A Lions Fan's Perspective

[Faceplant]

I've heard that Jim Schwartz has a clammy limp handshake .

Its those limp wrists of his.....

 

[Selassie I]

Ahhhhh yes,,, I see :mrgreen:

 

[Angry Ram]

I have begun to watch KC @ STL. Haven't been able to get through all of it because my dad is a Rams fan and I pretty much have to watch it with him (not going to watch it by myself and then re-watch it later with him, it is a preseason game after all). And my dad goes at his own pace, so here we are. I'm at the part where Isaiah Pead (spelling?) just got his first TD and it's 24-10. Sadly I have not yet gotten to see Austin Davis' follow-up performance.


Still though I've seen a lot, and so I'm here to give you my opinion as an outsider.

So, where to begin? It looks like last week @ IND the whole team passed around hits of Sam Bradford's painkillers before the game, and now this week it looks like the whole team cooked up 10 gallons of smelling salt in a cauldron and manically inhaled it all in some kind ritualistic rave.

Bradford looked great on the first drive, you obviously don't need an outsider to tell you that much. On the second drive he threw the ol' Bradford ball, you know, where he puts it where either no one can get to it or only the WR can get to it. Also the deep ball that was way off was a bit concerning. I started going on to my dad about the whole deal with how Bradford is too cautious and doesn't attempt to fit it into tight windows, and then on the 4th & 2 he sticks it into Amendola's gut.

So as far as the Rams' first offense goes, it's certainly the old "not as good as today but not as bad as last week."

But I really have to say that Bradford to me is an enigma. In the few games in his entire career where I was truly watching him closely, I think he must've had one TD drive in total (2010: @DET, @SEA, 2011: @NYG, vsBAL, @SEA). I saw in him a Blaine Gabbert type of situation where, yes, he keeps the TD:INT ratio above 1, but simply is the type of QB who cannot drive the ball down the field, which makes him too reliable on sustaining long drives, and it just takes one 3rd and long to wipe out any chance of scoring.

So there's that part of what I know of Bradford. But in this game vs KC he was able to make some throws that many QBs cannot make, he was able to put some zip on the ball, and he was able to drive the ball down the field (although one of the drives was only 30 yards).

But I mean, we already knew he had the tools, seeing as how he is a #1 overall. So I say that he is an enigma because I really cannot see where he has either a floor or a ceiling. I see no limit to how bad or how great he can possibly become, because let's face it, he has shown both. Now some, or all, of you won't like me saying that, but I am being honest when I say that is truly a far better situation than having a QB who shows neither. You don't draft a QB #1 to be average—you draft him to be either a JaMarcus Russell or a Peyton Manning, and I think it is legitimate to say that Bradford truly can go either way. And it will happen this season. He is entering that 30-game range where you know what you have in a QB.



It's really hard for me to say he is a boom or bust, and nothing in between, because at times he looks quite average. And yet he shows things sometimes that you don't see out of other QBs, and then other times he becomes a checkdown machine and that is a bit of a red flag. But as I said, this guy is not a noodle-armed guy with a low ceiling. It is up to how much drive he has in him to become great and how well he can handle the circus that is the life of a starting QB in this league.



So in summary I have regained a small amount of faith in Bradford after this game. He will definitely need to follow this up next week with another solid performance.

Err. JaMarcus Russell? Really? Saying that Bradford could end up going JaMarcus Russell would mean that Bradford would have to be a lazy, douche bag thug that wouldn't give 2 shits about getting better. If Bradford phases out of the league, it'll be b/c of lack of support from WRs and/or OL and/or coaches.

 

[-X-]

I've heard that Jim Schwartz has a clammy limp handshake .

Lol. I can totally see that. :lol:



Sent via Tapatalk2.

