Scoreboard Nightmares

@Steelers 37
LIONS 27

Bucs 24
LIONS 21

My scoreboard dreams usually don't end well.  In my freshman year of high school, a few days before the homecoming football game, I had a dream that a saw a scoreboard reading Boyne City 43, Harbor Springs 0, Halftime. That Saturday, I watched our varsity team fall behind 42-0 at halftime. During mid-August 2007, shortly before my sophomore year of college, I had another scoreboard dream, this one reading Appalachian State 30, Michigan 29, Final. When I woke up from that one and realized that the game was still more than two weeks ago, I thought that I'd dodged a bullet. With those examples in mind, you can imagine my apprehension when I woke up yesterday morning from a dream where I'd been watching the Lions-Bucs game on TV, and Tampa Bay 60, Detroit 6, Qtr. 4 popped up on the screen. The all-knowing subconscious may have badly overshot the score on this one, but knowing how the real thing turned out, frankly I would have preferred the one from the dream.

Over the past two weeks, our Bromothymols have wasted more opportunities to vanquish their rivals than Lord Voldemort. Without curious coaching decisions, untimely screw-ups, inexplicable offensive dry spells, and TURNOVERS, the NFC North race would be pretty much over. Green Bay and Chicago were (and still are) hovering somewhere between life and death, the DTLs are as healthy as they've been in years, and with two consecutive squibs sitting on the pre-Thanksgiving schedule, this thing could have been done. Golden opportunity to be 8-3 and squeeze the remaining life out of Green Bay on Thursday. Yet, we get this last week and this today, and suddenly it's a race to the bottom, as nobody seems to want to win this division. Certainly, nobody seems to want it less than the Lions at this point.

I wish today's game was just a case of the DTLs overlooking an inferior foe and getting stymied by a scrappy bunch of fighters who were just giving more effort out there. That would be pretty disheartening on its own, but I honestly wish that were the case. The even sadder truth here is that Tampa Bay tried just as hard to lose this one, if not harder! You have Rian Lindell blowing two fourth quarter field goals, Mike Glennon taking sacks at the wrong times, Mark Barron with at least three bad penalties, Darrelle Revis limping off with an injury, Greggy Boy Schiano twice throwing the challenge flag on unreviewable plays, even recovering a blocked punt at the 10 and getting no points out of it. No one was more surprised than Leonard Johnson when Wormtail Pettigrew ducked out of the way on a risky but certainly catchable Stafford pass, taking the gift interception for an easy TD to steal the lead at halftime. It's not like anyone asked Kris Durham to throw the ball back onto the field before going out of bounds. The Bucs seemed to do an admirable job of leaving Calvin Johnson wide open despite double teaming him on the deciding play of the game...but no. Would they have just been better off if Staffford had thrown it out of bounds and let Akers shank away the field goal on the next play? Probably.

Two weeks ago, I was salivating at the thought of playing the Packers on Thanksgiving with no Aaron Rodgers. Two horrible, let me rephrase that, horrible losses and one Matt Flynn resurrection from the dead later, I'm not so sure that's even a good thing anymore, because (a) at least a loss to Aaron Rodgers would be respectable, and (b) my memories are still fresh from the last time the DTLs faced Matt Flynn. On paper, Detroit would still seemingly appear to have the upper hand, but as the old saying goes, if you can't beat a short-handed Greggy Boy Schiano team at home, who can you beat?

Deja Vu (I thought)

Going into today's game, I was struck by the amount of similarities that it had with the Carolina game from the 2011 season:

- A crucial Thanksgiving clash against Green Bay is four days away
- Lions playing at home, trying to get their 7th win of the season
- Facing a 2 win team from the NFC South
- Opponent is starting a rookie quarterback who has played surprisingly well, but without it translating into victories for the team
- Lions coming off of a bad loss on the road, where they played in rough weather conditions and gave up 37 points

