Official Game Thread - Week 10 - Lions @ Commanders

skinzplay said:
AP inherited a dreadful roster, probably worst in the league. He's drafted well overall, but there were simply too many holes to fill, and he didn't start with 3 picks in every round as a mercy blessing from the league. You have to fill those gaps somehow. Short of breaking the glass, pulling the red lever and asking some of us to suit up, he basically had to go the vet route. Last season was lightning in a bottle and it spoiled us all. We are still rebuilding. That takes time. I can be patient with AP, less patient, though, with coaching issues. Keim has alluded to the Whitt deficit for two years in very subtle, gentle ways. He's been more blunt these last few weeks.
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He hasn’t drafted well. That is one of the fundamental issues. As of now, we have only 2 average+ starters out of his classes. The busting of the 2024 Day 2 crop is a major reason we are in the hole we are in
 
Conn said:
I agree that this was their thought process, and that it backfired. Zoom out and think about how arrogant (no negative connotation here, just a description of the trap they fell into) it is to assume you don’t need the money or starters it could buy to be competitive now, you’ve gotten competitive enough and need to save that money for when your current (assumed adequate) players need to be paid later! There’s something to be said for preserving future cap health and being prepared for the future, but they went so extreme with it that they clearly felt the roster as constructed had mostly arrived and just needed some patches. When in reality the talent floor on this team needed a total overhaul, it needed to be raised.

We needed some of those (yes, a little overpaid) 25-28 year old FA starters that teams like the Patriots and Cards and others spent quality money on (without going goofy mode like the Jaguars years back), to make up for the mess AP inherited from Rivera. I think they just underestimated how much magic and luck and injury fortune played into our run last season. I see how it happened, but I want to see adjustments. This roster is fixable and it wouldn’t be a shortcut to sign some quality starters and playmakers on both sides of the ball to take advantage of the remainder of Jayden Daniels’ rookie contract. He’ll get an enormous, likely record-breaking contract in a couple years, we all hope for that. But to get there healthy and accomplished and be worth all that, he needs talent, speed, and brains around him now in order to earn it. Or we’re going to be watching this shit show for a few more years while we squander all his potential in agonizing slow motion.
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If I try to step back into the headspace they might’ve been in during the offseason, coming off last year’s showing…

They added Jones as competition/depth to the starting trio of Lattimore, Sainristil and Iggy, with the hope that Lattimore would be healthier/improved. Had they not drafted Amos, I think they’d have been in the market for another FA corner. Overall, the corner spot should look better, especially seeing Amos in action.

I think they thought Kinlaw was a better fit than Allen, and Newton would hopefully develop with a full offseason. Wise was a little more well-rounded than Fowler, and then Martin was a solid rotational piece, along with Baptiste. So better depth and a decent chance at improvement on the dline.

Harris for Chinn was roughly a wash (in theory), Quan would be better with another year in the system and improvement to the front and maybe corners.

Tunsil and Deebo were significant upgrades to an already potent offense, Coleman would be a good G experiment. Conerly and Lane would be interesting additions to the mix, giving upside and depth at minimum, and Cosmi would return.

And then there’s the potential development of Luke, Sinnot, Owens, McGee, plus our late round rookies and some other back end of the roster guys.

On top of all of that, you have Daniels in his 2nd year, plus coaching/scheme continuity for everyone.

I know this is rehashing what we already know, but setting aside hindsight, I could see them thinking the defense should be a bit better, and the offense should get a nice boost. Then we have our offense and defense practicing against each other, and that could have reinforced this thinking. So, AP’s maybe thinking - we’ve improved the team and have cap space to roll over to give us the ability to pay key guys down the road as needed… we’re in good shape short and long term as of now. But then shit hits the fan and it’s so messy, he realizes that trading for a guy to try to fix/improve one single issue isn’t going to cut it, so let’s let it ride, hope health and performance improves, which then morphs into - let’s reevaluate in the offseason a couple weeks later, ‘cause this is a disaster.

I guess my point here is I don’t know that’d I’d use a term as strong as arrogance, but it was a pretty conservative approach, maybe barring the Tunsil/Deebo trades. I certainly don’t begrudge you calling it arrogance though.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I for one thought the team might be a decent bit better than last year, or hold serve at worst, even if the record was probably gonna be worse with a (likely far) tougher schedule. Wildcard hunt was my expectation. Zero chance I’d have guessed we’d be one of the worst teams in the league. Sucks.
 
method man said:
He hasn’t drafted well. That is one of the fundamental issues. As of now, we have only 2 average+ starters out of his classes. The busting of the 2024 Day 2 crop is a major reason we are in the hole we are in
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I wouldn’t argue that his drafts have been a problem. My hope is that almost everyone looks worse due to surrounding factors (especially when even quality vets like Luvu, Wagner and Ertz have seemingly been affected). Bill and Sainristil are maybe the prime examples, Luke, Sinnott, Newton and Lane lesser ones. Concerning though for sure.
 
