up 25 with 5 minutes left and you go for 2?

I see the lack of class on that team doesn't end with scam.

karma's a bitch and it will catch them eventually.

I am now the biggest Denver bandwagon fan ever.

Scam newton

Zero class.

Enough with the slobbering of Manning

He was NOT good today. He was basically Trent Dilfer with the Ravens when they won a SB.

Manning 17/32 176 5.5 2 0 3-31 90.1
Dilfer      12/25 153 6.2 1 0 1-0   80.9

All he did today was not lose the game for his defense. Enough already.

Here we go, Super bowl teams will be decided today

This is a good Sunday for the NFL. Both conference championship games offer attractive match ups. In both games we have what appears to be the two best teams playing one another which isn't always the case this time of year. In the AFC we have the seemingly always young Brady going against the aging incredibly fast Manning. Of course, it isn't Brady vs Manning. It is the Pats vs the Broncos but the prior is more headline worthy. In the NFC we have the Panthers vs the Cards. The Panthers had the best record in the NFL during the regular season and the Cards sport a stout defense and a potentially explosive offense.

So, lets call it now.....
AFC:Pats vs Broncos
This pic is the easier one for me. The Pats struggled down the stretch and then eviscerated KC last week. Brady looks sharp and he will have both Gronk and Edelman playing. That is huge. If those two can stay healthy, they will move the ball on the broncos and with Brady, that will mean points scored.

On the other side of the ball  you have Manning. I won't even go into the rest of the offense/team here. Manning is the key for the Broncos because they absolutely have the defense they need to win the game but they have that one glaring problem. Manning. He has thrown 9 td to 17 ints this season. His passes look like mine in bad wind and he is playing against one of the best coaches in NFL history. I expect Manning to continue to struggle against the Pats. If the broncos win, it will be the defense doing it and that is going to take a hurculean effort.

I am taking the Pats to win over the Broncos.

NFL:Panthers vs Cards
This pic is far more difficult to make. On one hand, you have a 15-1 team that has looked like the best team in the league. On the other hand, you have a Cards team, my mid season pick as best team in the NFC, that always seems to do just enough to win games with a coach that never plays scared. One side, you have one of the douchiest players in the league in Scam newton on the other side you have the exceptional class of Larry Fitzgerald. Nothing would make me more NFL happy today than to see the Cards win today but they have one problem. Palmer's injury to his throwing hand. That dramatically changes the outlook of this game for me so reluctantly I have to...

Take the Panthers over the Cards.

(Please prove me wrong. Scam needs a reality check. He has been douching up the NFL all year and someone needs to bitch slap his showboating disrespectful ass. Having Larry be one of the players doing it would just add icing on the cake.)

Lions fan's life

We have to not only tolerate a bad head coach who decides that defending against the hail mary is optional. We also have to accept that coach for another year. Finally, we have to see the play during the playoffs.

That replay has gotten deeper into the playoffs than the Lions have been in over 2 decades.

Fuck you fords.

Really? That wasn't a catch and you let it go and force the cards to use a challenge?

That is some serious BS. Everyone knew it wasn't a catch. Hell, the packers were running to the line to try to down the ball to keep the replay from happening. Just horrible reffing.

This is why I hate the idea of coaches being in charge of challenges. Use the college system. It is far superior.

Watching an Andy Reid managed game is horrible deja Vu.

Between him and Jim Caldwell, has there ever been two active head coaches in the NFL that were so utterly inept at game management?

Down two scores, 5 minutes left and the Chiefs are running plays like it is the middle of the 3rd quarter. Zero urgency.

KC fans, I know your pain. Intimately.

This is our future if we keep Caldwell, with fewer playoff appearances. Fucking idiots keeping Caldwell around for another year.

That is just not fair

Gronk is a physical freak of nature. You have to be ready to hit him as soon as he gets the ball. If he turns up field and gets a head of steam going, you are basically fucked. So, what do you do? Cover him tighter. Then Brady and Gronk do that, a stop and go with a hard pump fake. Either you double/triple team gronk or you aren't going to win the play.

That is why the Pats have been so good for so long. They know their strengths and they know how to properly exploit them.

That was disgusting. Great preparation, Great coaching, Great execution.

