of good. It's sort of the opposite problem they had with Caldwell where they would start out slow then rely on Stafford 4th Qtr magic.

I think the combination of the offense being decent and Patricia game planning is enough to win 4 or 5 more games this year against fairly weak competition. But at the end of the day, it's time to start talking about a rebuild, especially on the defensive side.

Hopefully the next GM realizes the offense is in relatively decent shape. It's time to start thinking about your Stafford succession plan, but there is no need to pull the trigger unless the guy you like sort of falls into your lap. That's why last year was such a missed opportunity. I am also worried that they haven't locked up Golladay. There's probably a good chance he's gone after this season. You've got a decent O-Line and Hock locked up, but you need 1 or 2 more WR's.

The defense can just be burned to the ground. Maybe keep Walker & Okudah, but if Okudah's a bust, at this point, c'est la vie. Move on, or make him CB4, don't care. The next GM better be ready to focus 90% of his time on defense for a season or two. I of course say next GM under the assumption a change is made, but it's hard not to see the Boston boys as dead men walking at this point.

Yeah its sad because you only get so many oppurtunity to draft high potential franchise QBs. When teams are actually looking for them you see them jump on guys like Mitch T,D.Haskins, and D.Jones early in drafts. This was the time to grab the guy of the future and we passed it. Thats the problem with having a GM and coach on the hot seat they wont make the move thats best for long term since that wont benifit them any.

This Jags game is sort of what I was talking about. They 100% sold out to stop the run, and then on passing downs brought blitzes. Basically force them into the air and make Minshew beat them with his arm, which he was incapable of doing. Aaron is going to torch your for 400 yards and 4TD's in he air if you try this against him. But you can look like world beaters against the lowly Jags.

The sad thing is

We should be 3-2 right now

With a lot of winnable games


9-7 or 10-6 could be at least possible

I know we suck but a lot of teams sucks. We aren't bottom five in the league bad

But we lost a game we had 99% equity


Instead we will prob get pumped the next two games and be 2-5 and the season will be over.

It seems like we've lost many close games over the Stafford era. Some of it could be bad playcalling, playing to conservative with leads, but if we had one of the top tier QBs we win many of these. Obv its better then having a turd at QB where you cant even keep it close.

That one year we made a run it was a mirage. Like 8 fourth Q comebacks


Well the last x years we are on the other side of that variance

It's coaching that let's us down when we are yo double digits and then still lose

Where are the adjustments. Wrinkles. Anything

Every ****in year they win by some nearly impossible way against a trash team and get me all amped up like this. It's awesome we have a team that can win this way, just never against good teams when it matters. ATL has to be like 99% to win before the gurley td there.

I checked. I'm seeing 96.6% as their high point. Unreal sports weekend. Both ATL and Penn State had near 100% equity and in both cases all they had to do was go down before the goal line to clinch 100% equity. Instead they scored early, both players realizing they shouldn't have scored as they broke the plane.

I didn't see the game, but saw on reddit that a Lions defensive player gave the TD signal when Gurley got in. That is f*ing hilarious.

Their win equity was whatever the FG % is on 21 yard FG in NFL history

This all goes back to week one

We could be 4-2 right now

But this team is still the same team

0 SB equity
0 division title equity

Possible WC playoff entry + doors blown off by Green Bay in first round

They were at about 2015 extra point distance which I know was like 99.5%. I'm guessing the 96% comes from cases where there is a turnover or a TD and rebuttal like what happened. Not that win equity calculation is a perfect science.

I'm not sweating the first loss too much. Either they overcome it and make the playoffs and do something in the post season, or they don't and they had no real chance anyways.

I will say that I am at least somewhat more optimistic about this team after this win than their other two.

The Cardinals were the better team for most of that game, Murray just made 3 really bad throws that Lions picked off, and needed to in order to have a shot at a last second win.

The Jags are a really bad team that the Lions game planned for perfectly and executed well. They sold out to stop the run and forced a bottom tier QB to beat them with his arm, and he couldn't.

The Falcons have good run and a pass games. The Lions run D was solid, and they did just enough against the pass to let the offense win it. I'm not sure if it's a matchup thing, but Romeo Okwara has looked amazing these last two weeks. Although we've seen this from him before, where he'll have a couple good games then disappear for most of the season.