Commander Wraith said:
If I try to step back into the headspace they might’ve been in during the offseason, coming off last year’s showing…

They added Jones as competition/depth to the starting trio of Lattimore, Sainristil and Iggy, with the hope that Lattimore would be healthier/improved. Had they not drafted Amos, I think they’d have been in the market for another FA corner. Overall, the corner spot should look better, especially seeing Amos in action.

I think they thought Kinlaw was a better fit than Allen, and Newton would hopefully develop with a full offseason. Wise was a little more well-rounded than Fowler, and then Martin was a solid rotational piece, along with Baptiste. So better depth and a decent chance at improvement on the dline.

Harris for Chinn was roughly a wash (in theory), Quan would be better with another year in the system and improvement to the front and maybe corners.

Tunsil and Deebo were significant upgrades to an already potent offense, Coleman would be a good G experiment. Conerly and Lane would be interesting additions to the mix, giving upside and depth at minimum, and Cosmi would return.

And then there’s the potential development of Luke, Sinnot, Owens, McGee, plus our late round rookies and some other back end of the roster guys.

On top of all of that, you have Daniels in his 2nd year, plus coaching/scheme continuity for everyone.

I know this is rehashing what we already know, but setting aside hindsight, I could see them thinking the defense should be a bit better, and the offense should get a nice boost. Then we have our offense and defense practicing against each other, and that could have reinforced this thinking. So, AP’s maybe thinking - we’ve improved the team and have cap space to roll over to give us the ability to pay key guys down the road as needed… we’re in good shape short and long term as of now. But then shit hits the fan and it’s so messy, he realizes that trading for a guy to try to fix/improve one single issue isn’t going to cut it, so let’s let it ride, hope health and performance improves, which then morphs into - let’s reevaluate in the offseason a couple weeks later, ‘cause this is a disaster.

I guess my point here is I don’t know that’d I’d use a term as strong as arrogance, but it was a pretty conservative approach, maybe barring the Tunsil/Deebo trades. I certainly don’t begrudge you calling it arrogance though.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I for one thought the team might be a decent bit better than last year, or hold serve at worst, even if the record was probably gonna be worse with a (likely far) tougher schedule. Wildcard hunt was my expectation. Zero chance I’d have guessed we’d be one of the worst teams in the league. Sucks.
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I think this is all pretty well laid out, and I agree that it likely encapsulates their thinking heading into this past offseason, and then heading into training camp. I think most of that is what we in the fandom sold ourselves on after we didn’t end up signing the higher end guys we had spent months thinking we had tons of cap space for.

And it wasn’t 100% guaranteed to fail and go as poorly as it’s gone, I think it’s clear we ended up in the very worst timeline. We’re in the bottom percentile result, it seems. In hindsight it wasn’t a great plan or a good roster but it wasn’t destined to be this embarrassingly terrible.

On the other hand, if the FO (and coaching staff) want to be elite in their fields, they need to be better than hopeful fans at self-diagnosing and self-scouting. We can wish for optimum outcomes on all our lower percentage moves, but they can’t. They have to foresee and guard against the timeline we’re currently in. And aim higher. They need to not turn their nose up at opportunities to add talent the way other building teams do: by being willing to (over)pay the right FA talent at times and raise the talent level of the roster around their limited draft picks.

So in the end, I see how it happened but if AP & Co. are to ever be seen as elite and truly compete with the Howie Rosemans of the league, or even the tier beneath, they need to be better. And not live in the wishful realm of best case outcomes like fans do.
 
someone made me super happy after watching our demise with me

that's all I got to say about that.......
 
Conn said:
I think this is all pretty well laid out, and I agree that it likely encapsulates their thinking heading into this past offseason, and then heading into training camp. I think most of that is what we in the fandom sold ourselves on after we didn’t end up signing the higher end guys we had spent months thinking we had tons of cap space for.

And it wasn’t 100% guaranteed to fail and go as poorly as it’s gone, I think it’s clear we ended up in the very worst timeline. We’re in the bottom percentile result, it seems. In hindsight it wasn’t a great plan or a good roster but it wasn’t destined to be this embarrassingly terrible.