Side note: That O line is doing it's job tonight. Other than one late hit has Brady even been touched?

Side side note: Anyone thinking the Pats are getting some home cooking from the refs, stop now. That was blatant DPI in the endzone and it wasn't called. Pats settle for a FG.

rob ninkovich

I love his game. The guy is a football player. Quinn, find us guys like that.

If Steven Jackson can get it going like he used too, NE is going to be extremely difficult to stop.

Not a huge fan of using a challenge there. It was really close but IMHO, too close to overturn. Hopefully for the Pats, one less challenge doesn't come back to haunt them.

This ref crew seems to be doing a good job. I can't say if they are being favorable to one team or another but they are moving fast and when they are making calls, they are making them extremely fast. Good job by the refs so far staying out of the game. 

Football today!!!

Go New England. Always rooting for the boy from UofM.

Go Arizona!!! The double douche needs to go home.

And go good football.

Grandpa Jim is sticking around.... (updated)

We had to know it was happening. So many decisions made by the Lions recently had the look and feel of being intelligently thought out. Things like, hiring Quinn, A guy not from the inside, whose entire career has been spent moving up the ranks with a winning organization. And hiring Ernie Accorsi to be the right hand man of our rookie team president. Well thought out decisions. And then this...

Keeping Caldwell for another year. This stinks of old Lions thinking. This stinks of owner interference. This just stinks.

Caldwell proved without a doubt he is not an average NFL coach in his two seasons with the Lions. His game management has always been laughable and that continued here in Detroit on multiple occasions. Things like the Green Bay hail mary defense fiasco should never happen to any NFL coach. Ever. Seriously, how is your best pass rusher (Ziggy) 20 yards down the field defending the sideline? That one play alone was grounds to fire the man.

Now we are stuck with his vacant stare on the sideline for yet another season. We shouldn't be surprised, this is the Lions after all and this is exactly Lionesque.

update: Keeping a coach that has always been a choke artist with horrible game management for the sake of consistency is a recipe for failure.  If you want consistency, you first have to find a coach worth keeping around, then you stick with him. Caldwell is NOT worth keeping around.

Update: Matt Bowen on what the Lions should have done. When ex-players are calling out your atrocious schemes.....

Caldwell's future, it starts today

The first media availability of Dan Quinn happens today around 2pm est. I think it is safe to believe the decision on Caldwell will be made before that happens. Personally, I don't want him back. His blank stares on the sideline when things start going wrong and his inexplicable late game snafus have sealed his fate in my eyes. That said, I can easily see a world where the lions go conservative and keep him around for another year in order to ease the transition of Quinn into his new job and that is honestly what I believe will happen.

If Quinn doesn't make a decision before his presser today, he better be ready to deflect a ton of questions from the media about it.

I wonder, is there a way to see those pressers live?

Update: That answered none of the questions facing the Lions. Quinn told the press he hasn't made up his mind on Caldwell yet. Frankly, the longer Quinn waits to fire him, the less likely it will happen. Apparently, I should begin preparing myself for another bad season of lions football while watching Papa Jim stand on the sidelines dazed and confused.

sigh

Lions hire Accorsi.

Really, I am not kidding. Rod Wood doesn't know anything about running a football team, he admitted it. So the Lions inexplicably did the right thing and got him a legitimate adviser.

WTF is going on here? Is someone really actually thinking at the Lions HQ?

Bizarro world works going on here.

Great Article by Mitch Albom

Just read it, if you haven't already.

Nate doing his media thing and looking sharp doing it.

He looks comfortable, happy and he is clearly having fun. Good for him.

Go Cousins!!! one and done for discount double douche. I refuse to root for Washington but I can root for a guy that played college here in the mitten.

Watching the NFL network, Navaro Bowman is an interesting guy. He voice isn't exactly tv ready but listening to him talk about the game, you can see why he is such a good player.

Hue Jackson is officially a free agent coach

After last night game and the shenanigans that happened on the field, I wonder if he would be the right pick for the Lions. There is no question our team needs more nasty but it has to be controlled.

Is that team's nasty a product of Lewis' lack of control or does it trickle down to his other coaches as well?

