Thoughts and Observations: Lions

[WindyCity]

Rewatched the game this morning.

Offense

-Trubisky played better than I thought. When the protection was there he looked like he was scanning the field and making throws. He was way more aggressive down the field including 2 deep pass interference calls that won't be on his stat sheet. If he can play like this consistently over the next 7 games then I think the conversation changes from replacement to competition.

-Nagy called a better game. I liked how they used the big package more and they started making better personnel decisions. We started to see Cohen used how he should be used and they were able to isolate guys downfield a fair amount.

-Cornlius Lucas had great game as the big TE, great. I had him down for 3 plus blocks in big situations in limited snaps. He allows the Bears to generate so much more front side push.

-Allen Robinson is a stud.

-Many of the drives that stalled were not on Mitch

Drive 1: Mitch bad 3rd down throw

Drive 2: 2nd down Daniels gets beat in pass pro, Burton jumps for some dumb reason on a conversion throw

Drive 3: Massie penalty, Gabriel drop

Drive 4: Massie worked on a stunt for a sack

Drive 5: TD, exceptional pass pro

Drive 6: TD, 4 straight + plays by the OL

Drive 7: TD

Drive 8: Leno bad pass pro

Drive 9: Massie and Leno both bull rushed right into Trubs

Drive 10: 3 straight bad plays by the OL

Drive 11: All out blitz sack

-Bobbie Massie has regressed from last season back to the inconsistent version from 2017 and before. He had too many negative plays in the run game for a guy who is suppose to be a plus run blocker.

-Whitehair's snaps were a mess, but his blocking remained solid and the line blew very few protections.

-Daniels still has some rough moments, but other than the splash bad plays he was solid in both pass and run.

-Coward might be something, but there are still too many plays where he misses to really start penciling him in.

-Burton is useless. Put him on IR and bring up someone who may have a chance to run a route and not power walk them.

-Montgomery is good. A little too much dancing, but he is a pain in the ass to bring down. Pass blocking is a work in progress.

-Holtz is a keeper. Dude can block.

-Braunecker is way better than Shaheen. No way Shaheen makes that catch and the blocking was obviously better.

 

[Angry Boomer]

I sure do miss Howard

 

[WindyCity]

Defense

-Goldman is playing hurt. He did not look like his dominant self.

-Nick Williams should be offered a contract extension. He continues to be one of the few consistent pass rushers on the inside.

-RRH has slowed down, but still has a number of nice rushes that he did not finish.

-Roquan seems to be back. He looks night and day to the Raider game and seems to be moving at full speed. With Trevathan out he is going to be even more important.

-I know Kwik is limited but damn does he make a ton of plays and bring a ton of physicality to the defense. Will be interesting to see what happens when people game plan for him in the pass game.

-Floyd needs to do more. He had some nice rushes, but blew contain a couple of times, and has not taken the step I expected based on games 1 and 2.

-Mack has been quiet, but the entire team is blocking him.

-Forgettable day for Kyle Fuller.

-I expected more plays from HHCD and Jackson, but they seem to be super deep and taking away over the top stuff and not being used as aggressively as Jackson was last season. A lot of Jackson's plays last season were when he was in man or a shorter zone and he could jump stuff and run with the ball.

 

[Les Grossman]

Montgomery gets kind of careless with the football while fighting for yards. It gets very far away from his body almost like Adrian Peterson use to do. I'm very surprised he has NOT fumbled a lot.

 

[nvanprooyen]

Montgomery gets kind of careless with the football while fighting for yards. It gets very far away from his body almost like Adrian Peterson use to do. I'm very surprised he has fumbled a lot.

I can't remember the exact number, but I think he set some records in college for the least number of fumbles. Like 1 per season or something. Pretty remarkable given his playing style.

 

[Warrior Spirit]

I think, in general, there's a lot more to be learned about a team when they face stronger teams rather than depleted shit teams.

 

[WestCoastBearsFan]

No. If Mitch continues to play at that level we need to still be discussing replacements. He was pretty bad for 3/4 of the game against an atrocious defense. Do we really want to go through this again? Did we learn nothing from not replacing Cutler and watching the Jags not replace Bortles? This is why bad franchises stay bad. They have dumb leadership.

