Lions on the verge of collapse, Tigers' FA options start to thin out

I'm going to write as little as possible about the Lions' loss yesterday. I didn't expect them to upset the Pats, but I expected them to show up. I was on the road for the 1st half and listened to the game on 97.1 The Ticket. I made a conscious decision not to watch the game after a pathetic 1st half performance, and that was probably for the best.

I know the Pats are probably the best team in football, and the Cardinals are probably in the top 5 or so, but you HAVE to show up in those games. I'd argue that despite giving up a bunch of yards & points, the defense at least showed up. The offense, outside of Golden Tate, didn't. One phrase I kept hearing from the radio team (Dan Miller & Jim Brandstatter) is "that's a play he SHOULD have made". Catches were dropped, blocks missed, tackles missed, interceptions dropped, assignments blown. It's not as glaring as the 2nd half collapse last year, but this is a different team than the one that started 7-2.

One culprit in particular is Eric Ebron. The rep on him prior to the draft was he was a matchup nightmare, only he had bad hands. At least the bad hands part has been true. He had 7 targets yesterday, 2 catches. That is a TERRIBLE conversion rate. For the year, Ebron has caught .516% of his targets. I looked at the top 30 TEs in the league by yardage, and they averaged a .668% catch rate. If Ebron had made the list he'd rank 2nd from the bottom. Pettigrew, the blocking TE with hands of stone, catches at a .643% rate. That's below average, but much better than Ebron. This brings up the point - WHY DID WE DRAFT EBRON???

At the time I was a hard-line "the Lions NEED to take a defensive player" guy. There were apparent holes at CB, S and OLB. Well, the defense has surprised. They aren't the #1 defense, both by the eye test & by stats (now #3 in yds/gm & BARELY #1 in pts/gm), but they're pretty good. But that offense (what offense)? The guy Mike Valenti (of 97.1 The Ticket) was high on was Odell Beckham Jr, the WR out of LSU. Valenti wasn't high on the Golden Tate signing (wrong about that one) and thought the Lions needed another WR (they do - Fuller/Ross have been underwhelming as the 3rd option). Beckham Jr was injured & didn't play until week 5, breaking out for 156 yards in his 4th game as a pro (Ebron has less yards than that on the season). Then last night, this happened:



That is one of the top 3 catches of all time. How this catch is made without some kind of mutant molecular-bonding ability is beyond me. Not even Stickum would have been enough to make this catch.  I look at this catch (he was interferred with, by the way) and think about Detroit's inability to get in the end zone for the last 2 weeks. In this game there were 3 drops that took points off the board, Fauria, Fuller & Ross. Golden Tate has the surest hands on the team, but who else is getting it done for them right now? Look at Ebron vs. ODB Jr, and imagine how much better the offense could have been:

ODB Jr has a similarly inaccurate QB (Eli's completion rate is 62.3%, Stafford's is 58.8%) but catches more passes due to his superior hands and blazing speed to get open. I'll get into what's wrong with Matt Stafford some other day, but for now I'll be keeping track of Odell Beckham Jr's career vs. Ebron's as a What Might Have Been situation.

A few notes on coaching:

• For the second straight week, Caldwell is catching some flack for taking a conservative approach and kicking on 4th & short (kicked a FG on 4th & goal from the 2, punted on 4th & 3 from the NE 39, attempted a FG on 4th & 10 from the NE 35 with 40 sec left in the half & down 17-6). Many coaches probably would have done the same thing, but that doesn't make it right. Here's how Caldwell justified it:
  
  “You have to take each situation the way it bears out,” Caldwell said. “You’ve got to take the points (early). I think that’s a nonstory. Second half, obviously, we ended up going for it a couple times. One time we kicked a field (goal) ’cause we were fourth-and-14. I think that’s pretty obvious. And the other times we felt we better go for it because we were running out of time, possessions, you may not get it back. So, conservative, I wouldn’t say that.”
  
  First of all, 99% of the conservative coaches don't think they're conservative. Secondly, "taking the points early" is conservative, while going for it on 4th down when you might not get the ball back ISN'T aggressive. 
• Teryl Austin has gotten a lot of credit for what the Lions' defense has done this year, and rightly so. However, his scheme has shown some chinks in the last couple of weeks. The coverage was AWFUL in the 1st quarter vs. Arizona and basically all game vs. New England. Safety James Ihedigbo actually said these words: "We thought they would actually try to run the ball." What team were they preparing for? The Pats are the #6 passing offense, #15 rushing. They've gone over 100 yards only 4 times all year. I know they ran all over the Colts, but that's what they do to the Colts. Teryl Austin failed to plan properly and then failed to adjust, letting the receivers get a free release off the line. I know Belichick is good, but he must have done some kind of Jedi mind trick on Austin (This isn't the offense you're planning for... My receivers can go about their business... Move along, move along)

***

The top 2 hitting FAs (after Victor Martinez) are probably off the board, both going to Boston. Hanley Ramirez got a 4 year, $88M deal with a vesting $22M 5th year option. That's a LOT for a 30 year-old player with health issues, a sub-average glove, and coming off a down year. Boston is paying through the nose for Hanley, and I'm not exactly sure where they play him. Xander Bogaerts is a pretty good defensive SS and has a developing bat. Hanley could move to 3rd base, except it looks like Boston will sign Pablo Sandoval, who is a pretty good hitter & defensive 3B. The Sandoval deal isn't done yet, but it's close.

Detroit needs better defense at 3B, but wasn't in the running for either of these guys, although with Hanley going for $22M/yr I can see why (Sandoval may get up to $20M/yr). Castellanos is a butcher in the field, and his bat wasn't enough to make up for it last year. He may improve, but at this point I doubt he can improve much. Chase Headley, a mediocre bat and a GREAT glove at 3B, is still available and could be had at a more reasonable cost. More likely, Dombrowski will stick with Castellanos at 3rd and hope his defense improves.

The Tigers need another OF and another good bat. The two best guys to fill that role via free agency are Melky Cabrera and Nick Markakis. It's estimated that they would draw something in the $11M-$14M/yr range, which is very doable. There was a murmur earlier on in free agency that the Tigers had interest in Melky Cabrera, but I've heard nothing on it since then. Dombrowski plays it close to the vest. Yasmany Tomas is also out there, although no reports have the Tigers in the running.

Speaking of which, Dombrowski recently was quoted as saying he's satisfied with the bullpen - for now. I hope that's code for "I'm going to trade Nathan for minor league depth and sign 2 guys". I'm not really happy about Dombrowski apparently being satisfied with the same 1-2 punch he had last year coming out of the 'pen, and I'm not happy about the Tigers going into 2015 with their CF being a platoon situation. I wish they had done more to address their defense too. I'm hoping Dombrowski has a big move planned soon, because this has been a pretty lame off-season so far.