That was one shit show of a game last night. When the bungles fumbled the ball late, I was having SOL flashbacks. Then they went off the deep end. They set a new standard. wow.

Not exaclty the best opening day of playoff football....

The first game was not worth watching and the second game wasn't worth watching until the last 20 minutes.

I hope tomorrow brings better football.

A couple things I learned today....

1) some people hold grudges far far longer than others and I am not talking about football.
2) Burfict is a man born 20 years too late for the game he plays, much like Suh.
3) I miss the days of physical, knock you flat the fuck out, football.
4) The lions in the AFC wouldn't be losing this weekend.

Please, let tomorrow bring better football.

Oh, and Dion is a bitch.

Now is not the time to play it safe.....

Go get him. Fire Grandpa Jim and get Hue Jackson. Don't sit on your hands. Now is not the time to stand pat. The pot has been stirred. Keep mixing that bitch. Go for it. Everyone in the entire fucking NFL knows what we have in Grandpa Jim and it is not a good thing. Get the guy with upside over staying with the guy that will inevitably cripple your team and season because he has the in game awareness of a short bus riding newt.

Please, for the love of every fan that has faithfully, un-fucking believably and improbably continued to root for your team, do the right thing. Move on from one of the worst game managers in history. Give your fans and your franchise a chance. If that means CJ retires. So be it. We aren't winning a SB with him anyhow.

Fire Caldwell and get this fucking joke of a franchise moving in the right direction because it won't happen with Jim Caldwell and keeping him around will only delay the inevitable.

If experience is absolutely needed, then I would also be open to bringing in Tom Caughlin.  I know he is older for a new hire HC but by all reports, he is in great shape and he would bring that experience. The guy has done it twice. Hell, he won it twice with Eli! Read that line again. I think the talent on this team would fit the type of coach he has always been.

Looks like Grandpa Jim is sticking around......... sigh

According to Adam Schefter the lions are set to hire Bob Quinn as our new GM. On the face of it, the hire looks like a good move by the Lions. The guy has cred around the league. People respect his experience both scouting college and professionals. That is basically the minimum of what you would want from a young rookie GM. All things considered, if we do hire him, it could have been much worse. but.....

Ernie Accorsi has said before that he heavily believes in teaming up young coaches or GMs with an experienced coach or GM. So, if the Lions are listening to him, odds are Jim isn't going anywhere for at least another year.

Finally, I do wish they had interviewed Trent Kirchner. Of the candidates being passed around he was the guy I wanted the most. The Hawks drafting is disgustingly good. I wanted some of that damn it!!!

Saint Barry 2.0?

Have the Lions done it again?!

Have they again managed to beat the joy out of the game for another once in a generational talent? It seems possible. CJ is considering retirement. The spin control is going to tell us all sorts of comforting things. Lions PR (employees and their lap dog press) will tell us about the toll the game takes on a player mentally and physically being CJ's reasoning. It is all going to sound good because the truth elephant rampaging around isn't easy to deal with in reference to the Lions.

The truth is, if the Lions were a yearly competitive team, CJ would be having fun and when you are having fun, pain is more tolerable. Losing sucks and it makes the pain less tolerable. CJ knows another rebuild is coming. He has seen plenty of them in his time and each and every one of them has been a miserable failure. He knows who is doing the hiring. The same idiots that did the hiring for his entire career. (Note 1 below). Why would he continue to savage his body for inept owners that don't, beyond seat filling lip service, genuinely want to win? Would you want too?

CJ has his money. He has had unmitigated success on a horrible team run by incredibly inept owners. He doesn't have anything else to prove except winning a title and that is NOT happening in Detroit for the remainder of his contract. CJ has very good to great years left in him and that is the true hard part for us fans. But to CJ this all has to seem stunningly simple too him. There just isn't enough winning happening with the team to offset the pain of playing a game that destroys everyone eventually.

In short, Fuck you inept FORDS!

(note 1) Caldwell hasn't been fired yet. The Green Bay game alone was reason to fire him. That kind of mistake you expect out of a high school coach. Not a professional NFL coach. And the crazy thing, it is far from an outlier. The guy is a terrible game manager on every level. The fact that Ford has come out saying she supports Caldwell says all I need to know. She is just as fucking clueless as her deceased husband.