Shownotes
If you're wondering why the Lions looked completely lost against Green Bay and whether John Morton and Kelvin Sheppard can actually fix this mess before it derails the season, this deep-dive analysis will give you the roadmap.
We break down the brutal reality behind Detroit's coordinator overhaul - 10 new coaches, 3 new offensive line starters, and almost-zero preseason chemistry. You'll discover why Morton's conservative approach might actually be the right medicine (even if it stings), how Sheppard's player-to-coordinator leap compares historically, and the specific timeline for when this "gel" Coach Campbell keeps promising should actually materialize.
We're dissecting snap counts, PFF grades, and the statistical truth about teams starting 0-3 versus playoff hopes. Plus, you'll get concrete markers to watch for against Chicago and Baltimore that will tell you whether this championship window stays open or starts closing fast.
No panic. No false hope. Just the analytical breakdown Lions fans deserve to understand what's really happening - and what needs to happen next.
Join the Grey Manes community and get the insights that separate informed fans from the hot-take crowd.
🦁Join The Grey Manes Community🦁
✅ Official: https://www.thegreymanes.com/
✅ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGreyManes/
✅ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GreyManes
✅ X/Twitter: https://x.com/TheGreyManes
✅ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LionsGreyManes
Lions Grey Manes is produced by Chris Stone at https://CastAhead.net
Transcripts
Ladies and gentlemen, yes, it is go time. Welcome to Lions Gray Mains. This is our little corner of Lions fandom where we actually dig into the numbers before we start celebrating or panicking. Because let's get real. As lifelong Lions fans, we've all been burned by getting swept up in the hype before. My name is Chris stone. I'm@castahead.net and if you're one of those fans who wants to understand what's really happening with this franchise and beyond the surface level, bad hot takes and emotional roller coasters, then you're exactly where you need to be. And speaking of the place to be, my co pilot for this ride, the chief intelligence officer of Lions optimism, my man, Dr.
Chris Stone [:Brent Kreider, DBC. How are you doing, man? After Sunday? Do you need a hug?
Brent Crider [:I think we all could use a hug after Sunday, right? Sunday. Sunday was not what all of us Lions fans were expecting. I think our pregame predictions for the crew were all in favor of the Lions.
Chris Stone [:I think we were just a little off, man. Just a little.
Brent Crider [:A little off. Little off. But. But, you know, after analyzing everything, it wasn't a complete surprise, Chris. We absolutely were in a situation where the Lions, There were a lot of indicators as to why it would be the way it. It ended up playing out. A whole lot of. Whole lot of things to talk about today as we bake out.
Brent Crider [:How did we get from preseason expectations to post week one analysis? And there's a lot to. A lot to dig into here.
Chris Stone [:There is. There absolutely is. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the inaugural episode of Lions Gray Mains. And so welcome in. Thank you for being here. And I know there's a ton of Lions podcasts out there, but we feel like we're a little different. We're a little seasoned, you know, Lions, Lions fans, we've been around here for a while, and look, you know, we've been following as faithful fans for this team for many years. And Sunday's game against Green Bay, it wasn't just a loss.
Chris Stone [:Kind of felt like a masterclass of how not to start a season, right? But here's the thing. We're not going to sit here and scream into the void like many others do. We're kind of all past that. So we're going to break this thing down piece by piece until we understand exactly what went wrong and. And what it means, right? So just everybody just kind of chill, Just kind of, you know, pump the brakes a little bit, ease back, right? Put us up on that 4K screen. If you've got one. Listen, it doesn't mean you can't speak your mind. If you're pissed about this whole thing, go ahead, let us know, you know, if it makes you feel better.
Chris Stone [:And you can vent with DBC and me. In fact, we encourage it. The chat is open on everywhere we go live, and we want to hear from you and get your thoughts on what we're discussing. Brent. I mean, today we're going to pretty much dive a little bit deep into the packers debacle. Debacle. But I mean, I really kind of want to turn it to why this thing went wrong. Right.
Chris Stone [:The execution failures in what I like to call these growing pains that we've got with these coordinators. Right. And then maybe the elephant in the room that nobody wants to address are we watching this inevitable stumble that comes with overhauling your entire coaching staff. Right? Because we're. We're getting into this conversation about John Morton and Calvin Shepard and oh, man, they look so bad. They look so bad. You know, we thought that they were good, but maybe this isn't just about one bad game. Brent, what do you think? Is this about one bad game? Are we.
Chris Stone [:How.
Brent Crider [:What.
Chris Stone [:What's the leash that you're giving these guys? Two games, three games.
Brent Crider [:I don't think in the NFL there's much room for a leash.
Chris Stone [:Okay.
Brent Crider [:The Lions have arguably the best talent in the NFL when you go position by position. And I think in the near future we're going to break down the, you know, the Brad Holmes drafting history and how this team was built. But in truth, there's. There's not going to be a lot of time given the lion schedule have the second toughest schedule. And I was looking at who. Who evaluate schedules and I would argue the Lions have the toughest schedule percentage wise. There. There's one team that has a 2.2.2 easier of a schedule or harder of a schedule than the Lions.
Brent Crider [:And the Lions schedule is absolutely brutal at Kansas City. All of our at division games, which one was last weekend, we've got at Philadelphia, at Washington, and on and on and on at Kansas City. So there, there's not a lot of time to. To for the Lions to spend and get healthy. What I think we should talk about first is the coaching change that has happened on both the offensive coaching changes that have happened on both the offensive and defensive sides. First, kind of looking at the defensive side, Aaron Glenn. I remember three years ago vividly, fans were very upset with Aaron Glenn and wanted to fire Aaron Glenn.
Chris Stone [:I'm raising My hand. For those of you who are just listening to the audio podcast, I'm raising my hand because I was, you know, know, I, I will admit, you know, I'm Chris Stone and I am a AG hater by trade. So I'm just going to tell you that straight up. But go ahead, Brent.