 

[Iron Lion]

Firstly I'd like to say that I'm trying to avoid talking about Stafford, Schwartz, and the Lions at this time. It'll be an appropriate topic after the final preseason game. This is the Rams forums and it's a thread about the Rams. I mention I'm a Lions fan here only because we will be playing each other in week 1. In fact, that is why I'm visiting you guys to begin with (I like to spend some offseason time with the Lions' week 1 opponents). And before anyone asks... no, I'm not a bandwagon fan. I've been a fan since 1995 and I suffered through the Millen years.


Now on to the Rams...

Not sure why "checking down" is supposed to be a red-flag. That would be built into the offense and be a directive from the coordinator on down to the qb coach to the qb. We know Shottenheimer stresses keeping the chains moving and throwing quick. Bradford has talked about that--meaning, he has talked about the fact that Brian S stresses those things.

(Actually, in terms of that, 1 complaint about Bradford in 2011 was that he held the ball too often waiting for a receiver to do something. That was in the McDaniels offense)

When it comes to a ball control offense, there are of course myriad reasons for doing that, including finding an offensive attack that accounts for the OL and the youth of the receivers.

Stafford came to a team that already had Calvin Johnson and a veteran OL. Bradford has never really had the receivers and the OL was only healthy one of 2 seasons.

I guess this is sort of going to fly in the face of what I just said, but I do now need to bring up my Lions. I say that checking it down is a red flag because that's what our Joey Harrington did. All he ever did was check it down. He didn't have an insane amount of INTs that got all his coaches fired—it was his inability to drive the ball down the field and produce points. And that starts with checking it down.

To say that the OC is giving directives to check it down is something I have never heard in my life. It is a misconception that something like the West Coast offense is nothing but a dink and dunk philosophy... the West Coast offense is merely a system that utilizes short passes in lieu of rushing the ball, but it does not take deep passes out of the playbook.

Let me be clear here. A 7-yard pass to a WR is not a checkdown. I'm talking about throwing it to the RB for 3 yards on 3rd and 10. That's not acceptable. It is why Joey got ousted from Detroit.

If you now want to say that Bradford held it too long last year... I don't know about that. That's just not something I've seen.


Anyways... I got a chance to finish the game. Actually I only went to around halfway through the 4th quarter. Other than my Lions preseason games, I very rarely ever finish a preseason game. I would've finished this one had they left Austin Davis in there the whole time.

Davis looked shaky at first. He had a screen pass that looked pretty bad, although it was caught. But then on the second drive he looked like what we saw last week. He was hitting guys in the intermediate-to-deep range, which is excellent for a guy at his stage of development.

He had the one pass to the TE that was kind of behind the TE who was running the other way, but it was caught and was on target enough. Also looking at the replay I don't know if he could have thrown it in front of the TE because of the LBs sitting underneath. I'd have to look at this play more in depth to say if it was a bad throw or not. But overall I still say he looks very good for a #3.

I really hate how so-called "analysts" do nothing more than just look at the numbers. I have no idea what Austin Davis' completions or yards are, but I do know that he's got 0 TD to 1 INT, and so there is no analyst (other than Faulk and the gang) who will know anything about this kid.

I wasn't watching much more than Austin Davis and the Chiefs' QB #12 guy, so I don't have much more to say. Some side notes: I liked the outro-to-commercial music that they're rocking there on the RBN. Also my dad is wondering if Jeff Fisher will shave the bottom of his beard so he matches the Fisher mustaches they'll be passing out. At this rate, Fisher is looking like he might finish last in a Jeff Fisher look-alike contest. :ww:

 

[Iron Lion]

Addendum:

The "JaMarcus Russell or Peyton Manning" comment was not meant to literally compare Sam to either player. I can see how you inferred what you did, since in some sense JaMarcus is more notorious for being fat and lazy than he is for being a bust. And I guess Leaf is more notorious for flying off the handle and being a drug-addicted criminal than he is for being a bust. I'm not making any such insinuation with Sam... all I mean to say is that he could be out of football in a few years, or he could be of the caliber of something like Donovan McNabb in his good years (again, forget the part about him being McFlabb at the end).