 

[WindyCity]

No. If Mitch continues to play at that level we need to still be discussing replacements. He was pretty bad for 3/4 of the game against an atrocious defense. Do we really want to go through this again? Did we learn nothing from not replacing Cutler and watching the Jags not replace Bortles? This is why bad franchises stay bad. They have dumb leadership.

He wasn’t bad for 3/4 of the game.

 

[WestCoastBearsFan]

He wasn’t bad for 3/4 of the game.

He was great for 15 minutes and then mediocre at best for the rest. Against a defense that horrendous that’s “bad” IMO.

 

[WindyCity]

He was great for 15 minutes and then mediocre at best for the rest. Against a defense that horrendous that’s “bad” IMO.

He wasn’t.

He took an idiotic sack early and missed the 3rd down throw to Gabriel. The hospital ball to Miller was a bad decision.

Other than that he was solid.

He had 6 incompletions.
-1 was the deep wheel to Robinson that they just missed
-1 was the deep end zone shot to Gabriel where he stopped running
-1 was the hospital ball
-1 was the bullet in the middle that Robinson had but lost on the hit.
-1 was the Gabriel miss
-1 was batted down


1 bad throw
1 bad decision
1 bad sack

He played well.

 

[WestCoastBearsFan]

He wasn’t.

He took an idiotic sack early and missed the 3rd down throw to Gabriel. The hospital ball to Miller was a bad decision.

Other than that he was solid.

He had 6 incompletions.
-1 was the deep wheel to Robinson that they just missed
-1 was the deep end zone shot to Gabriel where he stopped running
-1 was the hospital ball
-1 was the bullet in the middle that Robinson had but lost on the hit.
-1 was the Gabriel miss
-1 was batted down


1 bad throw
1 bad decision
1 bad sack

He played well.

You’re basing him playing “well” on the fact that he didn’t do anything horrendously wrong. I’m saying he did bad because he couldn’t do anything against a bad defense either. He was still very limited, he didn’t even throw for more than 200 yards, the offense had way too many 3 and outs, and out of all the drives where the Bears didn’t score the offense did *nothing*. Most of the time they were 3 play drives and a few like 5 or 6 play drives that resulted in punts. He wasn’t “bad” in the sense that he blew the game or had way too many turnovers or missed wide open receivers that often, but he also failed to move the ball consistently against maybe the worst defense in the NFL.

 

[Hawkeye OG]

Rewatched the game this morning.

Offense

-Trubisky played better than I thought. When the protection was there he looked like he was scanning the field and making throws. He was way more aggressive down the field including 2 deep pass interference calls that won't be on his stat sheet. If he can play like this consistently over the next 7 games then I think the conversation changes from replacement to competition.

-Nagy called a better game. I liked how they used the big package more and they started making better personnel decisions. We started to see Cohen used how he should be used and they were able to isolate guys downfield a fair amount.

-Cornlius Lucas had great game as the big TE, great. I had him down for 3 plus blocks in big situations in limited snaps. He allows the Bears to generate so much more front side push.

-Allen Robinson is a stud.

-Many of the drives that stalled were not on Mitch

Drive 1: Mitch bad 3rd down throw

Drive 2: 2nd down Daniels gets beat in pass pro, Burton jumps for some dumb reason on a conversion throw

Drive 3: Massie penalty, Gabriel drop

Drive 4: Massie worked on a stunt for a sack

Drive 5: TD, exceptional pass pro

Drive 6: TD, 4 straight + plays by the OL

Drive 7: TD

Drive 8: Leno bad pass pro

Drive 9: Massie and Leno both bull rushed right into Trubs

Drive 10: 3 straight bad plays by the OL

Drive 11: All out blitz sack


-Whitehair's snaps were a mess, but his blocking remained solid and the line blew very few protections.

 

[Black Rainbow]

We don't need to see anymore of Floyd after he left the ground and missed that tackle - that was embarrassing bad.

We are stuck with that scrub for one more year. We had to give him the $13MM option for year five because Pace traded all our picks away for Mack.

I'll be glad when that guy is gone.

 

[Mdbearz]

Montgomery is making something out of nothing, imagine what would happen if he actually got "something " that resembles a consistent push in the run game.