It can be sort of tough to distinguish between two bad teams playing a competitive game, and good football. To my naked eyes these didn't look like bad football teams to me. I don't think either one has much of a shot against some of the powerhouse teams, but the Falcons I thought played much better than their record.

This game was pretty much what the Lions formula for winning with Stafford has been. If you need 60 minutes of perfect Stafford, you're probably going to lose. If you can keep the game close enough to give Stafford a chance in the clutch, he's as good as anyone else out there. Pretty much my entire life it's felt like if the Lions needed a game winning drive it wasn't going to happen. Now with Stafford it feels like with the ball in his hands and a chance to win, it's in the bag. I'm willing to bet if you take all the Lions 4th quarter game winnings drives from 1980 to Stafford, Stafford has more than the previous 30 years of Lions QB's combined. Maybe I'll be motivated enough to go read the game logs to find out if that's true, but it sure feels like it to me.

Outfailed by the FAILcons.

Team is still hopeless.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...l-predictions/

7-9 14% to make the playoffs.

The "'make the playoffs" bucket is irrelevant to me


Division title equity is 0% and super bowl equity is 0%

The justification for firing Caldwell (that I agree with) was that sneaking in to the playoffs by squeaking out wins against the bottom half of the league and making the WC at 9-7 wasn't good enough. In order to have meaningful SB equity you need to be regularly competitive against top tier teams. Last time that happened was like 2014. This team could be competitive the same way Caldwell's were. Not good enough. It does appear the D Line might be coming together, at least in terms of run stopping, but we need to see it against better teams. The Packers Bucs and Titans (Im not buying the bears yet) are the only quality teams left on the schedule. My judgment as to the direction of this team will hinge on their performance in those 3 games.

Evrerson Griffin for a 6th rounder. I don't love it. The defensive line finally plays good for 2 games and now you give up draft capital for a washed up old guy who is likely on a one year rental? They should be developing younger guys like Penisini, Bryant, and the Okwara bros. I guess it's OK if he plays in a rotational role, but even then they burn a 6th rounder on a team that needs a defensive rebuild. You make this trade if you are one piece away. They aren't one piece away, and this wasn't the piece.

We're the lions bro. We dont get superbowl or divison equity. With how bad we've been recently I'd be happy with a 10win 1st round ass whooping. Sure I'd love to fire the coach but we might go 7-9 and keep him anyways who knows.

Obv I'd love to be in the running for a top 3 pick rather then lose in the first round. Thing is with Stafford healthy were always going to win 6-7games.

It's why it's frustrating they didn't pick Tua last draft.

Stafford is too old

By the time the rest of the team is solid he will be done

Stafford is definitely not too old and even the worst franchises are 2 good off-seasons away from contention. I agree they should have gone Tua because finding a new QB is hard and being in a spot to draft a guy who is a clear #1 in like 80% of drafts doesn't happen often. You never know when father time will strike a QB, and I do worry about Stafford's reliance on arm strength, but assuming he stays healthy we've got 3 to 7 more seasons.

Patricia is finally mixing things up on Defense after 2.5 seasons of trying to shove a square peg in a round hole. It at least appears marginally better. A new coach and GM would be nice, but this team has some talent and isn't terribly hamstrung with big contracts.

Speaking of contracts I am really worried about Golladay. He is likely asking for top 5 WR money. It will be tough to stomach, but pay that man.

We looked better because we played two bottom 5 teams

Wake me up when we beat a real team on the road

In order to reach the SB we have to do that 3 times

yeah I agree, Hip, they're just playing like one of the good bad teams against the other bad teams. I still think the defense is lousy but its certainly game planned and played better the past two. I've think they might've found something in Penisini. he's pretty one-dimensional, but he looks like he might be pretty good at plugging up and shedding in the middle of the d-line. solid looking 6th rounder so far.

have mixed feelings about paying Kenny like a top 5 if that's what he's asking for. he is very good, and they have done well with the cap in recent years so I guess just go for it? I'm sure you guys have seen that they did discuss moving him in the past few days, not sure what their thoughts are with that other than they don't want to go to his price and don't want him to walk for nothing.

https://www.si.com/nfl/lions/news/gi...kenny-golladay

Just came out Minshew had multiple fractures in his thumb the last two weeks too. So we looked good against ... well that.