So that's all I'm trying to say. And of course Bradford's name could never be as bad as what JaMarcus or Leaf left out there. Even if Bradford just implodes for the rest of his career, he still had that rookie year, which is something JaMarcus or Leaf never came close to.

My Joey Harrington was and is a nice guy, never had any kind of controversy or anything about him. In fact he is a philanthropist. That being said, I'd lump him in with JaMarcus and Leaf. He simply sucked, and he was out of the game of football several years ago. By comparison, David Carr is a bust and even he is still collecting NFL paychecks (Carr was the #1 and Joey was the #3 in the same class).

 

[Anonymous]

To say that the OC is giving directives to check it down is something I have never heard in my life. It is a misconception that something like the West Coast offense is nothing but a dink and dunk philosophy... the West Coast offense is merely a system that utilizes short passes in lieu of rushing the ball, but it does not take deep passes out of the playbook.

Let me be clear here. A 7-yard pass to a WR is not a checkdown. I'm talking about throwing it to the RB for 3 yards on 3rd and 10. That's not acceptable. It is why Joey got ousted from Detroit.

If you now want to say that Bradford held it too long last year... I don't know about that. That's just not something I've seen.

Actually one tiny mini-controversy floating around Bradford is that he DOESN'T check down. Some guys on a different board went so far as to post pics of the 2nd and 1 play at 1:21 in 1st quarter where he throws one long to Smith but has Jackson and someone else uncovered underneath for the first down. That echoes a complaint that would show up now and then in 2011.

Yes there was a complaint last year that he held it too long. He himself chalked that up to pressing, trying to make plays when things were falling apart (like the OL). That's simply true--that complaint existed. I see it as a justifiable complaint, under the circumstances, but then I also didn't see it as an indictment of Bradford. Just a growing pain thing in a bad year--with the understanding that what made the year bad was a lot of other things outside the qb's control. Anyway that one minor 2011 complain had to do with McDaniels more than anything, IMO--that offense functioned differently than both Shottenheimer's and Shurmur's. Which in turn are different from each other.

What the coordinator would be stressing there is a couple of things. First play design would dictate a lot. Second both Shurmur and Shottenheimer emphasize quick rhythms and unloading quickly. Brian's plays are more aggressive, but then he had the receivers and Shurmur didn't. It also has to do with how a guy is coached to go through his reads. Bradford himself said as a rookie that he would look at the primary and then check down--that's what he was coached to do as a rookie who had a running back but not a running game (Jackson was not himself in 2010 cause of injuries). He himself said he was not very advanced in reading defenses as a rookie and that it was something to wanted work on. At the same time that offense was designed to move the chains and keep things in safe mode because they had no receivers and yet were destined to be 3rd in the league in passing attempts. To make all those things work together with a rookie qb, there wasn't a strong emphasis on going through progressions and looking for the medium shots etc. It was look once, check down. That's how it was set up for him. But, again, that was as a rookie and under Shurmur. McDaniels was a completely different deal.

So whether the actual words "coordinator tells qb to check down" are relevant or appropriate or not, that's just phrasing---the facts are that it's true a young qb's performance on those things are a direct result of a coordinator's vision. If the coordinator wants the ball out quick and designs plays meant to foster that, then, yeah, throwing short is then key to the offense. Heck whole offenses have been built around that with veterans, like the Warner Cardinals and the Ryan Falcons.

It's a fact, though, that Bradford played differently under McD than he did under Shurmur. There's lots of indications that under Shottenheimer, it is different yet again.

 

[Iron Lion]

Well you're a Rams fan so I will defer to you here. If you say it's consensus that Bradford held it too long last year, I'll accept that as fact.

 

[Anonymous]

Well you're a Rams fan so I will defer to you here. If you say it's consensus that Bradford held it too long last year, I'll accept that as fact.

I don't know if it was consensus, cause we're talking about a hometown fav qb, and sometimes, people see different things.

