Monday, everyone!Mondays
Cheap Customized Detroit Lions Jerseys are already awesome, but Mondays after a win are even better.
So, what did y’all think of the game? I know it wasn’t perfect, the first game
of the season never is, especially with a new OC and QB coming aboard, but I
thought it was a pretty good overall performance by the purple &
gold.Offense: The O line held up pretty well, and Cousins put up a solid
performance; not spectacular, but solid, and free of major mistakes (except for
the head-first slide, don’t do that again until the last day of the fully
guaranteed contract, mmmmkayyyyyy?). I like how Cousins plays, I’ll never like
the contract, but I like how he plays, and I feel much more confident I think
you’ll see the offense improve as the season goes on, but for it being game one,
I was satisfied with the offense’s performance yesterday.Defense: We’ve come to
expect dominance, and although you probably wouldn’t categorize yesterday’s
defensive performance as dominant, they played a solid game. One flaw that stood
out was that they allowed guys to get wide open behind the secondary a lot more
often than they should have. I’m not sure what the cause was, but I’m guessing
Zimmer and Co. will find out, if they haven’t already. The Vikings were lucky
with that one drop, and Grape.....Garp........Grapapoo.......the 49ers QB missed
more than one wide open receiver for what would have likely been a long TD.
Other than that, the defense didn’t have any glaring deficiencies, and Harrison
Smith showed why he’s considered one of the best at his position. Wow
www.thelionsfootballauthentic.com , what a game. Oh, and I know some questioned the FO taking Mike Hughes in the
first. It doesn’t seem so bad now, does it? He didn’t play a perfect game, but
he played much better than most fans expected him to play, I was very happy with
his performance. Sendejo had a nice night, even against the pass. I’ll be the
first to admit that I thought the FO was wrong when they gave him an extension a
couple years back, and I’ll be the first to admit that they were right & I
was wrong, I’m happy to see him playing well.I’ll save the rest for the
comments, but I’m happy with the team’s overall performance. Yes, I know there
were mistakes, I’m not ignoring them, but I expect them to happen in the first
game of the season. You expect mistakes in game one, especially in the current
era where there are fewer practices in the preseason. I also expect to see fewer
and fewer as the season progresses. SKOL!Around the DN since our last open
thread:Saxyprince posted Climbing The Podcast: Episode 107 [It’s Time].Chris,
,Ted, Eric, Dan Persons, Lucas Ailport, and Skelly 10; who all write for the DN,
started a new feature called The Norse Reporters. Check it out.Dan Persons has
your post-game wrap-up.Ted was here with the Stock Market Report: 49ers.Lucas
Ailport points out the studs from yesterday’s game. just_rob has a place to talk
about the Bears-Packers game. He wrote this before the game, I can’t wait to
check out the comments as the game progressed. Vikings news from other sources
and news from around the league:Over at Vikings.com, you can catch Coach
Zimmer’s post-game locker room speech, and see him again as he addressed the
media after the game, see Kirk Cousins talk with the media after getting his
first win (with many more to come) as a Viking
Detroit Lions T-Shirt , and there is a ton more to sift through in the media vault.Adrian Peterson passed Jim Brown, and moved to 10th on the NFL all-time
rushing yards list, and he also scored his 100th career touchdown, per NBC
Sports. Sorry, that link is the latest I could find when I posted this, I’ll try
to update.From NFL.com, catch up on all of the scores and highlights from week
one.We come to today’s media selection:Ahhhhh, this is my favorite DN tradition,
and this is the first time this season we get to play it after a real game.
Strike up the band!!Again, we all know the rules, but in case someone is new:No
discussion of politics or religionNo feeding of the trollsThis isn’t a male
version of The View, so leave the gender hatred at the doorKeep the bad language
to a minimum (using the spoiler tags, if you must)Speaking of which, if
discussing a newer show or movie, please use spoiler tagsNo pictures that could
get someone fired or in serious trouble with their employerIf you can’t disagree
in a civil manner, feel free to go awayWhile navigating the open thread, just
assume it’s sarcasmWith that, the beer light is on and the bar is open. Belly up
and tie one on. Don’t forget to tip your waitress, and try the tiger meatLions
Week 5 PFF grades: Kenny Golladay dominates the Packers On the surface, the
Detroit Lions’ win over the Green Bay Packers on Sunday looked like one of their
better performances of the season. You don’t jump out to a 24-0 lead without
some really solid play—I don’t care how many field goals the other team missed.
But with so much happening on a single play, sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s
actually happening and who’s playing well. So every week, we turn to Pro
Football Focus, who grades every individual on every single play, to see which
Lions players performed well. Thankfully
Detroit Lions Hats , each week they provide us with the top performers on both offense and defense. Let’s take a look for Week 5.OffenseThere aren’t too many
surprises among the top five, and it’s no shock at all that Kenny Golladay tops
the list with an outstanding 89.6 rating. In fact, that rating was good enough
for Golladay to land on this week’s PFF Team of the Week, falling just short of
Adam Thielen (90.1) and Odell Beckham Jr. (90.7). But Golladay’s play wasn’t
just limited to Sunday’s game, he’s been a big-play threat all year. Per PFF,
Golladay has 14” explosive plays” and six contested catches on the season, both
of which rank in the top five among receivers this year.It was a relatively
modest day for the rest of the offense, however. Only one offensive lineman made
the top five, and Taylor Decker’s 66.3 grade is nothing to write home about.
It’s also pretty surprising to see Kerryon Johnson graded so low considering he
eclipsed 5.0 yards per carry for the fourth straight week. DefenseIf I weren’t
so excited by Da’Shawn Hand’s future, I may be sick of talking about how good he
is. Hand has now landed in the top five in three of the past four games, and he
continues to be one of the highest rated rookie interior defensive linemen. This
past Sunday, he was credited with three run stops, three pressures, one sack,
one forced fumble and one fumble recovery. And check out this set of numbers
from our own MathBomb:It may come as a bit of a surprise to see linebacker
Christian Jones on the list, especially since he only had two tackles on the
day—although one was for a loss. However, Jones did only play in 24 snaps
against the Packers, as Detroit relied more heavily on coverage linebackers like
Jalen Reeves-Maybin. In the secondary, Glover Quin cracked the top five after a
pretty slow and quiet start to the season, and Nevin Lawson had an obviously
solid game with his tight coverage. However, you don’t want to know how the rest
of the defensive backs graded out, and lucky for you, I don’t have publishing
rights to share them with you.