Brent Crider [:Yeah, so the interesting thing is that Kelvin Shepard has been with the Lions the entire time of AG's reign. And, and I will, I will tell you, I was, I was one of those people that urged caution. Early days, Aaron Glenn, much in the same way I'm going to urge caution. Was I upset about the performance Sunday? I think when, when I'm watching the game and I'm saying tight, man to man, safeties are six yards off the ball and you get a corner with a, with a pick, touchdown. Easy play by NFL standards. Absolutely easy play. The, the, the adjustments that, that, that need to be made are going to be made this week. I, I know Dan Campbell well enough to know that we're gonna, we're gonna really dig in to all the details in practice and film study, ultimately come out with a better game plan.
Chris Stone [:Second, let me stop you there, because I think trust in Dan Campbell is, is key, right? I think, you know, it seems like every Sunday we forget about historical, you know, things here and, you know, when we heard mcdc talk, you know, the post game presser, and then earlier in the week with the second presser, he talked about mas missed assignments and he was all, he was like, this is fixable. We can do this, we can do this. Do you feel like, you know, we obviously have to trust him because he's turned, he's been a part of this. Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell have been a part of turning this franchise around. When he says things like, hey, this is fixable, yet you see things like Tate Ratledge go out and try to block and hit Jameer Gibbs, you know, and, you know, blocking air on plays and Glasgow and like, I'm not going to go through the PFF grade with, with Panay, which was. It was absolutely disappointing. When you look at that kind of stuff and you hear Dan Campbell kind of say that and he says this is fixable. What's your trust level On a 1 through 10, you say, Listen, 10.
Chris Stone [:I trust you, Dan. We're going to, we're going to do this. We're going to turn this around and we're going to turn this into the playoffs and, or number, number one, you should fire these guys and we should be looking for Other people to lead this, this offense and this defense.
Brent Crider [:Well, the naysayers I've heard over the past 24 hours, probably 36, 30, 24, 36 hours. They should fire Brad Holmes. They should get rid of Dan Campbell, fire offensive and defensive coordinators, pump the brakes, stop, you know, overreacting to a situation that I think is. Is. We've seen this in the past. We've seen the Lions struggle offensively. Three years ago, we saw Dan Campbell's response to that. And if staff corrections need to be made, I have no doubt in my mind Dan Campbell will make adjustments to the staff if necessary.
Brent Crider [:So. So from a confidence in Dan Campbell and his ability to manage the. And be a leader to the coaching staff, I give him a 10 out of 10 on the confidence scale. However, what, what is the. The primary issue here is the amount of time that it takes for a coordinator and players to get to know each other. The reality is they could be the best coordinators in the world or the worst coordinators in the world. That is going to take some time to dissect. I don't believe, knowing what Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell have done in terms of developmental planning, that these gentlemen are prepared and ready for these opportunities, both offensively and defensively.
Brent Crider [:We started with the defense and shepherd, he worked his way up very quickly.
Chris Stone [:Yeah, but.
Brent Crider [:But years ago, folks publicly were talking about how he was the smartest player they had ever coached. Early days in his coaching reign, he was. He was. People were talking about how he was going to be a head coach someday. So I don't. I don't doubt Shep's ability to coach this defense and make adjustments. I do believe that it's going to take us a few weeks to kind of flesh out some of the details. The question is, on the offensive side of the ball, can you score enough points to outpace what you would anticipate teams being able to do against a defense that's growing? We're missing a couple pieces.
Brent Crider [:Terry Arnold's injury, to be determined. You know, how bad his injury is. But. But we. We lost a corner in the preseason. Rake Stro. And we. We have.
Brent Crider [:We have depth at cornerback that I think we can overcome any issues that might come up from Terry and Arnold being out for a week or two. However, on the offensive side of the ball, there should be little reason why this offense can't put up big points. It is absolutely at the skill.
Chris Stone [:From a talent perspective.
Brent Crider [:Right? From a talent.
Chris Stone [:From a talent perspective, we know these. This is. This is outstanding talent, but I feel like a lot of Lions fans are looking at from this, from an offensive perspective and they say, you know, how can this happen, right? How do we have Amanra, how do we have Sam laporta? How do we have Jameson Williams, Jameer Gibbs? And it felt like all we were doing is just check down Charlie to, to Jameer Gibbs. But I think what people aren't understanding from an offensive standpoint is, you know, packers schematically came out. And by the way, ladies and gentlemen, the packers might be a pretty good team, right? So let's not, you know, let's not, let's not think like, oh, we should have come out and destroy them. Yes, we've won five of the last six. And you know, there is, there's, you know, there is that to look at. But credit the packers here.
Chris Stone [:They might be a pretty good team, right? So we're going to, we're going to, we're going to go Sunnyside up on, on that, on that perspective, but from an off, from a defensive perspective. And you touched on this with, with, with Calvin Shepherd. So I, when I look at that defense, I said immediately, like, what are you doing dropping Aiden Hutchinson in into coverage? What are we doing dropping Marcus Davenport into coverage in the first half? Even Derek Barnes, right? I mean, Derek Barnes is in, he considered a linebacker, but we all know his, his spot on the team is mostly for, for rushing. And there was just a lot of that happening, wasn't fooling anybody. And obviously the packers were matriculating and well, actually having big plays. And Terry on with it, with the groin, certainly wasn't able to do what he is capable of doing. But in the second half it changed. And so that gave me some optimism for Kevin Shepard and saying, okay, I'm making adjustments here.
Chris Stone [:There was some stops that happened for, for us in the second half and I felt like that was helping things. But Brent, when it came down to it, I think, you know, the difference is this team's bread and butter is the run game and we couldn't run the ball. In fact, we had the worst rushing performance ever in the Dan Campbell era this Sunday. So we haven't had that bad of a game since prior to Dan Campbell joining. And for those of you like us, who are a little bit longer in the tooth and longer in the gray beard, like our friend Mike Terry, who's backstage doing the analytics on all of this and the research for all of us, that is shocking because that is our bread and butter is lining up and being able to say, you know, What? It doesn't matter what down it is. It doesn't matter how many yards we have to go. We're going to run the ball on you and we're going to do that. The Frank Ragnow retirement, obviously, is a huge component of this.
