Matt Stafford is making this tricky. After the KC game, it looked pretty clearly as though he would never earn his contract. Since then he's posted 4 passer ratings over 100 and 4 QBRs higher than 70 (only the top 5 QBs in the league have total QBRs over 70). He's bumped his overall passer rating from bottom quarter in the league to top 10. People, local people, are making a big deal about this. Stafford is finally answering his critics. He's won 5 of his last 7. Beat a playoff-level team on the road (Green Bay). He set a team completion % record for a game when he went 22-25 vs. New Orleans. Only thrown 2 picks. These are truly astounding numbers.
The Lions would have you believe that Stafford is finally clicking with an offensive coordinator and all this is replicable. I think that's partly true, but I think what they'd like to gloss over is the fact that they've only played 2 above average defenses (St. Louis & Green Bay) in that span, and Stafford went 1-2 in those games, throwing both of his picks. Every other defense he's seen has been mediocre (Philly) to piss poor (New Orleans). Taking this into account, I still have to admit that while the version of Stafford we're currently seeing isn't real, neither was the crappy version we saw in weeks 1-8.
So what now? I've been advocating taking a QB with our top draft pick, preferably Paxton Lynch. He has the measurables, accuracy, rocket arm, mobility, etc. that you want in a starting QB these days. The problem is that the Lions are now 6-9 and could easily finish 7-9, which wouldn't give them a high enough pick to draft him. A guy like Curt Cousins might be available in round two, but I'm less sold on the idea that the answer to turning this team around lies with a QB change.
Ever since Matt Stafford has been there, the offensive line has stunk. You need a good offensive line to have a consistent offense. You need physicality, you need good pass protection, you need depth - 7 guys, not just 5. Every time I analyze Stafford, I come out of it saying, 'well, he can only do so much.' The offensive line doesn't just protect Matthew Stafford, it protects the Offense. It allows you to call certain plays in certain situations the comfort. If you don't have a good offensive line, your play-caller is scared TO DEATH for 60 minutes because every play is potentially a catastrophically negative play due to seepage.
When he said "the offensive line protects the offense", I thought about how bad we at picking up a 3rd & 1 or a 4th & 1. The Lions get stuffed A LOT on those plays. A big reason why Calvin Johnson has been so much less productive this year is because Stafford can't sit back in the pocket long enough for him to get down field. Another thing Dilfer brought up is that offensive line players take at least 3 years to develop. Anybody we draft now is going to be more for depth, less for instant impact.
Previously I probably would've rated Detroit's needs going into the off-season as 1. QB, 2. OL, 3. CB, 4 DL. Now it's more like 1. OL/DL, 2. OL/DL, 3. OL/DL, 4. CB. I'm still not crazy about Stafford, especially at the price he's going to command when his contract expires, but I think he could end up a "good" QB, given the right line. By the way, every time some draft analyst says something like, "you got a franchise QB, you need to get some toys to play with" in reference to whichever WR, I want to punch that guy in the face. The best gift you can give a QB is a really good line, not a "matchup nightmare" receiving threat.
I haven't exactly sworn off posting about the Lions, but I'm pretty close. I'm only interested in the outcome of the games as far as their draft position is concerned. I mainly watch the games to see players like Slay & Ansah come into their own and to identify what needs to change for next season. So, I don't see much point in posting anything until the season is over, unless something notable happens.
Well, something happened after the game that pissed me off. Following the loss to St. Louis on Sunday, there was more than the usual amount of attention paid to Eric Ebron. Detroit selected Ebron with the 10th pick in the 2014 draft, and he's been...underwhelming. The pick was superfluous at the time, and with needs on the OL, at CB, potentially at WR (Golden Tate was considered a questionable signing at the time) and with every DT on the roster at the time heading into free agency the following year, picking a TE that high was a head scratcher. OT Taylor Lewan went 11th, WR Odell Beckham Jr went 12th, and St. Louis took DT Aaron Donald with the 13th pick. Any one of those guys would've been a preferable alternative, although I'd rather not have to deal with Lewan's attitude problems. Both OBJr and Donald made the Pro Bowl as rookies. So a storyline going into this game (media are always looking for hot takes) was the comparison between the production the Rams get from Donald, a guy the opposition always has to account for, and what the Lions get from Ebron, who was 2nd on the depth chart behind our other stone-handed TE who is a better blocker.
The results on the field were about what you'd expect. Ebron had 3 catches on 5 targets for a total of 27 yards, the longest completion going for 11 yards. Donald had 5 tackles, 3 of them sacks, and 6 QB hits. He continually collapsed the pocket, drew double-teams, and forced the ball out quicker than the Lions wanted. In other words, Ebron was Detroit's 4th-best receiving threat and Donald was St. Louis' best defensive player. Here's what Ebron had to say after the game:
“I’m happy for his success,” Ebron said of Donald. “I’m happy for the scheme he’s in. I’m happy that they’re giving him an opportunity to shine.
