Tuesday, September 29, 2020

Morning Lions Links for Tuesday 9-29-20

Articles:

KEY QUESTIONS: What's next for Lions after notching first win of the season?:  https://www.detroitlions.com/news/key-questions-what-s-next-for-lions-after-notching-first-win-of-the-season

Lions ride defensive adjustments to fluster Cardinals QB Kyler Murray in team’s first win:  https://www.mlive.com/lions/2020/09/lions-ride-defensive-adjustments-to-fluster-cardinals-qb-kyler-murray-in-teams-first-win.html




Lions Week 3 snap counts: Jarrad Davis sees career low in snaps, Tracy Walker takes every snap:  https://lionswire.usatoday.com/lists/lions-week-3-snap-counts-jarrad-davis-sees-career-low-in-snaps-tracy-walker-takes-every-snap/


9 biggest heroes from Week 3: MVP favorite leads pack (8.  Matt Stafford and Matt Prater
The Lions win! The Lions win! This is not a drill, people! Detroit handed the upstart Cardinals their first defeat of the season in a 26-23 result.  Matthew Stafford is a great player and has always deserved better. His calm during the game-winning drive -- a 10-play, 70-yard trek that ended with a 39-yard field goal as time expired -- was perfect. Matt Prater, who hit all six of his kicks on Sunday (four field goals, two PATs), is clutch. He wasn't going to miss.  Detroit had lost 11 straight. Matt Patricia is rightly on the hot seat, still 14 games under .500 (10-24-1) as head coach of the Lions. Detroit should've beat Chicago in Week 1. The Lions were actually up double-digits on Green Bay in Week 2. And entering Week 3, Arizona was flying high, with a ton of talent coming into its own under Kliff Kingsbury. This was a great and needed win, thanks to the Matts.):  https://www.nfl.com/news/russell-wilson-kyle-shanahan-nick-foles-among-nfl-heroes-of-week-3

MMQB: The Four Motives That Power Russell Wilson, Inside Chicago's QB Change (LIONS LIVE IN THE MOMENT:  Matt Patricia was pretty aware of the fact that the old narratives were being fed going into this week—The Lions blew a big lead in the opener against the Bears, then went up 14-3 before being blown off the field in Green Bay, and that meant that the ghosts of Detroit’s NFL past were going to be resurrected ahead of his team’s trip to Arizona.  “In Detroit, that’s something that we deal with, that we battle, that sort of, 'Here we go again' mentality,” Patricia said to me, from the team hotel postgame. “We talked about it this week. … What I said is we've got to stay in the moment. We can't make the moment bigger than it is. Because if you do that, then it's almost like it becomes too much for you to handle. It becomes bigger than what it actually is. And all it actually is, is the next play.  “That's all it is. We've just got to do a great job on that play, we've got to stay in the moment and do a great job of doing our job on that play and not tying in everything else to it.”  And in doing so, the Lions may have saved their season—one that was flagging going into the game against the previously unbeaten Cardinals. Five first-half lead changes led into a nip-and-tuck second half. A big stop with five minutes left with the game tied at 23 set up the Lions for a game-winning drive, and a point where Patricia would prove prophetic.  On a second-and-5, under duress, Matthew Stafford uncorked as beautiful a throw as you’ll see at any level, one that landed 52 or 53 yards down field in the waiting arms of Marvin Hall for what appeared to be a game-winning touchdown. One problem: There was a flag down. And the call was holding on Halapoulivaati Vaitai, a tackle who was filling in at guard. That made it second-and-15 and created a very real Here We Go Again moment.  Instead, it just became a new starting point. T.J. Hockenson drew a pass interference call to score a first down on the next play, and then Stafford threw to Kenny Golladay for 11 yards, and Marvin Jones for 20 put the team well within Matt Prater’s range.  Soon thereafter, Prater split the uprights on a 39-yarder to give the Lions their first win.  For now, it’s something for the Lions to build off of coming out of a rough couple weeks—and proof that the experience of the spring and summer bonded a group that won’t go in the tank so easy. Detroit, you’ll remember, went through the same stuff every NFL team did, but may have felt it a little more acutely, because COVID-19 hit Michigan fairly hard pretty early on, and the social justice protests locally were fairly intense.  The result was the team working together on a ton of stuff. The Lions, in fact, were the first team to cancel a practice or a game (before even the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks) in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting, and before that were among the more aggressive with their community efforts the last few months.  “I think that these guys truly feel that their teammates listen and respect them because of the things that we've been through,” Patricia said. “So when now we have to get to this week and we have to start having really tough conversations with each other about things we need to do better, I think they'll really listen to each other. As opposed to sometimes you have teams that don't. They just kind of move on. I think these guys respect each other so much that it's just like, 'Man, I've really got to do this better.'”  In picking Kyler Murray off three times and rallying in the end, the Lions did do better on Sunday. We’ll see where they take it from here.):  https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/09/28/mmqb-week-3-seattle-seahawks-russell-wilson

2020 NFL Draft:

NFL Draft Stock Report: Kyle Pitts highlights Pauline’s Week 4 Risers:  https://www.profootballnetwork.com/nfl-draft-stock-week-4-risers-sliders-kyle-pitts/

NFL draft winners and losers: The Mississippi State prospect whom Mike Leach's arrival can help most:  https://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-draft-winners-and-losers-the-mississippi-state-prospect-whom-mike-leachs-arrival-can-help-most-181118102.html



Video:


3 and Out with Chris Spielman: Week 3 vs Cardinals:  https://www.detroitlions.com/video/3-out-with-chris-spielman-week-3-vs-cardinals


Posted by LionsFan at 5:38 AM

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