Chris Stone [:The gelling of all of this is a huge component of this. And so my concern and a lot of people's concern are especially when Dan Campbell came out in the press conference and saying, hey, it's going to take some time for these guys to gel. Right? And I don't. I mean, he knows. He knows what he's talking about, of course. But if we look at the schedule and we're going to thegreymains.com, ladies and gentlemen, because, you know, this is what we do. This is our website. It is thegreymains.com and we do have the schedule up here.
Chris Stone [:And thanks to Dan Keener, who puts this together for us at the Gray Manes. Let's just look at this gauntlet that is the Lion's schedule. So how patient can we be, Brent, in this situation where we say, hey, Dan says, chill, we just got to give us some time for the offensive line to gel. How long are we giving them? Because we have a divisional game against The Chicago Bears. DeAndre Swift had some. Had some holes he was able to run. Caleb Williams, mobile quarterback, kind of causes some fits for a defense. Not necessarily worried about that, although DJ Morris always seems to kill us for whatever reason.
Chris Stone [:Just a fantastic wide receiver always seems to kill us offensively. Can we. Can we get this thing together against a guy, Ben Johnson? And let me pull in something from the chat here. So William Simpleton says, do you guys think our offense can. I'm sorry, what do you guys think our offense can do versus the Bears this week? Is it a Ben Johnson revenge game? And so taking that into respect, Brent, how. I mean, then you've got Baltimore after Chicago. So we go 0 2. The stats are not good for teams to make the playoffs if they go 03.
Chris Stone [:Right. So how long do we give this team for, you know, more specifically the offensive line to gel and say, okay, is it three weeks? Is it four weeks? Can we go, oh, and four, make the playoffs? I mean, that's really what we gotta start to look at. We look at the Cleveland Browns and we say, okay, well, that's a winnable game. But if we played like we did this past Sunday, I don't know.
Brent Crider [:What.
Chris Stone [:Are your thoughts there, Brent?
Brent Crider [:Yeah, you hit on a lot there. We talk about the preparedness for the next week, we'll dig into that more in just a couple minutes. We'll have some in depth analysis of the offense and why they struggled. We will look at the defense and why they struggled. But, but looking ahead of the schedule here, there's a. There's. There's a few things that the Lions have to their favor and obviously some things that aren't, you know, stacked in our favor. Number one, believe it or not, I think these first four games are arguably easier part of our schedule.
Brent Crider [:When you look at the Vikings, the commanders, the Eagles in a row, you look at Tampa. Excuse me. Yeah, Chiefs, Bengals, Buccaneers, etc. We've got six games in a row there from the Bengals down that are absolutely brutal. Yeah, absolutely brutal. So we have got to fix some things schematically before we can even talk about a win. So. So looking ahead here at the, at the Bears game and back to the question that William had.
Brent Crider [:William said that, that the right question, the right question is how do we get ready for this Bears game and prepare ourselves to win our first game? We've got to clean up on the offensive side of the ball. We've got to get the line down and we've got to get schematically the line prepared for this, this Bears game, the packers game was a disaster for our offensive line. I mean, there's some images on the, on the Gray Mains website. At least one image that is up there that shows the right guard in the center pulling to the right, the nose tackles unblocked, and you know, we're on the goal line, so we've got to clean that up. Second is. There you go. And second is, I did not like the Lions use of Gibbs and Montgomery. I really, I might be in the minority of Lions fans, but the, the truth of the matter is, is that Monty brings a physicality to football games that Gibbs does not bring.
Brent Crider [:Mon squats £700. Monty is a physical beast and can run through tackles. Gibbs is more finesse. Don't get me wrong, he's a very powerful running back. As evidence from him throwing down players on various plays, Pro bowl safeties for the Bucks last year. When he's crossing the goal line, he is absolutely a physical specimen. But it's like running your Ferrari into a traffic jam. We want.
Brent Crider [:I think the recipe for success is number one, fix the line play, make the adjustments. There's gonna. It's gonna take some time, but we gotta start with center, inside out blocking schemes, making sure that we're cleaning that up or we won't be able to run the ball again next week. Second is I really wish the Lions would go back to what was so successful in the third all time leading offense in the history in the of the NFL and scoring. And that was to have Monty to play the first coup, physically impose himself upon the defense and begin to wear that defense down a little bit. And then what happens when you bring Gibbs in, he's fresh and the defense is a little bit worn. So, so maybe get back to that approach that the Lions took all of last season until, until Monty was hurt with the knee injury and, and then third and I think most importantly when we haven't hit on this yet, but I think it's worth evaluating. 1/3 down in mid 8 yards.
Brent Crider [:The picture that was posted on the Grand Mains website shows all the receivers running vertical routes that there were no crossing routes, there were no intermediate routes. It was all vertical routes. And, and I would argue the route trees that we run next week have got to be better in this depending upon the situation. Situational football in the NFL is so important.
Chris Stone [:So that's.
Brent Crider [:And that's where.
Chris Stone [:Right.
Brent Crider [:That's absolutely on Morton.
Chris Stone [:Right, But I think, I think. Don't you think like, like this is all predicated on the run, right? I think they had assumed, hey, we're going to be able to not. Not get 2 yards of carry every time we're handing the ball to either Dmont or to. To jaw and, and we're going to be able to kind of think but we're in third and longs and you know, the, the packers were lining up listen again credits of the packers they came in with a scheme that we could not overcome. You know, it was like cover two, cover three and confuse these, confuse the center of. Of the line, stop the run and once you stop the run you don't have a mobile quarterback. And so this is, you know, you can't. It's not like you got Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen back there.
Chris Stone [:You know, they can, you know, busted play with three verticals and all of a sudden you have this open field. You know, Jared Goff can't do that kind of stuff. He can't outrun Micah Parsons at the end of the game, you know, trotting out to the sidelines so that Micah gets his first sack of the game. This is, you know, this is kind of like the stuff you, you learn and here's my concern Brent, is a lot of the stuff that we're talking with the interior of the offensive line in the run Game, which is really what I think is. Is the biggest concern for, you know, for us at this point after the game. There's a number of things, you know, but I think that that was the. That was the number one concern was. Was the run game.
