Week 7 - Vikings @ Lions Support Group

[Purple Pain]

Whatever it was, Treadwell might have made his biggest impact of the season after the game. In a post-game locker room video where Mike Zimmer was addressing the team after the big win over Philadelphia, Treadwell can be heard saying “eeeeasy” while Zimmer was talking about going on the road to face the Detroit Lions.

It wasn’t the most blatant trash talking, but Lions fans and players alike have taken notice nonetheless. Detroit cornerback Darius Slay may have summed it up best when talking to the Detroit Free Press this week:

I mean, everybody saw that...You know we saw that.

Look who said it. But I ain’t worried about that. I’m playing ball. He was just here last week for a tryout here. Like, some weeks ago, before he got picked up back by Minnesota. So nobody care about that. I’m (here) to play ball.

Slay is referring to Treadwell having a tryout with the Lions before the Vikings re-signed him late last month. Treadwell also reportedly visited the Bills during his brief stint as a free agent.

We’re going to go out on a limb here and assume that Zimmer is none too happy with his wide receiver for the comment. Treadwell has played all of 21 offensive snaps since rejoining the Vikings, a team that may not have re-signed him in the first place had they not already been on the hook for the guaranteed portion of his salary. Slay’s “look who said it” comment is pretty damning; to have a first round bust provide any sort of perceived “bulletin board material” is not a good look for anyone involved.

[Funkytown]

Keys To Victory

[Funkytown]

The Lions’ red-zone woes are real, but they’re also being overblown by Chris Burke

After the Lions’ controversial loss in Green Bay, and carrying through this week leading up to Sunday’s almost must-have game vs. Minnesota, the company line has remained consistent: Forget about the external factors, control what you can control. A little better execution here and there at Lambeau Field, and those late flags against Detroit might not have mattered so much.

“We left so many plays out there,” running back Kerryon Johnson said Thursday.

And confounding the Detroit offense as much as anything right now is the red zone, where it has scored touchdowns on just 50 percent of its trips this season (8 of 16), good for just 21st in the NFL. There are a couple reasons it’s not clicking — which we’ll get into shortly — but before Lions fans go pounding the panic button, an acknowledgement of that internal call for better execution.

Among the Lions’ eight touchdown-less trips into the red zone this season are:

Matthew Stafford’s fumble on third-and-goal vs. Kansas City
Kerryon Johnson’s fumble at the goal line, also vs. Kansas City
Stafford’s collision with Nick Bawden and fumbling (then recovering) a hand-off attempt at Green Bay
T.J. Hockenson’s drop, on a difficult fade attempt, later in that same game
Flip two of those into TDs (say, the Johnson fumble and Hockenson leaping reception attempt), and not only are the Lions suddenly ranked in the top 10 with a 62.5 percent red-zone conversion rate, they’re very possibly sitting at 4-0-1 for the season.

There’s still a chasm between being a good team and a great team, but the margin separating an average club from a playoff contender is razor thin. These costly slip-ups inside the opponents’ 20-yard line should be hammering home that message to the Lions, especially since that list above doesn’t include an overtime red-zone visit against the Cardinals.

Get to a 60 percent touchdown rate within the red zone and you’re likely to stick within the top 10 for that category. Hit 70 percent and you’re among the elite red-zone teams of the past decade. Detroit should be sitting on the former number, and could be threatening the latter.

In other words, the perception of the Lions’ red-zone work easily could be better than it is right now. But why aren’t things coming more easily for a diverse offense chock-full of playmakers?

Allow me to toss out one theory: The Darrell Bevell scheme has leaned with much more gusto on stretching the field, and that approach takes advantage of both Stafford’s arm and the best traits of the Marvin Jones/Kenny Golladay receiving tandem. It also means that, once the Lions creep inside the 20 (maybe even 30), Bevell loses critical elements of his playbook. Not only are the downfield shots off the table at that point, so too are the opportunities to free up underneath routes by having Jones and Golladay clear space deep.

Every team faces a similar dilemma — being in the red zone compacts the field of play — but not every offense covets the chances to get vertical like Detroit does.

Link: theathletic.com/1303456/2019/10/18/the-lions-red-zone-woes-are-real-but-theyre-also-being-overblown/

[Funkytown]

Vikings Film Room: After last week’s air show, Lions pose a much tougher test by Arif Hasan

The Vikings are in a now-critical division matchup against the Detroit Lions, who despite ranking in the bottom of the standings of the NFC North, could have an argument for being the most challenging opponent among the group. Neither team has won a division matchup yet, and for the Vikings to push for the division or even for a wild-card spot, they’ll likely need this win — this game means a lot more than most others do on the schedule.

For that, their offense will have to produce. While they have been able to take down an average defense in the Eagles that had a strong pass rush and a weak secondary, they’ll be dealing with the opposite in Detroit.

The Lions have an unusual defensive approach compared to the rest of the modern NFL. Per both SportRadar and ESPN Stats & Info, the Lions blitz less than any other team in the NFL. Not only that, they lead the league in man coverage defenses. While extremes in any statistical category are unique by nature, what really drives home the strangeness of the Lions defense is how man coverage is typically used in the NFL — to free up defenders to blitz the quarterback.

They also lead the league in three-man pass rushes, with nearly 30 percent of the dropbacks they’ve faced countered with an eight-man defensive coverage and three-man pass rush.