In that 2011 game, the Lions fell behind 24-7 in the first half, with Stafford throwing some bad interceptions. They came back with a furious second half rally, eventually winning 49-35, but I couldn't help feeling like they wasted a little too much energy and emotion that they would need in the Green Bay game. I wanted the opposite today. My wishful thinking to Nitch this morning was that they just build up an early 4 touchdown lead, let the reserves salt it away, and get ready to wrestle back pole position in the NFC North on Thursday. By halftime, I would have gladly settled for a 2011 repeat, even if it would prevent saving some energy and emotion up for Green Bay. By the 4th quarter, I was begging Rian Lindell to miss his field goals. He gladly obliged, and it still wasn't enough. I should be sitting here talking about how Dom Suh and Ziggy Ansah got the boys out of a tough spot with their dominating play up front. Or how DeAndre Levy is playing like he wants to fake an injury in a few months to get out of playing in the Pro Bowl. Or even how Matthew Stafford wasn't very sharp all day, but doggone it he got the job done when they really needed it. Alas, we've got a little situation on our hands now.

Debunking a Few Myths

1. The Myth of the Off-setting Penalties-- Today was the second time this year when a Lions player and a player on the opposition each got called for penalties, that supposedly off-set each other, but that in reality hurt the Lions much more. Against the Bengals, a pair of off-setting penalties wiped away a crucial 18 yard yard catch midway through the fourth quarter that would have put them in range for a go-ahead field goal. Today, a similar situation wiped away a 16 yard scramble by Stafford on the final drive of the first half. When I hear that penalties off-set each other, it evokes a certain "no harm, no foul" feeling. Since each team committed penalty, they should wipe each other away and the result of the play stands. As it is, since the entire play itself gets erased, whichever team did better on the play is actually the one that takes the brunt of the penalty. The second thing that is wrong with this rule is that penalties for different amounts of yardage will still offset each other. For example, if the defense commits a facemask (15 yards) and the offense is called for holding (10 yards), shouldn't the result be that the offense gets 5 yards out of the deal? In fact since pass interference is a spot foul, a five yard penalty from the offense could potentially wipe away a 40 or 50 yard pass interference penalty from the defense. That doesn't sound very off-setting to me, and it figures that the DTLs have came up on the short end of the rule twice on key possessions in close losses this year.

2. The Myth of the "Must Win Game"-- Saying that a team's next game is a "Must Win" is the NFL equivalent to a "two possession game" in the NCAA tournament. It's a chronically overused phrase that really doesn't mean a whole lot and is often applied incorrectly anyway. Now just to clarify, there is such thing as a "Must Win Game". That's a game where a team needs to win or else they are officially eliminated from contention for whatever championship they're trying to win. In the NFL, this phrase has been watered down to include just about any team that gets off to a disappointing 3-4 start. If you lose a "Must Win" game, but can still win your other games and be fine, than it must not have needed to win it all that bad to begin with. I imagine a lot of beat writers are going to categorize the Thanksgiving game as Must Win for the DTLs. Kornheiser and Wilbon will probably debate on PTI whether it is or isn't. I'll end the debate right now. It isn't. If the Lions lose to Green Bay, they can still finish 10-6 and win the division, as unlikely as it would seem. Instead of "Must Win" game, for the sake of correctness they need to rename this type of scenario the "game that would really, really, really suck to lose" game.

Which is fitting, because that's exactly the type of game I watched today.

What I wouldn't give for a Lions 34, Packers 3, Final scoreboard dream right about now.

Different Same Old Lions

LIONS 21
@ Bears 19

Officers and Cadets, we've reached that rare point where I can say without the smallest trace of irony, "So what if Michigan football is a total piece of crap this year, at least we still have the Lions to look forward to". It's looking more and more like this year will be the first time since 1995 that the DTLs have won more games than the Wolverines, despite playing 3 to 5 more games every season.

Today's win at Chicago was huge for more reasons than one. First off, it puts the Lions alone in first place at 6-3. This is the first time since the NFC North division was created in 2002 that they have been in first place (alone or tied) at any point in the second half of the season. In a season where exorcising the demons of past ineptitude is becoming more and more of a theme, this is a significant milestone. With the Packers offense looking utterly incompetent without Aaron Rodgers, this incredibly could be a 2 or even 3 game lead atop the division by the time Green Bay comes to town for Thanksgiving (it's anyone's guess whether Rodgers will make it back in time for that game. Cutler probably came back a few weeks too early today). Pittsburgh played well at home today, so a hiccup after today's emotional road win certainly wouldn't shock anyone, but a home date against Greggy Boy Schiano's Buccaneers the next week should have the DTLs at worst at 7-4 and in first place for the Thanksgiving game. Additionally, the win today gives the DTLs the season sweep and therefore the tie-breaker over Chicago in case the Bears get hot when Cutler gets back to full strength and the two teams happen to finish the season tied for the lead. 