Chris Stone [:And the only way I feel like you can get that, you know, done is reps, right? Is to get the reps with these. The interior, right, and Panay and Decker to a degree, but those are seasoned guys. But the interior, the center and the right and left guard, which is the newest part of Lions deal. And so this is where I think, you know, when it. When it comes to not just John Morton and not just Calvin Shepard, but. And this is a next year question, ladies and gentlemen, but the Lions preseason, no starters, right? I mean, I think Ratledge, you know, suited up, maybe played, you know, had had five snaps in the Falcons game. I don't know. I'm not looking at preseason snap counts, but I know it wasn't much.
Chris Stone [:Right. Tesla, obviously, was scoring every game. They felt like they needed to get him reps, all of that. But the interior offensive line, if you want those guys to gel, why are we not putting them out there? And why are we not putting them out there for a significant amount of time, right? It's not just like, I don't feel like if you're concerned about Glasgow and Mahogany and Ratledge getting the chance to gel, like, you're going to need to put them in some significant snap counts in the first and maybe second halfs of some of these preseason games so that by the time we get to week one, we're not doing this kind of stuff where guys are.
Brent Crider [:Are.
Chris Stone [:Are just. They're looking lost. And, you know, I feel. I felt almost a little bad when I saw the PFF grades and. PFF grades, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to. We're going to treat like PFF grades. You know, it. It is what it is.
Chris Stone [:But I think what are your. Let me turn this into a question for you, Ben Brent, because I felt like I'm been pontificating here, but this is a podcast, so, you know, and it's our show, so I can talk if I want to, but preseason do. And if you're looking backwards at the way Dan Campbell has treated preseason every single year since he's been here, do we need to start seeing these guys getting more reps in this pre. There's only three games now this year. There was four. We had the hall of Fame game, which was just a joke. Sorry, sorry. Roger Goodell, But I do you feel like we need more reps in the preseason? Is that going to help us gel so we don't come out so flat in week one?
Brent Crider [:Well, let's, let's look at Dan Campbell's coaching history as a matter of records. Dan Campbell over the last two seasons is, was 6 and 2, 3 and 1 two years ago, 3 and 1 last year. But I think all Lions fans would agree they didn't, they didn't come out as explosive as they proved to be over the course of the season. So, so with that you can debate next off season. What, you know, what approach do they take in the preseason. Maybe look at successful coaches like Jim Harbaugh who has won six opening games in a row in the NFL and see, you know what, what does he do to prepare the team for, for game one? Those I think those conversations are for the off season. But, but specifically for preparedness for next week. You, you hit on an important factor and I specifically for the run game.
Brent Crider [:But on the passing game, Jared Goff is never going to be accused of being Steve Young. Never, never going to be considered to be the an elite scrambler. Jared Goff is made by play action pass. So last year I believe his, his play action pass rates were like 36% play action and, and he was four points higher than the second place quarterback in terms of play design. So get that offensive line right, be able to impose your will from a run perspective and then I think that opens up the passing game for, for the Lions offense. So you know, in, in preparedness we're where we are now. Preseason doesn't matter. I think the Lions were hell bent on spending the preseason determining depth and figuring out who who in a situation where Glasgow maybe who's long in the tooth and I would argue he's probably seen his best days in the NFL.
Brent Crider [:DK and I go back and forth on this topic a lot.
Chris Stone [:It has nothing to do with the fact of the college that he went to. Right.
Brent Crider [:As well. I'm the guy that says I'm the guy that believe it or not he's defending him. He's in Ohio State guy and I'm a Michigan guy and I'm the one saying I think Glasgow has seen his best days. So but in the short term, meaning in the next two to three weeks before Frazier comes back, let's, let's hope that the time this week is spent on making sure that everybody understands their responsibilities along the front line. Working on getting, getting that group aligned, making sure that you're ready for next week's game plan, which is going to be a lot of run the ball play action short intermediate routes and the occasional long throw to, to JMO or leaf running vertical routes. If we're gonna. If we're gonna not protect golf, it's going to be a long day against the Bears. The Bears front seven is, Is pretty formidable.
Brent Crider [:We saw last night they got a little tired. And I do think that over the course of the game, the Lions can begin to impose their will on the Bears much in the same way the Vikings did. The other advantage that we have is it's a home game. The, the Lions are at home next week in front of a raucous crowd. And some of our friends from the, from the Slack channel that we chat with about the Lions every day are going to be there loud and proud. And so the Ford Field is going to be rocking. The effect of sound. You can't dismiss that in Green Bay yesterday.
Brent Crider [:It's nowhere close. I was at the packers game last year and it's nowhere close to Ford Field. So the home crowd has to bring. Bring the noise. Affecting the Bears offense. That's right. Affecting the Bears ability defensively.
Chris Stone [:I'll be there. I'll be there. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't live in Detroit. I am flying up from Atlanta to be there for the Bears game. And I know, like, this throat can do only so much, but I feel like this is going to be pretty polarizing, Brent. So like, if, if this team starts out hot, this crowd is going to be so into it, man. Full throat, right? As Al Michaels would always say it, I would always cringe when he would say that. But then I just went ahead and said it.
Chris Stone [:Like, the crowd is going to be so into it if they come out and really start to put it on the Bears. Right? You know, knowing that this is Ben Johnson, knowing that this is just like a divisional game, knowing that we just got smashed by the Green Bay packers and so we have to. We have to come back. So again, it goes back to that. That trust. And it also goes back to that, Listen, if we go 02 and we lose our first two games to a divisional, it almost feels like a game and a half, right? When you lose to a divisional opponent, almost feels like a game and a half. And so when you do that, that really. I mean, you thought, you thought yesterday was bad when you went to the Internet.
Chris Stone [:As a Lions fan, you wait until they lose to the Bears, ladies and gentlemen, this is going to be incredibly bad. And So I wanted to talk about this because our, our man Mike Terry has brought some, some great stats here. And I'm sorry, on the screen, we're going to try to, we're going to try to get this to where you can read it. That's my bad. I'm going to try to, to size this up so you can read it. And so I'll go ahead and read this aloud especially for our audio. Our audio only listeners. Teams that have made the playoffs.
Chris Stone [:After an chart, Here are the six teams. The 1981 New York jets finished 105 and 1 qualified for the AFC wild card. 1992 San Diego Chargers. This was before they were Los Angeles Chargers. Remember that?