As a result, the Lions haven’t put as much pressure on the quarterback — ranking 26th in pressure rate by SportRadar, which uses NFL chip tracking data, and 32nd by Sports Info Solutions, which uses manual charting. Pro Football Focus, also manual charters, places them 29th. Despite that, the Lions rank 16th in adjusted net yards per passing attempt and 11th in opponent-adjusted ANYA.

Matt Patricia, the Lions head coach, might agree with the analytics crowd, which argues that coverage is king when it comes to defense.

Their man-heavy, blitzless approach gives Detroit some affordances against the deep ball, with safeties and middle linebackers playing deep zones on top of the corners, but the Lions seemingly don’t benefit from it — they lead the league in average defensive depth of target (per both SportRadar and Pro Football Focus), meaning quarterbacks throw deeper against them, on average, than any other team in the league.

It should also come as no surprise, then, to see that the defense ranks second in attempts over 20 yards — with 16.1 percent of passing attempts against their defense going deep downfield. Interestingly, however, they’ve been doing a fine job against deep throws. Only 36.1 percent of those passes are deemed “accurate” by Pro Football Focus, and the Lions give up the ninth-fewest yards per attempt and 11th-fewest adjusted net yards per passing attempt on those throws.

Why is it that the Lions have held their impressive opponents — who include Philip Rivers, Patrick Mahomes, Carson Wentz and Aaron Rodgers — to fewer than 8.0 net yards per attempt and passer ratings all below 95.0?

Link: theathletic.com/1305069/2019/10/18/vikings-film-room-after-last-weeks-air-show-lions-will-pose-a-much-tougher-test/

[HunterMorrow]

The Lions would have won that game comfortably but they got jobbed out big time in Lameblow, one of the lamest Lameblow home cooking games I've ever seen.
We have had a hard time with the Stafford era Lions and this is a road game. I'm not feeling too good about this one, might come down to field goals with Bailey. Yuck.

[Funkytown]

[Funkytown]

[spence]

i'm nervous but excited!

[VikingsBoss]

Oct 20, 2019 7:08:17 GMT -6 HunterMorrow said:

The Lions would have won that game comfortably but they got jobbed out big time in Lameblow, one of the lamest Lameblow home cooking games I've ever seen.
We have had a hard time with the Stafford era Lions and this is a road game. I'm not feeling too good about this one, might come down to field goals with Bailey. Yuck.

Bailey is 8 of 9 on field goals and 24 of 26 on kicks all told... where's the problem?
This game, like most Vikings games is a race to 22-if the Vikings end this day with 22 or more points, they will win.

[Funkytown]

Getting the WRs more involved has been great, but I'm hoping Cook has another big game! Sounds like he should be able to. I hope we get Mattison involved a littler earlier too, with his power and fresh legs. Keep Stafford off the field as much as possible, and keep our D fresh.

Hopefully the z-fense plays well. Heck, the offense and defense might have to play well for the full 60 minutes, which hasn't been the case thus far with our wins. The Lions have been tough for us in recent years, AND, they're a lot better on both sides of the ball. ...and angry.

Should be a good one!

[Works2muchguy]

Matthew Stafford leads the league in average depth of target and is second only to Daniel Jones for percentage of throws into tight windows.

In the past, that aggression led to turnovers, but this year Stafford is managing to take care of the ball, with only two INTs (so far).

Yeah maybe Daniel Pennies shouldn't try throwing so much into tight windows, he has 5 TDs and 6 INTs... just sayin

[Funkytown]

Oct 20, 2019 10:05:11 GMT -6 VikingsBoss said:

Oct 20, 2019 7:08:17 GMT -6 HunterMorrow said:

The Lions would have won that game comfortably but they got jobbed out big time in Lameblow, one of the lamest Lameblow home cooking games I've ever seen.
We have had a hard time with the Stafford era Lions and this is a road game. I'm not feeling too good about this one, might come down to field goals with Bailey. Yuck.

Bailey is 8 of 9 on field goals and 24 of 26 on kicks all told... where's the problem?
This game, like most Vikings games is a race to 22-if the Vikings end this day with 22 or more points, they will win.

How about we get 32 points just to be safe? Mr. Comeback is always dangerous. With him having such a good year, he's definitely gonna make some plays and put points on the board. That is to be expected. Our offense needs to have another strong, clock-eating performance. Hopefully YOU LIKE THAT Kirk Cousins is the guy we see today.

[Works2muchguy]

Oct 20, 2019 10:46:17 GMT -6 Funkytown said:

Oct 20, 2019 10:05:11 GMT -6 VikingsBoss said:

Bailey is 8 of 9 on field goals and 24 of 26 on kicks all told... where's the problem?
This game, like most Vikings games is a race to 22-if the Vikings end this day with 22 or more points, they will win.

How about we get 32 points just to be safe? Mr. Comeback is always dangerous. With him having such a good year, he's definitely gonna make some plays and put points on the board. That is to be expected. Our offense needs to have another strong, clock-eating performance. Hopefully YOU LIKE THAT Kirk Cousins is the guy we see today.

Fast offensive start (like the past 2 weeks) and yes let's hope we get the "YOU LIKE THAT" guy, and not that "guy we seen play in chicago".....guy

[Funkytown]

Did I hear something like, "Stafford loves playing Cousins, because it's the only time he's not the most overrated guy on the field."?

LOL.

[Works2muchguy]

Gee Chris Spielman isn't a Lions homer is he? "Its going to be a close game, 4 quarter game smash 'em in the mouth game." Sorry maybe not a word for word quote but pretty close.