On the other hand, if the FO (and coaching staff) want to be elite in their fields, they need to be better than hopeful fans at self-diagnosing and self-scouting. We can wish for optimum outcomes on all our lower percentage moves, but they can’t. They have to foresee and guard against the timeline we’re currently in. And aim higher. They need to not turn their nose up at opportunities to add talent the way other building teams do: by being willing to (over)pay the right FA talent at times and raise the talent level of the roster around their limited draft picks.

So in the end, I see how it happened but if AP & Co. are to ever be seen as elite and truly compete with the Howie Rosemans of the league, or even the tier beneath, they need to be better. And not live in the wishful realm of best case outcomes like fans do.
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Absolutely. I think it probably also highlights just how lacking the roster was to begin with when Peters took over. Most teams would look a lot worse than they are with the number of injuries we’ve had, but not this bad. Of course, perhaps the two biggest questions I have right now is how much of that is the defensive coaching (or lack thereof), and how much of that is due to roster construction up to this point.
skinsmarydu said:
someone made me super happy after watching our demise with me

that's all I got to say about that.......
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Umm…Brown chicken brown cow?

:LOL:
 
NickyJ said:
Turns out the defense wasn't the only part of the team to get embarrassed yesterday.

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Dag that security dude looks like he did an illegal hip drop tackle. Well maybe. If his name is Luvu, definitely.
 
I honestly think that some of you are truly being too dismissive of the Dan Campbell thing. Obviously Whitt has been a story for a while so I'm sure it has been on DQs mind but it's been downright horrific for awhile, even going back to last season and he hasn't made a change. Most coaches don't make any changes when you are traveling to a different country and you have a bye the following week. It's not much time to make a massive change like that when you have all the time in the world after the bye.

Detroit has been a top ranked team with a top ranked offense for years now and Campbell still didn't hesitate to take over the offensive play calling this week because he didn't want to settle for just being good. He wants greatness. I just think seeing a peer do that without hesitation in a situation that is already good and then he dominates you, will make you feel stupid for waiting so long for you to move off of your friend when you have been atrocious.
O
I definitely think that factored into his mind, like why am I hesitating in a miserable situation when my opponent just killed us because he didn't hesitate to make changes even though they were in a good situation. It's the final straw to put that decision over the edge. Either way, I don't think that you can look at that as simplistic or everything as a coincidence when he didn't change it before, it's not much time to give yourself to make such a transition with the extensive travel, and you have a bye week following. I have seen nothing to say that he normally wouldn't have at least waited until next week, if he would have done so at all
 
Dah-Dee said:
ESPN:

Washington defensive tackle Javon Kinlaw said after the game that St. Brown had punched Payne.

"Yeah for sure, and they [saw it], too," Kinlaw said of the refs. "It's some bulls---. 100 percent.

"Daron retaliated. The refs literally saw the first punch. I don't blame him for the way he reacted. Tempers got to flaring."


www.espn.com

Commanders' Daron Payne suspended for punching Amon-Ra St. Brown

The NFL has suspended Daron Payne for one game after the Commanders defensive lineman punched Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
www.espn.com www.espn.com


Still stupid and unacceptable from Payne, but annoying if true that refs saw the shenanigans start and didn't also flag/eject Brown.
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Another angle on this is that Kinlaw hit an official. He was mad about something.



He was also taunting Goff on that series, really lost his head. He is lucky not to get ejected and suspended too.
 
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At least some players have some fucking heart
 
Faithful Fan said:
Another angle on this is that Kinlaw hit an official. He was mad about something.



He was also taunting Goff on that series, really lost his head. He is lucky not to get ejected and suspended too.
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Looked to me like he was pushing his teammates hand away, but I could be wrong… it happened quickly and the angle isn’t great.
 
RedWolf said:
At least some players have some fucking heart
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That’s not heart, that’s players losing control. A few of them really lost it this past game. It’s disappointing.
 
Commander Wraith said:
Looked to me like he was pushing his teammates hand away, but I could be wrong… it happened quickly and the angle isn’t great.
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There is a better angle of it in the previous video I posted, you can see it at 2:30-3:15 mark.

It looks to me like Kinlaw tried to knock the ref’s hat off or something.
 
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Boone said:
Oh - believe me brother - in game I said 'WTH Sinnott - we're getting our asses kicked and you're gonna celebrate?!'
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Some context that might make a difference in how we perceive Sinnott’s celebration, it looks like Kliff put that play in for the Make-a-Wish kid:

 
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