Brent Crider [:Okay.
Chris Stone [:That wasn't that long ago. They finished 11 and 5, won the AFC West. The 1995 Detroit Lions, ladies and gentlemen, went 106 and qualified as an NFC wild card. Brent, do you know what happened to the Detroit Lions in 1995? You know what they did when they qualified?
Brent Crider [:Yeah.
Chris Stone [:Did they go to Washington and lose to Brad Johnson and the Redskins? Is that what happened?
Brent Crider [:It was, it was exactly right. The, it was very disappointing because I thought we were a better team in 1995. Herman Moore, Brett Pearman, Johnny Morton.
Chris Stone [:We had, we had John e. Barry, number 87. Not our current office.
Brent Crider [:That's right. And, and that defense was, was quite strong. We had a really good defense. But I mean the fact that only six teams in the history of modern football have started 0 and 3 and, and made the playoffs says a lot about what a large hill it is to climb. It's good to see that the Lions were one of the teams that did. It means it can be done. Yeah, but I do not want to find ourselves in a situation to where we are 0 and 3 and, and end up having to do that. So, so at the end of the day, going back to, you know, our discussion on what does the offense need to do, what does the defense need to do? We, we caught, we talked a little bit more about the offense at this point than the defense.
Brent Crider [:But I was impressed and you hit on this earlier. I was impressed by the Lions stopping the run until the point that they started to impose their will a little bit late. They started to line up because we had spent so much time on the field. And so to my point earlier about our ability to inflict pain and extend drives and inflict your will on the other team, the Lions need to get off the field. The Lions need to make sure that those third down conversions that the packers made on the first three Drives of the game time and again on the defense that, that we, we stop the, the Bears on those, those third down conversions early and often or we're going to find ourselves in a position to where the Bears will be able to stay in the game by converting third and longs. Now the Bears last night, if anybody watched the game, the Bears did that really well early. Yeah, really, really well. And, and I was impressed by Caleb's mobility and his ability to get out of the pocke.
Brent Crider [:We have to keep those, the discipline on the edges. But most importantly, we have got to put pressure on the quarterback. We got no pressure against the packers, absolutely none. So defensively we have to, we have to step it up in terms of our ability to get pressure. It starts with not putting Aiden Hutchinson out in coverage to be fair.
Chris Stone [:I mean that was, that was a handful of plays. I think, I think overarching. The fact that he only had one or two, two quarterback pressures in the entire game really is telling. I mean obviously they were going all in on stopping him. They were chipping them, they had double teams, but where were the other guys? Right? And I think this is, this plays into something that I wanted to, to touch on here, Brent. And this is, you know, because we, you know, listen, we're nerds. Every once in a while we're, we're going to, we're going to talk about numbers and these are snap counts, ladies and gentlemen. And so when we talk about offense versus Johnny Morton or John Morton, I can't say Johnny Morton and not think about number 87.
Chris Stone [:But John Morton and Calvin shepherd and you know, like what went wrong are our coordinators, you know, should we fire them? All of that stuff that happened this week, I mean like pump the brakes on, on, on both of them. But here's, here's what I really liked about the defense. If I can, if I can shine a little light on, on this. Listen, dude, if you give me that run defense all year long, I'm okay. I mean that's, Josh Jacobs is one, still one of the best running backs in the NFC and top 10 running back in the NFL. That is still a really good running team and we pretty much shut them down in terms of run now. You know, I think had our offense been what we had hoped them, you know, like they were last year, we would have, you know, hopefully outscored them and it would have been of, you know, you know, whatever 32, 27 game or whatever it would have been. But if you look at these snap counts, Brent, what kind of jumps out at you in terms of, you know, of course we're going to see the safeties, you know, at 100%.
Chris Stone [:Of course we're going to see Anzalone. You know, he's going to be in every. I like the. Jack Campbell played the entire game. DJ Reed didn't have a fantastic game, but, you know, was, was decent. Amik obviously got more reps because Terry on and the, and the groin. But to me, here's what jumps out at me. D.J.
Chris Stone [:reader. So D.J. reader with 37 snaps, 77% of the defensive snaps is D.J. reader. I'm sorry, ladies and gentlemen, as much as I love DJ Raider and he did a fantastic job, you can't have that large of a gentleman in 77% of the defensive snaps. And that makes me worried. That absolutely helped the run defense, right? And I know we've got Makai Wingo and we've got some of these other guys that we hope will get healthy and kind of, kind of come back, but that felt a little bit, you know, Reader had more snaps than Davenport. I really liked what I saw from, from Ty Leak.
Chris Stone [:I thought Tylee, I mean, in looking at the film, I thought Williams had, you know, so definitely some, some, some great snaps there. So I feel optimistic there about this. But you talked about this earlier, Brent. The, I mean, we just, we just are not getting to the, to the quarterback. And so, you know, I love Roy Lopez, he's great. But like the, can we not get an interior defensive line that can get some pressure to the quarterback, you know, not just the run stuffers. And then finally when we look at the snap count at the very, very, very bottom, who do we have showing showing up with only three snaps but the lone touchdown of the game? The rookie from Arkansas, Isaac Tesla. And I just, can we just play this over and over and over again on loop, Brent? And for our audio only listeners, we're showing the Isaac Tesla touchdown.
Chris Stone [:Absolutely fantastic catch. Even if for whatever reason that left heel didn't come down in the end zone there just, I mean, listen, this guy needs more reps, right? He absolutely needs more reps. And then so what we're, what we're going to pull up here is a quote from Dan Campbell's press conference. He said we really wanted to try to get him involved last week, but then he got sick and missed a lot of practice. So we didn't feel comfortable trying to load him up with stuff. But certainly we'd like to get him more. What do you think about Isaac Tesla? Is that our wide receiver 3. Are we just like, listen, I know he plays outside, he plays inside.
Chris Stone [:Like, there's all kinds of stuff that we can do with this guy, but it just seems like, Brett, every time we put Isaac Tesla in this offense in the preseason, in Game 1, he's. He's coming down with a touchdown. So what are we doing?