But yes he got criticism for holding it. It happened, it was there, though I don't know if anyone would consider it a repeated common flaw. Anyone who put up a vid of all his sacks would come up with plays where that happened. And in fact, often the complaint was that he WASN'T seeing the checkdowns.

 

[Angry Ram]

Addendum:

The "JaMarcus Russell or Peyton Manning" comment was not meant to literally compare Sam to either player. I can see how you inferred what you did, since in some sense JaMarcus is more notorious for being fat and lazy than he is for being a bust. And I guess Leaf is more notorious for flying off the handle and being a drug-addicted criminal than he is for being a bust. I'm not making any such insinuation with Sam... all I mean to say is that he could be out of football in a few years, or he could be of the caliber of something like Donovan McNabb in his good years (again, forget the part about him being McFlabb at the end).

So that's all I'm trying to say. And of course Bradford's name could never be as bad as what JaMarcus or Leaf left out there. Even if Bradford just implodes for the rest of his career, he still had that rookie year, which is something JaMarcus or Leaf never came close to.

My Joey Harrington was and is a nice guy, never had any kind of controversy or anything about him. In fact he is a philanthropist. That being said, I'd lump him in with JaMarcus and Leaf. He simply sucked, and he was out of the game of football several years ago. By comparison, David Carr is a bust and even he is still collecting NFL paychecks (Carr was the #1 and Joey was the #3 in the same class).

Harrigton would be the better route, b/c Russell was...bleh.

Of course, I'm more optimistic and that Sam is gonna go the way of Peyton Manning. Actually, more so his bro Eli.

 

[Anonymous]

Addendum:

The "JaMarcus Russell or Peyton Manning" comment was not meant to literally compare Sam to either player. I can see how you inferred what you did, since in some sense JaMarcus is more notorious for being fat and lazy than he is for being a bust. And I guess Leaf is more notorious for flying off the handle and being a drug-addicted criminal than he is for being a bust. I'm not making any such insinuation with Sam... all I mean to say is that he could be out of football in a few years, or he could be of the caliber of something like Donovan McNabb in his good years (again, forget the part about him being McFlabb at the end).

So that's all I'm trying to say. And of course Bradford's name could never be as bad as what JaMarcus or Leaf left out there. Even if Bradford just implodes for the rest of his career, he still had that rookie year, which is something JaMarcus or Leaf never came close to.

My Joey Harrington was and is a nice guy, never had any kind of controversy or anything about him. In fact he is a philanthropist. That being said, I'd lump him in with JaMarcus and Leaf. He simply sucked, and he was out of the game of football several years ago. By comparison, David Carr is a bust and even he is still collecting NFL paychecks (Carr was the #1 and Joey was the #3 in the same class).

Harrigton would be the better route, b/c Russell was...bleh.

Of course, I'm more optimistic and that Sam is gonna go the way of Peyton Manning. Actually, more so his bro Eli.

Yeah I'm thinking Bradford is an Eli. Not that their styles are the same. But for different reasons they both seem to have the same longer growing phase.

 

[Iron Lion]

Harrigton would be the better route, b/c Russell was...bleh.

Of course, I'm more optimistic and that Sam is gonna go the way of Peyton Manning. Actually, more so his bro Eli.

Joey actually hurt the Lions more than JaMayonnaise hurt the Raiders. In Joey's case, he wasn't bad enough that it was apparent immediately that he was a bust and he was on the team for four years. With JaMarcus, it was obvious halfway through the 3rd year that he had to go.

In some contexts a season doesn't sound like a lot, but in today's NFL world a season is an eternity. And Joey cost us one more bad one than JaMarcus did for his team. If you draft a QB bust, the sooner you can throw him into the airlock and eject him into outerspace like some kind of slimy alien, the better off you are.

 

[Anonymous]

Harrigton would be the better route, b/c Russell was...bleh.

Of course, I'm more optimistic and that Sam is gonna go the way of Peyton Manning. Actually, more so his bro Eli.