Finally, I think the way the Lions managed to hold on today speaks volumes about their determination to set themselves apart from past promising Lions teams who completely folded anytime the moment got a little too big for them. Let's be honest, the boys made one Same Old Lions mistake after another while clinging to that 4th quarter lead today, more than enough to blow this game, but every time they did something stupid, they immediately came back to make a big play and atone for these mistakes. Every time. Let's take a look at the biggest ones:

- Leading 14-10 early in the 4th quarter, the Bears offense is going nowhere, with Cutler uncomfortable against a swarming rush. It's looking more and more like their only chance to score again will be via a key turnover that gives them the ball deep in Lions territory. Sure enough, Stafford badly overthrows Calvin on third down, the Bears pick him off and return it inside the red zone. What happens next? The defense stands tall and forces a field goal. Stafford marches the offense down the field on the very next possession.

- Leading 14-13 midway through the 4th, Stafford leads a very strong drive to get the Bromos down to the Bears 17. Fauria commits the nearly unheard-of offensive face mask penalty to pretty much ruin any hopes of a touchdown. They still manage to stay in range for an easy enough 44 yard field goal which would force Chicago to score a touchdown. Akers hooks it, and Jay Cutler and company take over with good field position. What happens next? The defense stands tall again and forces a three and out.

- Still clinging to a one point lead, Stafford leads them down the field again. Reggie Bush caps off a 100 yard day with some timely inside runs for first downs. On third and ten, Stafford lobs a beautiful toss over Peanut Tillman's burnt business for Calvin's second touchdown catch of the day and an eight point lead.

- Leading 21-13 with just over two minutes left, backup QB Josh McCown comes in cold, needing to go eighty yards just to give the team a chance. Getting a first down right away is usually crucial to get any kind of confidence and rhythm in a late game drive, and Fairley makes it easy with a stupid 15 yard penalty to get the Bears in business. What happens next? The defense buckles down and makes a stop on third down near mid-field.

- 4th and 1, with a chance to salt the game away with a stop, the d-line gets no push because they jumped offsides (I think it was Fairley) and had to retreat to avoid getting flagged. With no pressure, McCown easily completes a pass to keep his team alive. He later finds Brandon Marshall in the end zone with 40 seconds left to make it 21-19.

- Leading 21-19, all the DTLs need to do is stop the 2-point conversion and they can sneak away with the win. And they stop it, rushing McCown and forcing a desperate heave out of the end zone...but Willie Young hits McCown late and gives the Bears one more chance, this time from the 1. What happens next? The defense stands tall yet again. Fairley powers through with the biggest play of his Lions career to date and mauls Matt Forte behind the line of scrimmage, and then Walks Like the Packers all the way up the field to celebrate. I have been a rather vocal critic of Fairley (though he clearly doesn't need my approval), but all the same, I give the guy credit. He made some big plays today.

Moving Forward

Next week should officially cement Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson as the greatest QB/WR combo in franchise history. Calvin's 2 touchdowns today give him 63 in his Lions career, passing Herman Moore as the club's all-time leader. Staff will have to wait one more week to reach his own milestone, but he now is only 72 yards away from taking the large step towards reversing the curse of Bobby Layne and becoming the team's all-time leader in passing yardage. That's at the age of 25, and despite two injury shortened seasons. Staff is the best quarterback in the history of the franchise, and as long as he can stay healthy, he's still another two or three years away from even entering his prime.

It's not saying much, but this year overall is probably the best that I've ever seen the Bromos offensive line play. They've only allowed ten sacks in the first nine games, and they've done a good job of opening up some running lanes for Reggie and Joique Bell at key times throughout the first half of the season. It's difficult for a fan to properly analyze the play of offensive lineman because you don't always know what you're looking for (for instance, I have no idea why Lewan from Michigan is ranked so high on people's draft boards, from where I'm sitting, he looks just as bad if not worse than the rest of that pathetic unit), but  mid-round draft pick Larry Warford especially has seemed to me to be very steady in there as a rookie starter--no penalties, protecting the QB, opening up the run game. Watching him and Reiff develop on the O-line should be...well, exciting clearly isn't the right word, but you get the idea.

Next week the DTLs go on the road again, this time to the land of the Little, Yellow, Flayyygs. For the first month of the season, Pittsburgh matched their Terrible Towels with an equally terrible football team, but following their trip to London, they've gone 3-2 and shut down Buffalo today. The Steelers defense has already allowed 40 and 34 points in losses to Chicago and Minnesota, so hopefully the trend will continue and culminate in a third straight loss to an NFC North foe. It would be understandable if Detroit came out flat at Pittsburgh, following today's emotional road win against their oldest rivals. Then again, this edition of the Same Old Lions does look a little bit different.

By the way, I still owe you guys an AFC Midseason Report.

The Official Unauthorized NFC Midseason Report

Disclaimer #1: Outside of Lions games, I'm not necessarily a big NFL fan. If I'm in a good enough mood, I'll sometimes catch a little bit of the 4:15 time slot, usually the Pats. I watch some of the playoffs, and I generally know enough about what's going on around the league to keep up a conversation.
Disclaimer #2: At this delicate point in the season, I'm going to try to keep all Richie Incognito jokes to a minimum. As was revealed this week, not only is Richie not the good person, but it also seems that Pops Incognito maintains a pretty prominent message board presence in regards to his son, so I need to be careful in case he wants to like, fight me or something. 

Now that we have that out in the open, let's waste no more time in delving into the only NFL midseason report that you could probably do without! Every team gets a few sentences or so, unless I feel that there are some interesting but probably only partially true tangents that I need to go off on. If you're like me and are an avid hate-reader of the Dan Brown books, this format should seem familiar.
Incognito.
The Unknown.
Opus Dei.

NFC EAST
Dallas (5-4) Dallas is a dwarf among midgets in the NFC East this year; they're not really that good, but I think they'll end up as a prime example of why division winners shouldn't automatically get a home playoff game
Philadelphia (4-5) Around Week 4, the Chip Kelly experiment looked like it had all the makings of another Eagles "Dream Team" fiasco. A few games later, we have guys like Nick Foles throwing 7 touchdowns in a game. Stay tuned with this Philly team.
Washington (3-5) Another slow starting team that is starting to gain a little bit of traction. Robert Griffin III is slowly getting healthier for a team that hasn't yet peaked, but from where I sit, that defense is just too crappy to pull them out of this one.
New York Giants (2-6) My dreams of the Mannings going 0-16 and 16-0 in the same season were dashed, and the idiotic Boston Public Schools calendar is going to keep me from getting into Detroit in time to catch the Lions give a beatdown to the Giants on the weekend before Christmas.

If I had to make a prediction: I'd say that the Dallas vs Philly game in Week 17 is going to be a defacto play-in game, and the Cowboys pull it off this time around.

NFC NORTH
Detroit (5-3) After Chicago's upset over Green Bay on Monday, the DTLs suddenly find themselves in a 3-way tie for first in the division. They're a mix between a poor man's Broncos and a rich man's Same Old Lions. With an uncharacteristically soft schedule this year, that should be good for double digit wins.
Green Bay (5-3) Aaron Rodgers's injury just made things very interesting. The Packers were holding up well despite injuries to just about everybody else, but I have a hard time believing they can be at all successful until he gets back.
Chicago (5-3) Bears vs Bromos this Sunday is huge. Cutler may or may not be back from his groin injury, and the Bears have had brutal end of season stretches over the last two years to derail promising starts.
Minnesota (1-7) Mel "Tall Hair "Kiper feels that the Vikings are tanking on purpose so they can get Andrew Wiggins in next year's draft.

If I had to make a prediction: I'll say it, all the dominoes really seem to be tipping in favor of the DTLs right now. 2nd place in the division backs into the playoffs at 9-7.