“I’m not upset. You guys are upset. The media is upset. The fans are upset. I don’t care. I didn’t choose to come here. They (Lions) chose me to come here. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
On one hand, he's right. He didn't pick himself. A lot of the ire around Ebron comes from Mayhew's decision to grab him with the 10th overall pick, and that's something over which he has no control. On the other hand, it's not like his name was entirely out of place at that point in the draft. He was rated pretty highly, so the only weird thing was that it was Detroit, who already had 2 TEs, who was picking him there. His production has been more like that of a 3rd round pick, not a top 10 guy, and that is ABSOLUTELY under his control. You want to shut some people up Ebron? Play better. Stop dropping every other ball that hits your hands. Get open. Figure out how to block a little.
The biggest problem is the 2nd quote, where he says he isn't upset, he doesn't care, and he didn't choose to come here. First of all, he's clearly upset, so that's a lie. But he seems to take more of victim's stance instead of empowering himself to change. He hasn't been good. His comments seem to suggest that he thinks he's been good enough, there's nothing he can really do to get better, and he doesn't want to be here anyway. Great. Looking forward to watching Ebron go through the motions for the final 3 games?
***
The Pistons have essentially been a .500 team. They follow up blowout losses with blowout wins, heartbreaking losses with nail-biting wins, and so forth. Their actual record is 14-12, which I know is ACTUALLY over .500 (and their Pythagorean Win Expectation would disagree with me at 15-11), but they FEEL like a .500 team. I was hoping they could get over that .500 hump by stringing some quality wins together, but unfortunately some costly mistakes from Andre Drummond and the coach SVG led to another loss against the Clippers.
Drummond had an ok game. He was 4-8 from the stripe, which is acceptable for him, 20 & 15 with 3 steals is good, but no blocks and he only shot 8-17 overall. But he missed a key FT at the end of the 4th that opened the door for LA to tie it up (I'll get into why he was even on the line in a clutch situation in a sec), and he went rogue on Detroit's last defensive possession, which caused a lapse in the defense and left Jamal Crawford open for the game-winning 3.
Reggie Jackson was spectacular. 34 pts, 11 rebs, 7 dimes, .500 FG% & 2-2 from three, solid defense on Chris Paul. The bench was ok, giving rarely seen offensive production from Steve Blake and Aron Baynes. They were still in the negative for +/- but the Pistons started their big push to take over the game with the bench on the floor in the 4th quarter.
Stan Van Gundy made some largish mistakes at the end of the game that led to the Pistons losing the game. First, he left Drummond in the game while Blake Griffin was shooting free-throws. There were just over 25 seconds left in the game and LAC was about to be down by 2 if Blake made both (he did), so the Clips were in a situation where they HAD to foul. I didn't know you could commit a foul on a FT attempt with the ball in the air, and apparently neither did SVG, but Doc Rivers knew and so he had Redick foul Drummond with no time going off the clock. Drummond split the pair of FTs, putting the Pistons up by 3. Stan compounded the error by not fouling. If the Pistons foul there, either Paul or Blake are shooting 2 FTs and still have to foul or lose. By not fouling, Redick was able to get open and drain a 3. Whoops.
Last thing I'm going to say about this game. The fouling/intentional fouling situation is ridiculous. The games become unwatchable, they get unnaturally extended by excessive timeouts and substitutions, and no one wants to watch a free-throw contest/time out-off. I hated this even when the Pistons weren't as affected (hardly anyone employed Hack-a-Dre when we sucked), and now I hate it more. This game was particularly bad, and the final 3 minutes of regular time & 5 minutes of OT took nearly an hour. Here are my suggestions to fix the current state:
Treat all off-the-ball fouls like a defensive 3 seconds call. It's still considered a personal foul, but the fouled player gets 1 shot & the offense keeps the ball
If the FT shooting team commits a foul on a made free-throw attempt, the FT is wiped off as with lane violations
I don't know if either of these are exactly perfect solutions, but I think both rules would help close some (what I consider to be) loopholes and make the game more enjoyable to watch.
The Lions have been disappointingly good-ish the past couple of weeks. Ever since they won in Green Bay (for the 1st time since 1991) they've been on a sort of a roll... A roll in that they've won 3 straight games against struggling teams while only playing anything resembling "good offense" in one of those games. It's nice to watch the Lions win, especially on Thanksgiving, but... It's empty. All of it. There are 5 games left, and the other 3 teams in the division would basically have to all lose out for Detroit to make the playoffs. So forget about THAT.