Brent Crider [:Well, I think part of the debate that was going on during the game Sunday was why is Khalif Raymond not returning kicks? Why. Why do we have.
Chris Stone [:I think it was Mike returning kicks brought that up. Yeah.
Brent Crider [:And so, you know, to Mike's credit, he raised the question. And, And I, I would argue that by. By having Leaf be that your third wide receiver, then they're not going to have him out there returning kicks. So. So Mike Terry, you know, thanks for calling that out on Sunday. The most important thing for the Lions is special teams was disappointing. The. The packers had a number of long returns.
Brent Crider [:So let's. Let's get Leaf out there. Let's get. Get. Let's get the special teams fixed this week because the Lions special teams FIP is a great coach and he has all the ability to have a top special teams unit in the NFL, both for kick returns, punt returns, punt and punt return. So. So there's no reason why we had such a poor showing last week. So as Tesla goes, make Tesla the third receiver.
Brent Crider [:Put your best players that you can that are not want, you know, the, The. The starters out there and get. Get Leaf back returning kicks. Get. Get. Get your best players in position to be able to make plays. And, and so, you know, that opens up the Lions offensively to be able to get Tesla more involved in the games by making him the third string. Just go ahead and you drafted him in the third round.
Brent Crider [:He was, he was the most impressive player in the preseason, as you said, scoring touchdowns every play. And frankly, the worm was. Was my favorite touchdown celebration probably that I've seen in years. A perfect form worm for. For Tesla when he scored that touchdown in the. In the preseason. So, so get him out there more. And, and that gives you another option on an already stacked offense.
Brent Crider [:So you. You go from, you know, the best offense in the NFL minus a running quarterback, the. The running game, the receivers, our offensive line is going to develop. It's going. You know, Chris and I had a debate about this over the weekend, and, and look, Frank Ragnow, I hope he calls the Lions tomorrow, says I'm coming back down this.
Chris Stone [:Put down the northern pike, put down the sturgeon, put down the walleye and Put on some pads, Frank, we need you.
Brent Crider [:Yeah, but short of that, I do believe that we're going to get Frazier back here in a few weeks and allow him to develop much in the same way that we've got the Georgia Guard developing.
Chris Stone [:But doesn't Frazier need time to gel, too?
Brent Crider [:Absolutely.
Chris Stone [:We don't have time. I mean, I think that, I think the stats are. Listen, I want to, I want to trust these guys because for the last three seasons, they've proved me wrong. Because I think as Lions fans and those of you who are here in the chat and thank you for, for, for joining us. We've got a ton of folks. We've been popping them on, you know, Amy, Mike, Wanda, the two fan, William Spider Mike. There's a ton of folks that are chiming in here. If you've been a long, long standing Lions fan like us, you don't know what it's like.
Chris Stone [:It was like, even last year, like, I don't. How can we, how do we go 15 and 2, right? This is like the greatest lion season ever. And so you just can't, you can't have seasons like that every single year. I mean, look at, look at these other teams. They just don't. You just have to understand, like, it's, things are going to, you know, ebb and flow and it's just week one. Okay. It's just week one.
Chris Stone [:Let's give it another weak. Can we now my, my leash. Or, or my. Maybe leash is the wrong word, Brent. But listen, if we show up this weekend versus Chicago and our offense looks like our offense did against Green Bay, I am, my concern level is nine. It just is like, you can't, you can't show up. First two weeks, divisional game and just like, like there's not, I mean, there's not a lot of excuses here, you know, unless there's, you know, injuries or whatever. So, you know, there's, there's a lot of vitriol out there.
Chris Stone [:There's a lot of hot takes. And, and so I, I, I have a video that I'm going to play and hopefully, and hopefully we won't get. I've got some surprises here, Brent.
Brent Crider [:You like that?
Chris Stone [:Like, you didn't know this stuff was coming, did you?
Brent Crider [:You? I, I know you better. I know you better. I, I knew, I knew something was coming. Exactly. Exactly.
Chris Stone [:And so this is kind of the, this is kind of the way I felt, I don't know, late Monday afternoon when after I, I let the Internet kind of take over and, and I finally Felt this way. And this is, uh, this is Alex Anzalone, uh, post game interview, uh, in, uh, in the locker room. A lot of you have probably already seen this is Thor calling us stupid.
Brent Crider [:Well, I think we haven't put it in this context yet, Chris, but let me, let me kind of bring this full circle. There's three components here that we're talking about. One is the players, two is the coaches, and three is the scheme. So, so in, in the end, the players, I, I talked about this early. Roster wise, I'd love to do a, do a segment on our roster and the job that Brad Holmes has done and putting together arguably the best roster in the NFL. Secondly is the coaches. We know Dan Campbell. We believe in Dan Campbell.
Brent Crider [:Well, most of us believe in Dan Campbell. And then there's the question about the coordinators and are they ready for. And have they gelled? Have they, you know, have. Do they have the team prepared schematically to play football? And we talked a lot about the breakdowns in scheme and execution, and that's got it. That's got to improve this week. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, no doubt. Because what's, what's at play here is I've never seen a coach take a snap, throw a pass, score a touchdown, kick a field goal, return a kick.
Brent Crider [:Right. We have players, playmakers all over the field. There are some developmental issues, as we were just alluding to, with the offensive line. One of the most raging debates over the past two weeks has been defensive end, outside linebacker edge, our lack of depth at rushing the quarterback. We haven't even hit on that yet. But to that point, we have an issue with getting to the quarterback. And we blitzed a lot. We didn't get to the quarterback very often until the second half, a couple times.
Brent Crider [:But I'm of the opinion that interior of the offensive line and our ability to put pressure on the quarterback remain our two biggest liabilities. And so all those folks I saw saw, you know, another podcaster melting down, which was completely understandable about our inability to put pressure on the quarterback. You know, post the packers trading for Micah Parsons and not resigning our player from last year who signed with the Eagles, unfortunately. But. But our inability to put pressure on the quarterback is going to be. Unless Hutchinson just explodes like he did last year. Four sacks in a game, continuous pressure on the quarterback. He.
Brent Crider [:It's going to be a real problem for the Lions. And thanks, Mike. I know his name. I was intentionally not saying it. Our research guy, Mike, is flicking the names of Darius here, and I Intentionally was saying the guy from last year because.
Chris Stone [:Well, go ahead and say his name because it's always good for ratings.
Brent Crider [:Yeah, Darius Smith. But the bottom line is that we don't have Zadarius Smith. Sedarius smith is now 33 years old and if you're forced to rely upon, I think Brad Holmes believes this forced to rely upon 33 year old who didn't have, didn't do anything in the preseason much. You know, like Micah Parsons. There's a lot of question marks about him and his not taking any snaps in the preseason or getting prepared for the season. So. So at the end of the day, Holmes is, is hitching his cart to Hutchinson and the, the young folks that have been brought in and, and so they have got to show up this week. Crowd's going to be nuts.
Brent Crider [:Adrenaline is going to be high. We've got to put pressure on the quarterback and we've got to shore up that interior of the offensive line or it's going to. Unfortunately it's going to be eerily similar to what happened this past weekend, I believe. Can we do it 100%? 100%. But it's going to take a lot of work this week. I, I have, I have a feeling listening to the good ball coach Motor City Dan Campbell mcdc talk yesterday he was hoarse. You could tell he's exhausted. He was probably up all night in the training facility.
Chris Stone [:Nobody feels.
Brent Crider [:Yeah, yeah, he, you could, you could sense in his voice that he hadn't slept and he said we are going to, we are going to get this right. Is it this week? Was, was the original question you asked back quite a few minutes ago, but is it this week? Can we hold up against the Bears and shore up those two main areas of concern? That that is going to be the, the game within the game. Can we put pressure on their quarterback? And we saw how mobile Caleb was last night and so we need to be able to contain those ends, put pressure from the edge as well as protect up the middle so that those play action passes and the running game can get going with Monty and Gibbs. Those are the two main points.
Chris Stone [:The key is the running game. I just, I can't be, you know, like if we don't run the, I mean what did we run for 45 yards? You know that it's something like that. And you know Gibbs with, with 10 catches and 31 yards. I mean it's, we can't, you can't win games like that. You know, it's not like we had a ton of Turnovers or anything like that. It's just they just had, had, had us out. Schemed. I do want to.
Chris Stone [:I do want to. You know, this, this is why you're the Chief intelligence Officer of Lyons. Optimism, Brent. Like you, you're. You're making me feel so much better. Like we're just going to, to waltz into Ford Field on Sunday and just smash the Bears. But I think, yeah, I think we're somewhere in the middle, obviously.
Brent Crider [:What did I say, though? I said if.
Chris Stone [:Right, right, right.
Brent Crider [:There's no guarantee that if that's true.
Chris Stone [:That's true. We're just not used to losing all of a sudden. Right. We only lost technically three games last season. You know, the two in the regular season and obviously the loss of the Commanders in the playoffs. And so, so we're not used to that. And then the last thing we had was a loss. And now we have a loss in the first part of the season against a divisional opponent.
Chris Stone [:And I think that really, you know, exacerbates the emotions here for us. And so it's tough for us to go, ah, you know, everybody comes in, new season, hope springs eternal. We gotta, you know, you know, all these great guys and it's like, oh, our coordinators, you know, they blow. We gotta fire them and all of this stuff. And so what I want to do is I want to show this post and this, you know, shout out, out to Timothy Ray, brandon. This is @t brandon84. And this is a. This is a great stat that I think is important for us to realize.
Chris Stone [:The Lions are 7 and 11 in the first four games of the season under Dan Campbell. 7 and 11 in the first four Games under Dan Campbell. With a 2 and 3 record. In week one, all three of the Lions offensive coordinators have lost their debut, and we were down multiple scores during those week one games. He says they will figure it out and get things fixed. I sure hope they do because we can't afford to go.03 per the statistics brought by our man Mike Terry backstage. And speaking of, we've got some more stats here. He, Josh Jacobs rushed for 84 yards on 16 carries.
Chris Stone [:And I think in the first half, I don't. I don't know the numbers, but in the first half, it just didn't feel like Josh Jacobs could do anything. But it didn't matter because, you know, they were. There was, you know, that one drive where it was all like, hey, let's pick Ontarion Arnold and throw two long passes and, and, you know, obviously they scored relatively quickly. But I felt like we had Josh Jacobs under wraps for the most part. In the second half he got a little bit more yardage, but it didn't seem to be as effective for the packers overall. We just couldn't do anything on offense, couldn't run the ball. And that's really, you know, how that, how that played out.
Chris Stone [:So, Brent, as we're rounding third here and I know a lot of these conversations that have happened today and you know, all over the interwebs are related to John Morton and are related to Calvin shepherd. And if we're looking at John Morton and his history and where he's come from, and obviously he was a part of this team a few seasons ago and then went to some other teams and has been around part of the tree with Sean Payton and some others and has always been known as a guy who's first in the building study. He's really head down on a lot of film and a lot of that. Yet historically with other teams he has shown to be conservative with his play calling. Right. A lot of people are seeing what he did on Sunday and saying, well, yep, that's what you get with John Morton. And then everybody says, well, with Ben Johnson, you're going to get the high flying flea flickers and all of the hook and ladders and all the fun stuff that we saw over the last couple years that Ben had inserted into our offense. And I know there was a question that somebody asked Dan Campbell in Oppressor, hey, when are we going to see some of that, you know, that we, that we saw in it? I was like, I think, I think it was that the question that Campbell was like, really? And then he answered it.
Chris Stone [:I, you know, it's just sort of like, I can't believe that I was even asked at this point. We just need to make sure we're blocking on run plays and then we can worry about hooking ladders maybe when we solve, when we, when we solve that. But I just, I feel like I'm giving John Morton maybe a couple of weeks before I start to really, really be concerned about this. Because to your point, Brent, you talk about the talent we have, we have Pro Bowlers all over this roster on the offensive side of the ball. And if we can't block for our running backs and we can't protect Jared Goff, which, by the way, the protection was actually okay for golf. Golf actually had some time in the pocket. They just were not open looks and that's why he was checking down so much. But in terms of Coordinators, I feel a little more optimistic about our defense, especially from a run perspective.
