Detroit Lions: We're Going to Bite a Kneecap Off
Larry Foote will be a Detroit Lion, ~100% chance of that.
Theres also talk between DET/KC that would involve Glen Dorsey coming here for our 2nd rd pick. Not sure I understand why Pioli wants to get rid of him but I'd gladly ship out our 2nd for him.
You add Dorsey/Foote and it makes our draft look that much better. Shaun Rogers also said he wants to come back to Detroit once he gets released from the Browns, which looks likely.
Biggest question going into the season is will Matt Stafford be the starter from weak 1.
if I had to guess, it's probably the equivalent to using a very early poker solver/equity calc. you can brute force most anything and get to a decent ball park. I would hope they Leos are working with something a little more advanced but who knows because most teams don't talk about this stuff publicly. I'm 100% they have an entire analytics team, though.
if I had to guess, it's probably the equivalent to using a very early poker solver/equity calc. you can brute force most anything and get to a decent ball park. I would hope they Leos are working with something a little more advanced but who knows because most teams don't talk about this stuff publicly. I'm 100% they have an entire analytics team, though.
That's a pretty fancy term for Dan Campbell's gut.
not that it's gospel but on twitter there's a '4th down decision bot' account that gives their solution for every 4th. it agreed with all of them aside from the last one. according to it, the decision on their own 30 was a +5ish% win percentage decision. end of game decision was +3ish% in favor of field goal.
I saw the same - the thing is, the standard analytics/win% calculations can't/don't account for the state of the defense and the opposing offense. Love had been cooking most of the 2nd half and we were very fortunate to get the OPI call on their TD which made them settle for 3 - yes, IIRC it was the right call as the defender looked like he adjusted his route to purposefully move into the defender, but it wasn't blatant and I feel like it goes uncalled 60 or 70% of the time. (Note: it's way harder than I expected to find a replay of that play on youtube). ~35 seconds obviously isn't a ton of time but Love had put up chunk 20-30 yard plays multiple times including on the previous drive. I feel like the state of the two units (Lions D and Packer O) shift the Lions' win probability if the Pack get the ball back down at least 10% worse than average, which would move the decision to go on 4th and 1 into the best decision.
The end of game one I'm less sure on. I think you need to be about 95+% sure you are converting for that to be the right move.
I played around with some numbers on this one. It depends how likely you think GB is to march into field goal range if you leave them the 40 seconds, but if you think they are around 30% to tie the game if you leave them time, but are 90% to convert the 4th & 1, then it's a good call. It's really close. The media is dragging Dan for it, and it would look absolutely insane if they ended up losing in regulation, but from a pure win equity standpoint it doesn't feel egregious even if it's a little wrong.
Watching Campbell coach reminds me of watching a great mid-stakes limit poker player. There was a time I thought they were just over-aggressive idiots getting lucky but gradually you come to understand they just know the game better.
My days of 2nd guessing Holmes draft picks or Campbell coaching decisions are on hold
the thing is, the standard analytics/win% calculations can't/don't account for the state of the defense and the opposing offense.
completely agree and that's why I equated it to using an equity calc instead of a solver which takes the whole tree into account and gives a much more robust answer.
also why I said I hope they're using something more. certainly hope it's not just Campbells gut, lol. imo they're too close to being right on these decisions for him to just be winging it.
they 100% have an analytics department, its being run by Ashton Mullinix. not sure what all they do, there's not a ton of info regarding what they're up to.
Seasons like this almost make up for the decades of ****. Finish the job
I'm on Lions ML + o54.5 total parlay = +220
Sunday we feast on Buffalo.
Not as keen on the OVER as most, this feels like a good game to slow it down and keep the ball out of Allen's hands as much as possible.
The beauty of this team is they can speed it up or slow it down, run it or pass it and it really doesn't matter so it feels like if they want to dictate the tempo they will.
Watching Campbell coach reminds me of watching a great mid-stakes limit poker player. There was a time I thought they were just over-aggressive idiots getting lucky but gradually you come to understand they just know the game better.
