BACH
Superbowl, Homeboy!
Again acting on time zone advantage sitting in KL and already re-watched much of the game.
This is going to be last time I post this. Gandhi is doing almost an identical thread weekly, so do not want to steal his thunder. As I'm a OL nerd I'll try to post a weekly OL analysis instead.
POSITIVES
Sitting with the same feeling as after the Buffalo game. The Lions are one of the 3 best team on the schedule this season and a team, where we should be underdog, so objectively happy with result, but extremely disappointed in the way we lost. This was a winnable game, but we held the game close against arguebly the best roster and a top 5 team in the league. That is objectively a positive.
Defense struggled in the 1st half, but played overall well enough throughout the game. Holding a team like the Lions to 20 points is a W for the defensive roster. This defense is a all-or-nothing defense, because it seems it's either tackles for loss of giving up 10-15 yards a play. nothing in between. Special call-out to two newcomers on the team. Nicols and Wilson both look like good pick-ups.
Barton is the 5th OT on the roster. He got help with chips on Hutch, but overall played extremely well based on what could be expected from the 5th OT going against a DPOY candidate.
Garrett Williams is developing into a good player. Yes, he gave up plays to LaPorta and Amon St. Browns, but he was left on an island against All-Pro players all game and limited their impact.
The Lions is one of the most physical teams in the league and PJJ and Froholdt showed that they can compete with that level of quality. I'll come back to that later in the week, but both looked to have good games individually.
NEGATIVES
What was the most interesting in this game was, that it's two teams with the same philosophy on offense to the way NFL is played today. Defenses has evolved over the last 5 years with NFL becoming a passing league with rotating coverages and windows opening and closing:
Lions responded to that in the first half by beating the rotating coverages underneath and the defense had issues keeping tight coverages.
Petzing/Kyler didn't do very well to adjust to this. The Lions is one of the best run defenses in the league and took away the run game. They adjusted by forcing a lot of 50/50 balls to Marvin Harrison over the top. Where was the intermediate stuff underneath to McBride/Higgins? Where were the slants to Wilson?
After probably his best game of his career, Kyler was very average. It's wasn't bad. We do not know if it was Kyler or playcalling, but Kyler looked very average.
Cardinals lost the battle in the trenches. Our highly praised O-Line got shut down in the run game. Form my early analysis (will return later in the week) Brown and Hernandez didn't play very well. Harder to evaluate on the D-line, because the D-Line looked beat, but still opened gaps for the LBs.
The refs cost us a pick 6. Plain and simple.
This is going to be last time I post this. Gandhi is doing almost an identical thread weekly, so do not want to steal his thunder. As I'm a OL nerd I'll try to post a weekly OL analysis instead.
POSITIVES
Sitting with the same feeling as after the Buffalo game. The Lions are one of the 3 best team on the schedule this season and a team, where we should be underdog, so objectively happy with result, but extremely disappointed in the way we lost. This was a winnable game, but we held the game close against arguebly the best roster and a top 5 team in the league. That is objectively a positive.
Defense struggled in the 1st half, but played overall well enough throughout the game. Holding a team like the Lions to 20 points is a W for the defensive roster. This defense is a all-or-nothing defense, because it seems it's either tackles for loss of giving up 10-15 yards a play. nothing in between. Special call-out to two newcomers on the team. Nicols and Wilson both look like good pick-ups.
Barton is the 5th OT on the roster. He got help with chips on Hutch, but overall played extremely well based on what could be expected from the 5th OT going against a DPOY candidate.
Garrett Williams is developing into a good player. Yes, he gave up plays to LaPorta and Amon St. Browns, but he was left on an island against All-Pro players all game and limited their impact.
The Lions is one of the most physical teams in the league and PJJ and Froholdt showed that they can compete with that level of quality. I'll come back to that later in the week, but both looked to have good games individually.
NEGATIVES
What was the most interesting in this game was, that it's two teams with the same philosophy on offense to the way NFL is played today. Defenses has evolved over the last 5 years with NFL becoming a passing league with rotating coverages and windows opening and closing:
Lions responded to that in the first half by beating the rotating coverages underneath and the defense had issues keeping tight coverages.
Petzing/Kyler didn't do very well to adjust to this. The Lions is one of the best run defenses in the league and took away the run game. They adjusted by forcing a lot of 50/50 balls to Marvin Harrison over the top. Where was the intermediate stuff underneath to McBride/Higgins? Where were the slants to Wilson?
After probably his best game of his career, Kyler was very average. It's wasn't bad. We do not know if it was Kyler or playcalling, but Kyler looked very average.
Cardinals lost the battle in the trenches. Our highly praised O-Line got shut down in the run game. Form my early analysis (will return later in the week) Brown and Hernandez didn't play very well. Harder to evaluate on the D-line, because the D-Line looked beat, but still opened gaps for the LBs.
The refs cost us a pick 6. Plain and simple.