Joey actually hurt the Lions more than JaMayonnaise hurt the Raiders. In Joey's case, he wasn't bad enough that it was apparent immediately that he was a bust and he was on the team for four years. With JaMarcus, it was obvious halfway through the 3rd year that he had to go.

In some contexts a season doesn't sound like a lot, but in today's NFL world a season is an eternity. And Joey cost us one more bad one than JaMarcus did for his team. If you draft a QB bust, the sooner you can throw him into the airlock and eject him into outerspace like some kind of slimy alien, the better off you are.

 

[Iron Lion]

1. Did any of you have Torrey Smith flashbacks when #17 on the Cowboys was making those plays?

2. I managed to draft Steven Jackson in fantasy, is he a must start? What do you all think? Also I have to start 3 WRs and I have Calvin Johnson, Titus Young, Anquan Bolden, and Amendola. Do I roll with him also?

3. Austin Davis looked good again. He keeps showing off his escapability and the ability to hit passes on all levels of depth into the secondary. Too bad only one drive.

4. Who was that guy on the sidelines singing something about Marlboros? Do any of you know? Or perhaps it was a Cowboy, I don't know.

5. I remember reading about the 3rd down sky-is-falling situation and then I saw a 3rd and 10 get picked up by the Cowboys that shouldn't have been picked up. I believe it was Jones or Murray on a screen. Did that look bad to anyone else too?

6. I believe it was #58 on the Rams did a solid head-to-head on Orton. I don't know if any of you saw it but it looked like Orton lost consciousness for a split second. I believe he lost the ball on the play too.

7. Probably some other things worth pointing out but I can't remember anything off the top of my head. Comments appreciated. :ww:

 

[classicpony]

I can't remember anything off the top of my head. :ww:

[textarea]EDITED
BY: X
REASON: Rule #2

Let's afford him some civility, since that's what we're getting from him.
Yeah, he's a Lions fan, but nobody's perfect.[/textarea]

Sorry for breaking the rules X I will try to control myself & not beat up fans on the wrong side of the fence :lol:

 

[Iron Lion]

Sorry the points did come off a little like I was attacking, didn't mean it all that way.

 

[-X-]

 

[Angry Ram]

1. Did any of you have Torrey Smith flashbacks when #17 on the Cowboys was making those plays?

2. I managed to draft Steven Jackson in fantasy, is he a must start? What do you all think? Also I have to start 3 WRs and I have Calvin Johnson, Titus Young, Anquan Bolden, and Amendola. Do I roll with him also?

3. Austin Davis looked good again. He keeps showing off his escapability and the ability to hit passes on all levels of depth into the secondary. Too bad only one drive.

4. Who was that guy on the sidelines singing something about Marlboros? Do any of you know? Or perhaps it was a Cowboy, I don't know.

5. I remember reading about the 3rd down sky-is-falling situation and then I saw a 3rd and 10 get picked up by the Cowboys that shouldn't have been picked up. I believe it was Jones or Murray on a screen. Did that look bad to anyone else too?

6. I believe it was #58 on the Rams did a solid head-to-head on Orton. I don't know if any of you saw it but it looked like Orton lost consciousness for a split second. I believe he lost the ball on the play too.

7. Probably some other things worth pointing out but I can't remember anything off the top of my head. Comments appreciated. :ww:

1. No

2. Might as well, but if I were you, I'd wait maybe a week or 2, b/c IDK if Schotty is actually gonna pound it in from the goalline. That's my biggest "concern" (shutup) that he'll deny SJack TDs.

3. Yeah, but it was against 3rd stringers, and I want him around.

4. IDK?

5. No

6. Yeah, that's Jo-Lonn Dunbar from the Saints. Dude has been crazy, provoking guys in practices.

 

[Iron Lion]

Thnx Ram, and lol X. :bg:

 

[classicpony]

Thnx Ram, and lol X. :bg:

Don't run away Rust Cat I have yet to be nice to ya. :twisted: