Hungry for More

LIONS 40

Packers 10

With the regular season now down it's final quarter, the DTLs suddenly find themselves with a little bit of breathing room again. It's up for debate whether that's such a good thing or not, comparing the spectacular performances they've put together with their backs against the wall compared to the horse excrement they've come up with every time things are getting a little too comfortable, but for the next 6 days at least, it's an enviable position to be in. With 4 games remaining, winning three or all four definitely gets a banner put up in Ford Field. Winning two would most likely have them in a very good spot, and the way the NFC North is going at the moment it's even conceivable that they could back their way in with one more win. 

I'll be flying back to Michigan for Christmas and plan on going to the Giants game on the 22nd, and all I'm asking Santa is for this to be the one that clinches the Detroit Lions' first division title in 20 years. 

Thanksgiving Feast

-It doesn't get much Samer, Older, or Lionser than the first quarter and a half of that game. The offense moved the ball at will and the D held Green Bay to pretty much no yardage...and somehow the Packers were up 10-3 and had the ball at midfield with a golden (or cheese-colored, as they prefer) opportunity to add to the lead midway through the second. Starting with the fake field goal against Pittsburgh and ending with Matthew Stafford's forced interception immediately after getting sacked for a fumble-6, that was one of the worst stretches of Bromothymol self-destruction that I've seen in a while. In just over six quarters of football, they committed 10 turnovers (not counting a blocked punt). When Ty Detmer threw 7 picks in one game back in 2001, everybody just kind of laughed it off because the team was so bad anyway, but how can this happen in the second half of the season in a tight playoff race? 

- Can't give enough credit to how the defense has been able to hold up during the turnover meltdown. Against Tampa Bay, they still put the team in position to win the game, and Thursday afternoon, they unleashed what looked like a lot of pent-up frustration on Matt Flynn. Dom Suh and Levy look like easy Pro Bowl picks, and Ziggy is looking like a strong candidate for Defensive Rookie of the Year, with his two sacks of Flynn giving him 7 for the season, despite missing two games with injury.

- Watching the offense finally get out of its own way and play to their potential for the final 2 1/2 quarters was pretty fun. Reggie Bush, despite his fumbles, is having a career year playing in this system, and similar to Denard Robinson, he's one of those people is his such a good guy that you can't really get mad at him when he fumbles or drops a pass. Stafford found nine different receivers, throwing TD passes to three of them, and the offensive line was so dominant that that Joicque Bell was only 6 yards away from giving them two separate backs with 100 yard rushing days (Reggie went off for 117). I can't be the only one who's noticed how well rookie O-lineman Larry Warford has played this year, right?

- I loved watching Jeremy Ross help fumble things away for Green Bay against the Bengals earlier in the season, but it's that much sweeter that they cut him the next week, and he got picked up by the DTLs and had the chance to get a little revenge against his former team on Thursday. With a touchdown reception, a 24 yard run on an end-around, and a 35 yard punt return, Ross was a major catalyst in the boys getting the turkey off their backs and finally getting a win on Thanksgiving.

- Packers offensive linemen Josh Sitton was really stirring the pot on Wednesday morning, going on the radio just to call the Lions' D-line 'scumbags' and 'dirtbags' and all other types of bags. Whether that served as extra motivation for Dom and the crew, who knows, but the only type of bags Green Bay should have been worried about by the end of that one was a bodybag for their quarterback. No Flynn Supremacy this time around.

Sometimes it's nice to see other teams screw up

I'm tying myself in knots trying to figure out whether the enemy of my enemy's enemy should be my friend or not, but I've been cheering pretty hard for the Vikings over the past two weeks when they've played Green Bay and Chicago. They've been a good friend indeed, fighting to an overtime draw against the Pack and today nearly having second tie in a row before coming away with a bizarre 23-20 win in overtime. However, it wasn't without some mind-numbingly idiotic decisions from both sides at crucial moments along the way. 

The Vikings literally had the game won, kicking a 39-yard field goal to end it in OT, only to have a blocker commit a face mask penalty wiping the points off the board and moving the ball back out of field goal range.While out of field goal range, they decided to try a 57-yarder anyway (seeing as it worked out so well for 'Bama yesterday), giving the Bears the ball near midfield when it missed. Then of course, there was Marc Trestman,  opting for a 47-yarder to win the game on 2nd down, rather than run two more offensive plays to get a first down or at least an easier field goal. Blame Robbie Gould all you want for missing it, but a 47-yard kick is anything but a gimme, especially when you have at least two more plays to try and get closer. Yes, stupid turnovers can and do happen, but this was on a scale of 1 to Al Borges, this was an incredibly conservative call. For an unnecessarily comprehensive statistical analysis and over-worded dissection of just how poor this field goal decision was,  feel free to check out Bill Barnwell's "Thank You for Not Coaching" column on Tuesday; Trestman's field goal call will likely make the cut.

Can Schwartz just defer when he wins a coin toss from now on?

Something that's been annoying me all season is how it seems like the Lions always end up with the ball to start the game, whether they win the coin toss or not. I went back and checked the play-by-plays of every game so far, and it confirmed my suspicions: the DTLs have gotten the ball first (and therefore have had kickoff to start the second half) in 11 out of their 12 games this year. I feel like Schwartz's rationale for this is to try and attack early, showcasing his high-powered offense right from the start and setting the tone with a quick scoring drive to start each game. This line of thinking is all well and good, except that it hasn't worked a single time the entire year yet. Out of the 11 times that Detroit has started off with the ball, they've come away with a grand total of zero points. The only game where they scored on their first possession was at Chicago, where they started on defense and forced a punt right away, then drove down for a touchdown. For the record, they also scored a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half of that Chicago game, the only time all year that they've received the second half kickoff. 

Schwartz knows this. They have like 30 assistant coaches to sift through data like this. It's a coin toss. Schwartz can put his ego away and mix things up a little.

Moving Forward

Tough road game against Philly next Sunday. The Eagles are on fire, and Nick Foles hasn't thrown an interception yet this year. Should be a fun test for the Bromothymols, and fortunately this is the type of test that they've actually woken up for so far this season. 

Still a lot of issues to clear up with this Lions team. I don't think they've even came close to playing their best game yet, but at the end of the day, I guess I can't say much against beating a bitter division rival by 30 on Thanksgiving.

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

Anything But Normal

"We can bet that this will be a pretty close game, but it will be anything but normal."
-- H-Bromo (10/20)

LIONS 31
Cowboys 30

Sometimes when something shocks, surprises, astounds, and excites you all at once, you reach a point where you're not necessarily in control of your actions anymore, so you do something strange. Watching the game by myself today, on a choppy computer stream that was almost as frustrating as the Lions turnover woes, I found myself in the midst of one of these strange reactions. When Matthew Stafford leaped over the pile to pull off one of the most shocking, surprising, astounding, and exciting finishes in team history, I suddenly started drinking a whole bunch of water in celebration. Don't ask why. Like many other things that happened in today's game, I don't have a sufficient explanation for it, nor do I offer any excuse or apology for it, but I downed a full 32 ounces of water in about fifteen seconds during the aftermath of Stafford's fake spike/QB sneak to cap off the frantic comeback in the final moments of the game.

Last Sunday evening, I kind of half-assed my way through my preview for the Dallas game because I was still seething about the last-second loss to Cincy, so I'm going to use some of my unpublished notes  to try to make sense of what happened at Ford Field today:

What to watch for against Dallas:
-We can bet that this will be a pretty close game, but it will be anything but normal.
- At some point in the game, Calvin will make the Cowboy defense look like weak, unathletic, helpless and malnourished little children.
- There will be a portion of the game where Tony Romo and the Cowboys offense look unstoppable.
- Tony Romo will make anywhere between 1 and 3 boneheaded turnovers to give the ball to the Lions.
- I will be pulling my hair out, trying not to alarm the neighbors, and chucking my mini basketball across the room at some point during this game. 

"Pretty close game"
Check. The DTLs take an early lead, trail 10-7 at half, trail 13-7 after three quarters, and then all hell breaks loose in a wild fourth quarter that features 7 different scoring plays.

"Anything but normal"
Check. You would need to search pretty hard to find a football game that was less normal than this one. From a statistically improbable standpoint, you have not one but two separate major statistical anomalies. First off is Calvin, with 329 receiving yards, which was 7 away from the NFL's all-time single game record, and then there's the turnover battle. Today the Bromothymols became only the 2nd team in NFL history to win a game despite being -4 in the turnover department. At one point during the final minute, the Fox analysts even pulled a "Dewey defeats Truman" by putting up a graphic stating that teams who went -4 in turnover margin were now 1-55 all-time (make that 2-54 now). Not only did the Lions lose the turnover battle 4-0, but they also committed 8 penalties to 2 for Dallas. However, in a nearly flawless effort from a penalty standpoint, one of these penalties happened at the worst possible time for Dallas, a holding call with just over a minute left that saved about 40 seconds to allow the DTLs one last decent chance to put a drive together. Adding to the bizarre, you have Dez Bryant going all Titus Young Sr. on the sidelines, but then coming back into the game and getting a huge 50 yard touchdown catch, then going all Titus Young Sr. for a second time during the final desperation drive.

As far as crazy finishes go, this ranks up there with a game of NCAA '06 that I played back in high school, where my created team "the Awesomes" erased a 38-17 deficit in the final five minutes to force overtime and then win against bitter rivals "the Woboots".

"At some point in the game, Calvin will make the Cowboy defense look like weak, unathletic, helpless and malnourished little children"

I was way off with this prediction. It wasn't "at some point", it was for pretty much the entire game. The truly mind-boggling part about Calvin's absurdly megatronic day was that (a) he actually made two pretty costly mistakes, and (b) he wasn't even playing at 100%. In the 2nd quarter, Calvin had a pretty bad dropped pass that fell directly into Sean Lee's hands for an interception, and then in the third, didn't protect the ball following a long catch and fumbled it back to the Cowboys. He also left two more receiving touchdowns on the table by not reaching the ball across the plane from inside the 1 yard line (possibly because he was worried about another fumble?).  However, without those two mistakes, he probably would have had just an ordinary day with 200 or so receiving yards, with a comfortable Lions win and no necessity to go into super-superhuman mode. Jim Schwartz joked after the game that Calvin still wasn't fully healthy (you know, despite 329 yards), but I think he was being serious; a healthy Calvin would never get ran down from behind by four Cowboys players, as he did during his 87 yard reception early in the game.

I thought Calvin the Amazing Great's dismantling of Oakland in 2011 would be the most sensational clutch receiving performance I was likely to ever see, but today he's outdone himself yet again. When I played NCAA '06, I would never let one of my players go for some crazy stat line like getting 300 receiving yards, because I was a major stickler for making things be realistic. That's the point Calvin reached today: he was so good, it wasn't even realistic.

"There will be a portion of the game where Tony Romo and the Cowboys offense look unstoppable"
Check. Right about the time where the Bromos stopped turning the ball over, Romo had a streak of long touchdowns on two consecutive passes, a 60 yarder to Terrance Williams and a 50 yarder to Dez Bryant (more on Dez in a bit). However, this brief spell was really the only thing Dallas got going on offense the entire day. Despite getting no turnovers for the second week in a row and failing to get a single sack either, I thought the defense did a great job of holding down the fort while the O was pissing all over themselves for the first three quarters.

Then there's Dez Bryant. I know the main story (and rightfully so) with Dez today will be his odd behavior on the sidelines. This is justified, because he had a nice tantrum that would rival mine the time I didn't finish my crappy dinner and therefore wasn't allowed to go mini-golfing with the rest of the family at Pirate's Cove. However, in the background of all that stuff, he actually had a really nice game. His acrobatic grab in the second quarter was probably one of the top ten catches of the year so far, and his 50 yard catch and sprint with about six minutes left in the game should have been a dagger. But because of Dez's bravado all week about being just as good as Calvin, that's all beside the point. If you're going to act like you're as good as Calvin, and tell the media that you're as good as Calvin, and act like a 6 year old on the sidelines to the point that noted good guy Jason Witten gets offended, then your version of a "fantastic game" can't be having 11 less catches and 250 less yards than Calvin in your big head-to-head matchup with him. Just ask Titus Young Sr.

"Tony Romo will make anywhere between 1 and 3 boneheaded turnovers"
Not today. Romo was shut down for the first three quarters and completed less than 50% of his passes, but I felt he played a pretty smart game, was elusive against the rush, and managed to not make any big mistakes. Add the two long TD passes in the fourth quarter, and this probably should have been enough to win it. Much to the chagrin of Cowboy fans, they can't blame this one on ol' TH.


"I will be pulling my hair out, trying not to alarm the neighbors, and chucking my mini basketball across the room at some point during this game"

I was fine when Calvin dropped a pass that turned into an interception to end a promising drive in Dallas territory. I was mildly displeased by the time Stafford hit Sean Lee right on the numbers for 74 yards to set up the Cowboys' first TD. I was annoyed when Reggie got lazy with the ball and coughed it up right in the middle of a 20+ yard run. I was, I dunno, perturbed when Calvin had a 20+ yard reception going and coughed it up. Dez Bryant finally getting Tony to throw it to him, and going 50 yards untouched...getting closer. Stafford takes a sack on first down on what was probably going to be the final drive of the game...closer still. Wormtail with a big drop on third down, followed by an incompletion on fourth...YAHTZEE! The game should have been done at this point, and I was all set to sulk for two weeks and rant about having the same record through 8 games as last year's train wreck. But no.

Moving Forward

Whatever doubts people still had about Matthew Stafford in late game situations can officially be put to death today. In the last 2 1/2 years, the DTLs have had so many of these situations that Stafford has had  plenty of opportunities both to succeed and fail, of which he's done both in healthy portions. Despite the times where he's come up short in these situations (which every QB in history has done multiple times), we now have more than a handful of these magical moments from Stafford (Cleveland '09, Minnesota, Dallas, Carolina, Oakland '11, St. Louis, Philly, Seattle '12) and he's still only 25 years old. The final QB sneak today was clearly not called by the coaches, and Staff had the guts to take it upon himself and fool everyone in the entire building by leaping over the pile instead of stopping the clock. That final drive is an instant classic. At 25, Stafford is only 286 yards away from passing the legendary Bobby Layne and becoming the DTLs' all-time leader in passing yardage, which could very well happen in his next game. To discredit his accomplishments because he has Calvin Johnson to throw it to is idiotic (who was Joe Montana throwing it to, his pet cat?), almost as much as discrediting his accomplishments because the Lions pass the ball so much (it's probably because he's a good passer). Since dropping the Buccaneers and becoming the NFC North in 2002, the Lions have never even finished closer than 5 games out of first place in the division. This is the futility that Staff came into, and he has embraced the challenge (with many bumps in the road along the way) and the DTLs have a real chance to close the gap and even compete for the division title this year. At 5-3, the team is right where they need to be at the midway point in the season, and they should win at least two of the next three games, with a hobbled Chicago, a weak Pittsburgh, and a pathetic Tampa Bay coming up to start the second half. They just may even win the next three and head into Thanksgiving at 8-3 with a chance to steal the division lead away from Green Bay.

The Lions may be off next week, but there are no bye weeks here at H-Bromo (the bye six months that I've been known to take from time to time don't count). In the next few weeks, I'll be putting out a comprehensive NFL midseason review, as well as a countdown of my all-time favorite Lions games. 

Until then, optimism abounds at Bromothymol.

Hobbes 27 Calvin 24

Bengals 27
LIONS 24

No matter how this entertaining mid-October tilt ended, it was clear that whoever lost was going to be haunted by missed opportunities, because each team had plenty. Unfortunately, Cincinnati had one fewer missed opportunity. After Mike "the Motor City Regular Man" Nugent sent his last-second 54 chord solo shot reverberating through the pipes at Ford Field, it's the Lions who will be seeing ghosts of chances past and as they gear up for Halloween, it's the appropriately colored Bengals who will be howling in celebration at the Harvest Moon.

There wasn't one play, series of plays, or even an overarching trend that killed the Bromos today. The shanked punt by Sam Martin certainly hurts, as does AJ Green's 82 yard catch to open up the game, but my overall analysis of this one is that two evenly-matched teams played pretty evenly the entire way, each making spectacular plays at times and barely missing out on more big play opportunities at others. Both offensive lines did a great job of protecting their QBs, but neither created much space for the running backs. Both kickers missed field goals, and both teams missed out on scoring chances due to untimely penalties. Neither committed a turnover either, though the Lions had another defensive score wiped off the board, this time thanks to a blatant off-sides by pretty much the entire defensive line. Calvin Johnson was incredible, with a 155 yd/2 td/2 awesome dunks over the goalpost stat line, but A.J. Green was pretty good too. Matthew Stafford passed for another 350 yards and 3 TDs and no turnovers (although his accuracy was off, Calvin bailed him out at least once, and he couldn't finish two late drives that could have potentially ended the game), Dom had a sack and probably won't even get any fines this week, so what was the problem? I need more time to think about this one.

Hooligans
As for my viewing experience here in Boston? I didn't feel like going anywhere with Sunday Ticket today, so I was stuck with a stream of the game broadcast in the United Kingdom. It still had the normal CBS crew for the play-by-play, but instead of the regular game breaks, they flipped it over to something called the Sky Sports Studio, where some British guys hilariously pretended to know about American Football (and still did a more convincing job of it than Terry Bradshaw and the rest of the hyenas from the Fox studio) and explain it to the 26 people in England who wanted to learn. My theory is that the Pittsburgh Steelers only agreed to play that game at Wembley Stadium a few weeks back because they thought they could pick up an easy win against the London Sillynannies.  I'm also about 95% sure that when the Sky Sports crew announced the Jay Cutler injury, they said that Cade McNown would be taking over at QB for the Bears.

The best part of this quite British telecast was that during commercial breaks, I got to see the previews for the straight-to-DVD release of "Green Street Hooligans 3". If ever there was a movie that really doesn't need two straight-to-DVD sequels with none of the original cast members, it is Green Street, a movie I'm all too familiar with as it's a personal favorite of my brother. In the original, Elijah Wood stars as an ordinary American college student, or at least what the writers imagine an ordinary American college student would be like if they ever met one (let's see, ordinary American college student--he must go to Harvard) and then gets himself mixed up in the violent world of hooliganism at West Ham matches (what is this soccer, er--football? See, I'm a typical American, who much prefers baseball, our national past-time). The highlight of the movie is when, in an uninspired baseball vs soccer argument, Elijah Wood brags to his new hooligan friend, "the Red Sox have a guy who can throw it 90 miles an hour!" So anyway, the third installment of this epic is being released today.

 I can't wait for the following scene to show up in the Entourage movie:
(Vince comes into Ari's office, frustrated by a major dry spell getting movie roles)
Vince: Ari, you said you'd find work for me.
Ari: Vinny, what does it look like I'm doing?? I have NOTHING FOR YOU! You want work? Here, this showed up on my desk today, an offer for the second lead in the straight-to-DVD release, of fuckin' Green Street Hooligans 3!!
Vince: Hey, Green Street! Is Elijah signed on?
Ari: Fuck You. Try Scott Adkins.
Vince: ...oh.
Drama: You know Ari, I've been, polishing up on my British accent. Ever since I did that guest spot on Downton Abbey.

Moving Forward
What can the DTLs do to avoid any more straight-to-loss-column sequels of today's heartbreaker for the rest of the season?  Dallas comes into Ford Field next week, and unfortunately they're playing really well of late, winning two in a row and putting up 48 on the Broncos the week before that. When the Lions and Cowboys have played each other of late, you can expect some general weirdness to take place. Whether it's Tony Romo throwing a baffling pick-12 while sitting on a 27-3 second half lead (2011), Jon Kitna throwing for 3 TDs and sprinting untouched for a 30 yard touchdown against his old team, despite not being good enough to start for their 0-16 outfit two years before (2010), or Paris Lenon kicking a game-ending fumble back to the Cowboys to help choke away a 13 point lead in the fourth quarter (2007), we can bet that this will be a pretty close game, but it will be anything but normal.

After the bye week, the Bromos travel to Chicago. I hate it when people celebrate the injuries of others, but it would be impossible to deny that the Jay Cutler injury (he's expected to be out 3-4 weeks) helps their chances of coming out of Soldier's Field with a win. If they can just find a way to at least get a split in these next two games, they'll be in great shape for the remainder of the season, as they'll play only one more game in the final seven against teams with a winning record (Green Bay at home).

Bedrock Approved

LIONS 31
@ Browns 17

I'll start this one off with a look back to the last time the Lions and Browns played each other. Fun fact, this is Nitch's least-favorite video on the entire internet...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ahVTorF2OI

The Browns came into yesterday's game seeking one of the more improbable four game winning streaks in recent memory (of course we all remember the similarly improbable one that the DTLs pulled off with Drew Stanton and Shaun Hill at the helm to close 2010), and after an uninspired 30 minutes from the Lions, it looked like they might get it. Trailing 17-7 at the half and kicking off to start the third quarter, they were up to the usual crap, jumping offsides on every single hard count, dropping passes, Calvin looked like his knee was at about 65%, and even Brandon Weeden was finding ways to carve through the secondary.

On the Lions' first drive of the second half, however, Reggie Bush took over, starting with a 39 yard dash on a handoff and capping it off with a 17 yard TD catch from Staff. Even more importantly, Reggie then immediately went over to the bench and started boysing it up with all of the defensive players, giving high fives and encouragement to all of them and pumping them up for the next drive. When some over-caffeinated assistant coach does this (which is often), it is usually met with awkwardness and eye rolling from the D; when Reggie does it, the boys responded with a dismantling of the Cleveland offense. That can be attributed to the fact that Reggie Bush is a good guy. I'd have to check, but I'm pretty sure the Browns never even crossed midfield again until their last minute desperation drive with the outcome already decided. As for the offense, Reggie's spark opened the door for Matthew Stafford to find other targets such as Kris Durham (who had his best game as a pro) and Joseph Fauria (who has emerged as a touchdown machine), and we even had a Worm Pettigrew sighting. The Lions built up a 24-17 lead midway through the fourth quarter. I'm now going to go off on a long-winded but significantly more interesting tangent before further summarizing the second half of the game.
**Spoiler alert: We won.

Galaxy Gear

Despite the general contempt that I hold for the field of advertising and marketing, the suits at Samsung really hit one out of the park with the commercial for their new wristwatch cellphone, the Galaxy Gear. They showed the commercial about 11 times during the DTLs game, and I'm being completely serious when I say that I want that thing, despite how disappointing the product itself probably is in reality. I haven't been this pumped about a watch since I saw the Casio wristwatch/calculator combo that my friend Buff had back in 6th grade, which I suspected him of using as a loophole during no calculators allowed math quizzes by pulling the old "Welp, guess I'll just check what time it is..." trick. I mean, that thing was water resistant too, so if you ever went scuba diving and some passing fish asked you to help balance their checkbook or something, you wouldn't miss a beat.

Back to the Samsung Galaxy Gear commercial. Buying the rights to the video clips must have cost them a fortune (unless of course it's the same conglomerate that actually owns all of that stuff to begin with, which I guess it could be), but the effect of the montage of all the old TV characters speaking into their futuristic watch/phones back before they actually existed was awesome. You've got the Star Treks of course, The Jetsons, Inspector Gadget, Power Rangers, and even Fred Flintstone proudly saying, "this is secret agent Rock Slab" into his device. Call me a geek, but I'd be delighted to know the context behind that particular scene. What ridiculous scenario allows for Flintstone to be a secret agent (and we all know that Rubble is probably in on it too), which pop culture icon is 'Rock Slab' supposed to be a pun for, and what prehistoric bird is operating inside of the device to make it work? Either way, I'm in. Awesome idea, awesome commercial. I bet it even has an app that lets you see the visual representation of the sound waves generated by your conversation, like on the George Jetson model. Christmas list.

Bedrock Approved

Speaking of Fred Flintstone, I find it worth mentioning that he set a prehistoric precedent that indirectly helped make the football career of one of the players in yesterday's game. To avoid getting fired at the Slate Rock & Gravel Co., Fred once went back to high school more than a decade later since he'd never graduated originally. During this time, he was somehow eligible to play football for Bedrock High, so being older and bigger than everyone else, he went out and completely dominated. After another year or two working in the quarry, Flintstone then ended up playing a brief stint of college ball for Prinstone University, while presumably in his late twenties. This has nothing to do with anything, but one of Fred's teammates at Prinstone was named King Kong Quagmire. Giggity. In the big game against league rival Shale, Flintstone had 2 rushing touchdowns, a key interception, and was kicked over the goalpost along with the football for the game winning extra point. Any of this sound familiar? By playing college football as a 28 year old grown-ass man, Fred Flintstone was basically the Stone Age version of Brandon Weeden, who did the same thing at Rocklahoma Slate before becoming the quarterback of the Cleveland Brownstones.

Coincidentally, my game recap left off right about where Brandon Weeden re-enters the picture. Ol' Rock Slab would not have been too happy about the ridiculous interception on the next drive that Weeden decided to shovel pass way up into the air and into the waiting arms of Deandre Levy, who was more than happy to scoop up the free gift. With just under 5 minutes to play at this point, Jim Schwartz could choose between two options: 1) sit on the lead, run predictable run plays up the middle, punt away, and hope the prevent defense holds against the Cleveland two minute drill, knowing full well that the prevent defense never holds against anyone's two minute drill, OR 2) Go for the win, put the game away, and leave no doubt. On Saturday night, Brady Hoke chose door #1 to calamitous results, like when Peter Griffin chose the mystery box instead of a new boat. Thankfully, Schwartz learned from the mistake and went with door #2. Stafford finds Fauria in the end zone again on a key third down, and the door is slammed shut for Cleveland.

Another impressive win puts Bromothymols at 4-2, with very winnable home games against Cincy and the Cowboys coming up next.