I think this is a really good analogy. And like the aggressive poker player people love to point out the times they lose on a bluff or a thin value bet that failed while missing the fact that their winrate is top tier. There have been two times where I've thought maybe Dan got too aggressive. One was the 7 yard 2 point conversion in Dallas, and the other was the 4th and 1 last week. But that's fine. I'm used to decades of coaches making really weird and dumb decisions. Even the great coaches make some head scratchers at times. The fact that they are 12-1 and super bowl favorites is no accident. This is an incredibly well coached and talented team.
Early word is McNeil and Davis are both done for the year. Just painfully unfair.
Dan Skipper's touchdown was pretty cool
****, man, this is bad. I think Reynolds probably plays okay in a limited Monty roll but the defense is so shambles. gonna be tough to win a SB when you basically have to outscore everybody.
It's crazy. I'm just imagining how dominant this team would be without all these defensive injuries. When Hutch went down and we kept rolling I thought "holy **** they're really gonna do this aren't they." But now you've lost 4 great defenders (Hutch, Alim, Davis, Alex) and a **** ton of high quality rotational guys. Buffalo knew right where to strike too. The coverage linebackers are guys who weren't on the team a few weeks ago and they went at them hard. There's very limited relief on the horizon. Alex should be back for the playoffs. Iffy is starting his IR return window this week. Reading the tea leaves from Campbell, Rakestraw and JRM may not be too far behind. But you can't just replace Alim, Hutch, and CD3.
Monty going down sucks too but that feels survivable. Gibbs has been phenomenal this year, Reynolds is a solid RB3, and Sione Vaki was the preseason darling who might be able to pitch in. I want the one seed bad but at this point just get to the postseason without any more injuries and figure it out from there please.
There's still plenty of runouts where they finish #2 and end up playing all 3 playoff games at home (assuming they go that far ofc). Losing the division to Minny would blow but god damn the NFC is insanely top heavy this year. Had this been last season they'd need to win one more game to lock up the one.
If we can't beat MIN at home in W18, and win one of vsCHI/@SF, we weren't winning the SB anyway. If we can get the bye I'd take us over PHI for coming out of the NFC, even though I'd have to take them over us on a neutral field straight up right now.
I really, really would like WAS to come up with the upset against PHI this week, which I assume would mean we keep the bye if we win 2 of 3.
Obviously anything can happen, but I could very much see a loss to CHI this week (cuing full-on panic/write-offs in the media, but CHI has played their best games against us and I'm worried about Caleb with no hint of a pass rush from us anymore), then wins @ SF and vs MIN. Would be awful nice if that was enough for the 1 seed.
Gotta have the #1 seed, anything less will be disappointing.
Can they win from the #2 seed? Sure - its gonna require an extra game but would be still be possible since they would be home for two games.
Can they win from the #5 seed? I don't think so, would just require too many 'lucky breaks' travelling for WC round, travelling again for Division round, then travelling for NFC Championship. No thanks
Game day. We're one win a way from most wins in franchise history. It feels like today is the day.
Love it. The game kind of confirms my thoughts. Offense is elite without Monty. Defense is dicey but did OK vs the bears.
Monty was just holding Gibbs back.
The one time I'm actually rooting for the Packers and they lay a turd. God I hate them so much. So technically the 49ers game doesn't matter. The week 18 winner gets the division and I think the conference.
I also seen someone say on twitter that if lions lose out and philly wins out they could be the 5 seed? lol
Seeds 1-4 go to division winners. Philly has their division locked so nothing they do matters. I am like 99% sure the Vikings win last night eliminated Philly from 1 seed contention, since Detroit and Minny hold all the tiebreakers. So on Sunday night week 18 (game flex was officially announced yesterday) the winner gets the 1 seed, loser the 5 seed.
I'm expecting Lions to be about 5.5 point favorites at home over Minny. For as good as Minny's defense has been, the Lions seem to have figured it out. I do worry about their ability to cover JJ without Carlton Davis, and I'm sure he'll get his yards, but if we can keep them from steamrolling on offense it should be a solid win.