Additionally, my dreams of picking up a top tier QB to replace Stafford are dwindling as the team continues to rack up meaningless wins and move backward in draft order (if the draft were today, they'd be picking 12th vs. the #1 overall pick they were in line for 3 weeks ago). Plus, the organization is less likely to want to replace Stafford as he lives up to his "Stat Padford" nickname by playing pretty well in some meaningless games against poor competition. Stafford's average QBR has been 9 points better in the last 3 games and his average QB rating has been 20 points better. The Packers are still reeling, so I don't know if they'll provide some real competition or if it'll be more of this fool's gold we've been getting.
All the good feelings I had about the Lions' organizational direction have dissipated, despite the wins. First, they hired Rod Wood to replace Tom Lewand as team president. This might seem like no big deal, but to me it mirrors what the Lions did when they hired Lewand and Mayhew in the first place - going with an internal hire instead of trying to change the culture. Then the Lions put their insecurity on display when they demanded CBS fire local radio personality Mike Valenti for being overly critical of the Lions on air. CBS decided not to censor their on-air talent, so the Lions announced they'll move their radio broadcasts to another channel. If that doesn't tell you what a crap organization this is, nothing will.
Check the video, if you have a minute. Valenti goes on a 10min rant about how the Lions PR department have gone after him over the past 10 years and tried desperately either to get him fired or change his tune. Now, I'll be the first to say that Valenti goes too far with his negativism. No doubt. But the fact that the Lions seem to care more about what's being said than by the product they produce should speak volumes. They've had too many Yes men over the years and not enough contrarians. That led to 7 years of Millen, followed by 7 years of Mayhew. When Martha Ford went through Allen Park firing people left and right, I thought, "Khaleesi!" After the Ford family hired Wood and pulled their broadcasts from 97.1 The Ticket, I thought, "Nope, she's Cersei Lannister."
I was pleasantly surprised to see they let Alex Avila go, given that his dad is now the GM. AA was great behind the plate, but I won't miss watching him watch strike three go whistling by. They still need to add another bat, in my opinion, and probably 1 more starter and 1 reliever. I don't expect any more "swing for the fences" moves, but I'm not ruling it out. Mike Illitch wants to WIN.
The Pistons have leveled off. I'm actually pretty happy about where they are right now, because it feels sustainable. Possibly even improvable. They have credible wins against Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Miami, and now Houston. They also have some troubling losses against the Lakers, Kings, and Nets. They are back up at .500 through 18 games, and they really feel like a .500 team right now. That said, I can definitely see where they could improve and turn into maybe a middle-of-the-road playoff team, like a 4 or a 5 seed.
Issue Area #1: Reggie Jackson He goes from being Point God to Pointless Guard, and the Pistons only win with the first one. Reggie needs to look for shooters more, and he needs to do a better job of finding Drummond. I'm fine with him playing hero-ball when his shot is falling, but Reggie needs to learn how to back off and impact the game positively when he isn't shooting well. Right now, his solution to a bad shooting night is to keep shooting.
Issue Area #2: The Stench UnitThis is what I call our bench. They might be the worst bench in the country. Stanley Johnson is coming around, but they're basically a bunch of replacement-level players apart from him. Van Gundy was forced to mix up his substitutions to avoid playing the bench all at the same time. There is basically no backup SG, so he'll keep KCP in the game, or slide Stanley Johnson over to SG and play Marcus Morris with the other bench players. The easy answer is to count on the return of Brandon Jennings, but he won't be 100% right off the bat. And they still need a backup PG.
Issue Area #3: Hack-a-Dre/Double-a-DreDrummond looked for all the world like his FT issues were fixed at the beginning of the year, but since then his FT% has dropped into the sub-.400% range. The Pistons were rolling and had an 18 point lead last night, until Houston went into full Hack-a-Dre with 5 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. SVG subbed in Aron Baynes for Drummond 30 seconds later with the lead still at 18. By the end of the quarter, Houston had trimmed 7 points off the lead. Stan cannot give in to Hack-a-Dre. He should either employ the same strategy and turn the game into a Free-Throw Brick-a-thon, or else let them foul away and play defense.
Let me explain the second thing. Drummond is an evolving post player. Most of the time, the opponent is physically out-matched. He's going to start seeing more double teams as his hook shot falls more frequently. Whenever a perimeter player doubles down & swipes at the ball, Dre turns it over. He needs to learn to sense the pressure and kick it out to the open guy. He doesn't do this right now, and it's one of the reasons why the offense doesn't work really well most of the time (24th out of 30 teams in offensive rating). The Pistons aren't shooting the 3 very well right now, but that should change when Drummond learns when to pass.
All in all, I'm excited by the team. They have their moments when they look legitimately GOOD. My dad & I are going to see the Warriors game when Ben Wallace's number will be retired at halftime. First game I've gone to in a few years. I'm really looking forward to it. Lots to talk about with Michigan, the Tigers, and the Lions, so I'll get to that tomorrow.