NFC SOUTH
New Orleans (6-2) If I were a Saints fan, I would be pissed that the Pelicans stole their fleur de lis and stuck it on their crappy Atlanta Hawks knockoff logo. I'm not even remotely a stakeholder in whatever New Orleans feels like doing with its basketball franchise, but they missed a huge chance to usher in a major paradigm shift in the world of sports team bird logos. The Baltimore Orioles have the best bird sports team logos out there, because they don't try to take their bird logo too seriously. You know, they've got that cartoonish bird wearing his favorite ball cap and vikesing it (liking it, as most know it). By the way, in real life, orioles are total bastards, but you'd never know it from Baltimore's logo. The Pelicans blew their big chance to pull a similar style makeover at the NBA level, having a cartoon pelican vikesing it, maybe with a basketball inside of his humongous beak/fish holder. Oh well, that's Anthony Davis's problem now, not mine.
Carolina (5-3) People love to hate Cam Newton; I kind of hate to love him, the guy is exciting. 5-1 in their last six games, Cam has lifted the Panthers into one of the hottest teams in the league right now. I worry a little bit because they might be the DTLs main competition for a Wild Card spot if it comes to that, but Carolina also has a brutal schedule coming up, with two games left against New Orleans, one at San Francisco, and one against New England.
Atlanta (2-6) I'm sure I'm not the only one who is surprised at how bad they've been. Rembert Browne can give you the specifics I bet.
Tampa Bay (0-8) It's hard to say what Greggy Boy Schiano hates more: Josh Freeman, or being a coach in the NFL. He managed to get one of those things out of his life, and it shouldn't be too much longer before he takes care of the other. Blowing a 21 point lead against the next team on this list isn't a surprise so much as getting a 21 point lead in the first place is.

If I had to make a prediction: New Orleans makes up for the Pelicans' uninspired logo choice and wins the division,  Cam Newton unfortunately slips back to .500 and misses out on his first playoff appearance after facing a gauntlet of elite teams during the second half. Greggy Boy Schiano does not finish the season.

NFC WEST
Seattle (8-1) I don't know much Seahawks, so I went to my friend Scozz for this one. His thoughts are in italics.
On the so-called 12th man (aren't they blatantly stealing this concept from Texas A&M?): "has never been as LOUD. A Guinness World Record 136.6 decibels."
On Pete Carroll: "already a local legend. His energy and intensity is infectious…changed the Hawks' atmosphere."
On Russell Wilson: "In Russ We Trust."
On Richard Sherman and "the Legion of Boom": "All you can ask is, 'U mad bro?'"
"This combination has actually made free agents want to come to Seattle, which has always been hard for all Seattle sports teams."
This is definitely a Super Bowl or Bust type of situation for Seattle, expectations and excitement are as high as they've ever been in the Pacific Northwest.
San Francisco (6-2) Something seems kind of anti-climactic about the 49ers so far this year. Good record, but they've been kind of sluggish. They had back-to-back two touchdown losses early on, but have won every other game. Are they just biding their time until the postseason rolls around, or is the Jim Harbaugh starting to annoy his own team as much as he does everyone else's?
Arizona (4-4) This year's Cardinals team stands out only in its mediocrity. I don't have much more to say except that they're kind of good. They're the Maroon 5 of the NFL right now, and playing the part of Adam Levine, we have perhaps the most somewhat decent quarterback of his generation, Carson Palmer. Barring a major "Wake Up Call", they have 14th pick in the draft written all over them.
Saint Louis (3-6) Doesn't it look weird to see St. Louis spelled out with no abbreviation? Casual NFL fan as I am, it is certainly not a good sign that Sam Bradford is the only player that I can say with absolute certainty plays for the Rams. And isn't he hurt right now anyway? And didn't they call Brett Favre to see if he wanted to come play for them? Or maybe I'm thinking of another elaborate Greg Schiano scheme to try and get himself fired. And at this point, just how bad must Timmy Tebow be if 44 year-old wearer of winter hats on top of baseball caps Brett Favre is getting more offers from NFL teams than he is? And in all seriousness, who else plays for the Rams?…Amendola used to also…and Issac Bruce was good.

If I had to make a prediction: San Francisco is just biding their time. They win the rematch with Seattle at home and win the division by tie-breaker. It's going take another meeting in January to settle this one.


For H-Bromo's AFC report, CLICK HERE