The Lions fell to 0-9 today as they were beaten 38-14 by the Jacksonville Jaguars. It’s not too often that you get beat by 24 points and say, “The game wasn’t as close as the score would indicate,” but these are the Lions we’re talking about. This game could’ve been even worse if the Jags wouldn’t have taken their foot off the gas pedal in the 2nd half. Detroit’s defense was especially poor today. Jacksonville could do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted to do it all day long. The Lions offense had a couple of exciting plays, but couldn’t sustain anything consistently with off-the-street QB Culpepper or the inexperienced QB in Stanton. Now onto the gameballs and groin-kicks…
GAMEBALLS
Calvin Johnson
Calvin averaged 46 yards per catch today. Unfortunately, he only had 2 catches. The Lions need to get him the ball more next week.
Kevin Smith
Lost in this absolutely horrific season is this positive fact: The Lions have found a RB. Smith had 96 yards and a TD today. He’s really a solid looking player.
Drew Stanton
Drew looked inexperienced at times. He took a couple of sacks that he shouldn’t have and one-hopped a pass to Calvin. However, he threw his first NFL TD pass today, didn’t turn it over, and went 6-8 for 94 yards.
David Garrard
22 points for my fantasy team. Thanks David.
GROIN-KICKS
The entire Lions defense
Horrible. Just horrible. I don’t know what else to say. They’re just...so...horrible!
The entire Lions offensive line
These guys are pretty terrible in their own right. Oh, and Jeff Backus had another penalty today. Keep the streak going, Jeff!
Rod Marinelli and Joe Barry
Sorry guys, but I just hate your defense. I know the personnel lacks talent in some areas, but not this badly. There is no excuse for looking this bad week in and week out. I look forward to the day when we can dump the stupid “Tampa 2” scheme.
WHAT ELSE?
Daunte Culpepper looked like a guy who only had a few days to prepare for this game (that’s because he did). All things considered, though, I didn’t think he did too bad when you consider the circumstance that he was in. Drew Stanton did some nice things, but also showed his inexperience at times, too. I’d like to see Stanton keep playing so that they at least have a developed QB to show for their tribulations at the end of this terrible season. I’m not giving up on Culpepper either, though. He’s only 31 and his arm strength is clearly still there. This is a simple offensive scheme that he should be able to pick up and Calvin Johnson is the best WR he has had to throw to since Randy Moss in Minnesota. Actually, I wouldn’t have a problem with the Lions bringing back Daunte and/or Orlovsky to go with Stanton at QB next season. I don’t know if they have any stars in this group of QBs, but what I’m getting at here is that I don’t think QB is a problem right now. They’ve got some guys that they can work with and I don’t think it’s necessary to blow a top pick on a QB next April. We’ve got plenty of time to speculate on that between now and then, but I would prefer either a franchise left tackle (to take the place of Jeff Back-us-up) or an impact defensive player (James Lauranitis?). Ah yes, at least we have NFL draft speculation. We’ll always have that!
FINAL THOUGHTS
Next week the Lions go on the road to face the Panthers. I don’t know who they’ll start at QB, but I don’t think it matters. Carolina has 2 good RBs in DeAngelo Williams and Jonathon Stewart and they also have a very good defense. Not to mention that Steve Smith and Muhsin Muhammed will probably run wild in the Detroit defensive backfield. Speaking of that, pick up Muhammed in your fantasy league if he’s available. He almost always tears up the Lions. At any rate, the Lions have now lost 16 of their last 17 regular season games and I think it’s going to be 17 out of 18 after next week’s game. As usual, I hope I am wrong. Thanks for reading!
Greg
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