Three Cups Deep: Lions at Packers
>> 10.04.2010
From the Watchtower:
I project another tantalizingly close game, with an outstanding day by the defensive line—marred by the back seven yielding to one of the best passing attacks in the game. This will be an extremely painful 17-24 defeat.
Yeah.
Shaun Hill played what just might be the game of his life: he completed 34 of 54 passes, for 331 yards and two scores. He added in four carries for 53 yards, which includes a crazy 40-yard break for daylight that I thought he might take to the house. He spread it around, too: five Lions had 4 or more receptions. Despite red-zone mistakes that turned some should-be-touchdowns into field goals (I threw that in for @AKDW90), Hill played balls-to-the-wall yesterday; he played as well as you can possibly expect a backup to play. He made some mistakes, but he made enough plays to win.
The defense shut the Packers out of the last 41:39 of the game. Let me say that again: the Lions defense kept the Packers’ offense from scoring for the last forty-one minutes of the game. The Packers possessed the ball for only 22:23 to the Lions’ 37:37. The Lions gained 431 net yards of offense, compared to the Packers’ 261. The Lions converted on 10/17 third downs, compared to only 3/7 for the Packers. By my count,the Lions had four scoring drives of nine plays or more. Who is this dominating, ball-controlling football team, and what have they done with the Lions?
Oh, they're over here . . . next to the two interceptions, the lost fumble, and the thirteen penalties for one hundred and two yards.
As DrewsLions over at Pride of Detroit wrote this morning, “Foot, Meet Bullet.” Watching the Lions flatly outplay the Packers in both phases of the game, shoot themselves in the foot, limp back into the game, and then shoot themselves in the other foot was a special kind of agony. It was a new, yet familiar taste—as @alpuzz put it:
I think as Lions fans, we've experienced as many flavors of disappointment as the Lions have found ways to lose.
Yes, that’s it exactly; the Lions are the Baskin-Robbins of failure. Just when you think you’ve sampled all 31 flavors of disappointment, you get a double scoop of the Flavor of the Month: Cheesehead Curse Failed Comeback Swirl.
Man, I know I said last night on the Fireside Chat that I was taking this one especially hard, but that might be the most depressing thing I’ve written since this blog’s first post:
The roar, my friends, was RESTORED--and the Lions were a team to be feared!
That was--oh, my God--seventeen years ago. Being a Lions fan has been an excruciating, tortured, squealing-brakes slide towards this freezing black nadir ever since.
Maybe I need a fourth cup of coffee, today.
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1 comments:
Baskin - Robbins? No that requires a pleasing sweetness. Instead, it;'s the same old Foot-in-Mouth diet. DE KVB proved again to be the team "leader" he was brought in to be; the leader in penalties with 4! He seems good for a couple bonehead moves per game. Peterman and Cherilus, 2 each. 16 hankies dropped in all(the Pack accepted 13). The QB is the rushing leader with 53 yds and has to chuck it 54 times. 450+ yards gained; 2 TDs and 4 field goals! The FS leads the team in tackles (hello, front seven, he went thata way!). Can't run the ball or stop the run when it counts. Spent $45m on a QB and can't protect him for more than a couple games at a stretch. It's not a curse, its simply that the talent in the trenches is still way not good enough. Gotta go for O-line and run-stopping help in 2011 draft to sustain any long-term progress. The team may be "gettin' here" but as they say, "So is Christmas"!
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