Chris Stone [:I don't. I don't see DeAndre Swift doing a bunch of stuff on Sunday. I just think we got to contain Caleb if he starts to, you know, spaz. And after two, after two reads, he's. He's out and running. So maybe we spy him a little bit. If we could kind of wrap this up, Brent, and kind of talk about how we, as Lions fans should feel about our coordinators, more specifically John Morton, because I think he's getting most of the heat after, after Sunday. Is this a player issue? Is this a John Morton issue? Should we be highly concerned if in Chicago we see the same kind of offensive output?
Brent Crider [:Well, I think there is. There's reason to be concerned about John Morton. John Morton is a career assistant except for one year an offensive coordinator with the New York Jets. And in that one year, what John Morton did with that jets offense is what he should have done on Sunday with the Lions offense. He ran. He ran a lot of crossing routes, short digs, outs, ins, et cetera. And so the reality is that it was a version, a variation of the west coast offense. And what I saw on Sunday was an entirely different set of plays by design.
Brent Crider [:And we had heard all preseason that there were going to be many more deep opportunities. I just didn't realize it was going to be on so many plays and so many receivers going deep. And so I have more concern, too, about the offense. And so what I would, what I would say is we're going to learn a lot about, about Dan Campbell's influence on John Morton this week and John Morton's ability to adapt the offense based upon what, what the defense is giving them. Now, we both, we both acknowledged that the first half the packers had nine guys in the box. There were a number of times where the either. And, and we debated this, whether the Lions should have audibled into a play action, pass into. Into other plays.
Brent Crider [:Because anytime a defense has eight, nine guys in the box, anybody that's ever watched the NFL knows that you don't run into that. You just. You just don't. Especially when you're playing, you know, three receiver sets or, or having. Having the players spread all over the field, you have to take advantage of the schemes that the defense is giving you.
Chris Stone [:Do you feel like they feel like they felt confident because that's what they were able to do last season? I mean, with our offensive line, with, with Frank and with Glasgow in his more most comfortable, you know, position, like in Zeitler, which we haven't brought up his name at all. And, you know, like, if there's a stack box, don't you feel like we could still get what we needed to get maybe last season? And then they felt like they felt confident in these guys enough to where. Okay, you know what? Still. Still call that, or are we looking at players that showed up unprepared? Like, like, I feel like this is, this is my take on, on this. If this happens a consistent amount of weeks with Morton, they. That team look unprepared when they showed up Green Bay. And that goes to coaching. You know, obviously Dan's going to take the responsibility for that, but, you know, the coordinators and the position coaches need to take some responsibility there as well.
Chris Stone [:Like when golf comes up to the line and he sees a stack box, eight, nine guys. Last season, I mean, there were times where he could say, you know what? We can still do this. But this season's not last season. We don't have Frank Ragnow, we don't have Glasgow in the right in the position, and we don't have, you know, Zeitler. So I think that's my. That's really my concern. And so then maybe they need to come to, you know, grips with this and kind of say, you know, like you said, let's check out of that. Let's.
Chris Stone [:Let's. Let's figure out other ways to do this. Let's communicate more properly. And maybe Brent being at home where the crowd is not going to be loud when they're at the line of scrimmage like it was in Green Bay, and they can communicate better, make sure that they got the right assignments, make sure that you don't have Tate Ratledge running out and blocking Jameer Gibbs in the back and swinging to air and things like that, and really increase that communication in gel and who knows, Brent, like, maybe next week at this time, we just feel like we're back, we're in the Super Bowl, We're. We're going to win the division and it's all rainbows and unicorns. I don't know.
Brent Crider [:Well, 36% play action tells us that there's got to be more emphasis on the play action, pass and circumstances where the defense is loading the box. Yeah, that, that's, that's. We're going to see very quickly on Sunday what's going to happen in Johnny Morton's world here as it relates to how did you adjust to what the defense is trying to take away from you? So, so you Know, I'm really excited to see how the Lions respond. The energy that they come out with, it was almost like the, the players were out there just sort of participating in the game. The packers played with passion. The Lions didn't adjust, adjust the interior of the offensive line, making sure that they, that you know, we're blocking defensive players instead of Lions running backs and then the, and then the ability defensively to first and foremost stop the run and. Thanks, Mike. Terry Jacobs had 8 yards rushing in the first half and, and so stop the run.
Chris Stone [:There you go.
Brent Crider [:And make sure schematically that you've got your safeties taking away DJ Moore and, and Chris, you, you, you talked about it last night. Is he, is he injured so bad that he'll be out next week? And then replay showed that the, the safety did a great job coming across and striking. He was just maybe had the wind knocked out of him a little bit because he came back into the game. But DJ Moore over the top should concern us. And so Kirby and Branch have to be able to take away those, those routes from, from the Bears or we run the risk of what happened with the Packers. Put pressure on, on Caleb, making sure that you got some over the top coverage on DJ on those long routes. And then I think the rest of it, you know, Jack Campbell, Anzalone matching up with their tight ends and taking away the running game. It's a game that the Lions.
Brent Crider [:And we'll, we'll of course post our predictions for the scores and what we think is going to happen this weekend. But, but if they, if they don't make those adjustments, it's going to be a long Sunday for the lions and I'm Mr. Optimistic.
Chris Stone [:Yeah.
Brent Crider [:Yeah.
Chris Stone [:I was going to say that's, that's pretty pessimistic for, for the chief intelligence officer of, of Lion's optimism. I think I just gave you three different titles. But Brent, this has been amazing. For those of you who have joined us along the way, we really appreciate you, you supporting us. We, we'd love to, you know, have you. Every time we go live, I will say, let me make mention to my good buddy, Dr. James Hicks will be waiting for you. Week 16 when you play my Steelers.
Chris Stone [:I think Hicks will have this thing gelled and figured out by then if we don't have 16 defenders on, on IR. So ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being a part of our inaugural Gray Mains show. My name is Chris. That is Brent. You can call him DBC on the side when you see him at Lions games and we'll see you next time. And as always. Go Lions!
Brent Crider [:Go Lions!