Obviously Nagy sees it too and adding the JUMBO package more frequently is not a terrible thing.

Braunecker has flashed at times in preseason so I hope he becomes the Shaheen replacement.

Kwik is flying all over the place, we all know he is a liability in the pass game, but damn is he making up for it when he is not getting burnt for 20 yards on a drag route.

Teams know if they triple team Mack they can get away with leaving the rest of our pass rush 1 on 1. The commentator made a comment about Mack dropping off into coverage, but perhaps that is not a terrible idea. If you have two or more guys dedicated to Mack and you blitz from the other side there should be an opportunity, plus it might make them drop back to a single team on Mack, and then watch out....

Since Floyd is not being successful at getting to the QB, should he drop more into coverage and edge contain? Maybe Fangio knew what he was doing and was actually playing to Floyd strengths...

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

We don't need to see anymore of Floyd after he left the ground and missed that tackle - that was embarrassing bad.

We are stuck with that scrub for one more year. We had to give him the $13MM option for year five because Pace traded all our picks away for Mack.

I'll be glad when that guy is gone.

you know beginning of the season I was thinking priority to keep him around. Don’t really care for him as a pass rusher but he has always been tough against the run and good in coverage. He’s been pretty bad at everything this season

 

[bearmick]

No. If Mitch continues to play at that level we need to still be discussing replacements. He was pretty bad for 3/4 of the game against an atrocious defense. Do we really want to go through this again? Did we learn nothing from not replacing Cutler and watching the Jags not replace Bortles? This is why bad franchises stay bad. They have dumb leadership.

It's the same thing every time he has his occasional decent game. They forget the awfulness that is the majority of his play and go right back to being excited about him again. They're like puppies.

 

[bearmick]

He wasn’t.

He took an idiotic sack early and missed the 3rd down throw to Gabriel. The hospital ball to Miller was a bad decision.

Other than that he was solid.

He had 6 incompletions.
-1 was the deep wheel to Robinson that they just missed
-1 was the deep end zone shot to Gabriel where he stopped running
-1 was the hospital ball
-1 was the bullet in the middle that Robinson had but lost on the hit.
-1 was the Gabriel miss
-1 was batted down


1 bad throw
1 bad decision
1 bad sack

He played well.

It was the lowest net passing production the Lions have allowed this season by over a hundred yards. You do this every time.

 

[Black Rainbow]

you know beginning of the season I was thinking priority to keep him around. Don’t really care for him as a pass rusher but he has always been tough against the run and good in coverage. He’s been pretty bad at everything this season

I think some ppl (not you) have been excusing Floyd because they cling to the belief that Pace is a good drafter.

I think the gradual awakening about Pace has come by way of disappointment with Trubisky & Nagy....and now some are willing to admit that Floyd and others have been bad too.

 

[HearshotKDS]

He was great for 15 minutes and then mediocre at best for the rest. Against a defense that horrendous that’s “bad” IMO.

This seems like a weird hill to die on, who gives a shit how many minutes of the game he was good for. Let's keep the narrative at "Mitch can't only have good games against bad teams". He has never had a 95+ passer rating against a .500 or better team. He has 11 games of 95+, against teams that average 5.45 wins. That's not good enough for a team that hopes to get playoff wins; outside of flukes, playoff teams tend to be over .500.

It's the same thing every time he has his occasional decent game. They forget the awfulness that is the majority of his play and go right back to being excited about him again. They're like puppies.

Windy is one of the more vocal Mitch critics on the board, not seeing it.

1 bad throw
1 bad decision
1 bad sack

I saw 2 sacks that were directly from Mitch not seeing the field/throwing to wide open men when he had opportunity.



1st one is a TD if he throws to either Robinson or Montgomery, he makes a great play with his legs but then manages to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory by keeping the ball.

2nd one might not be a first down, although I think there is a good chance Braunecker gets it with a head of steam built up and WR in position to block. But you give up field position by taking the sack, have to be able to beat the blitz on this one.

 

[FirstTimer]

It was the lowest net passing production the Lions have allowed this season by over a hundred yards. You do this every time.

Agreed. We need to hold Mitch to higher standard than "He didn't shit the bed against one of the NFL's worst defenses"