smh

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The Redskins are good. The Lions are bad. What else do you need to know?

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One play that ended up being reversed,  hence not a Redskins TD,   doesn't erase the fact that Rashean Mathis has clearly been an asset for the Lions through 3 games.      While it made sense for the Jaguars to move on without Rashean Mathis,    for the Lions through 3 games he has already given the team dividends that exceed his entire 2013 contract.    Including helping CB Bill Bentley and Darius Slay in their developments.     While I have been a huge fan of Mathis as a player since his 2nd season in the NFL because of his play,     I had no idea before he came to the Lions how great his intangibles are.     Plenty of credit should go to Donovin Darius,   who helped mentor Mathis early in his career.    Now Mathis is giving back like 'Double D' did in Jax.   

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The Redskins are good. The Lions are bad. What else do you need to know?

 

Lions 27, Redskins 20.

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Lions 27, Redskins 20.

 

Scoreboard!

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If something can corrupt you, you're corrupted already.
- Bob Marley


 

Lions 27, Redskins 20.

Obviously not an easy win because it was so close.

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Obviously not an easy win because it was so close.

 

I never said it was an easy win.      Of course it wasn't.    

 

You are the individual who said the Lions are bad and the Redskins are good.        Reflect on your comment based on what transpired in this game and through 3 weeks of the regular season.   

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Mathis has not looked like a liability for the Lions. Did you see one play on the redzone channel or something? He's been playing fine. I don't know how you could say otherwise, unless you aren't watching the games.

 

JaguarsWoman, the Lions are better than the Redskins.

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Lions 27, Redskins 20.

Make that the 2-1 Lions 27 and the 0-3 Redskins 20.

D6- what's your fan's feelings on Coach Jim Schwartz? [BLEEP]/Neg?

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

Make that the 2-1 Lions 27 and the 0-3 Redskins 20.


D6- what's your fan's feelings on Coach Jim Schwartz? [BLEEP]/Neg?

 

P.F.,   my impression is most Lions fans don't have a favorable opinion of Jim Schwartz.      Some consider him arrogant.     Many don't like the fact that Schwartz gives the media as little information as possible,   much like with one of his mentors,   Bill Belichick.     Schwartz gets heavily criticized for the Lions high penalty totals and a perceived lack of discipline by the players.   

 

Having said all of this,  my overall opinion of Jim Schwartz is favorable.    This goes beyond the fact that I finally saw the Lions win a road game against the Washington Redskins,   after generations of failure in DC by the Lions.    Here's a tidbit that I think will hit home for you.    Prior to yesterday,   the last time the Lions beat the Redskins on the road was in 1935,   when the home team was the Boston Redskins.    They played in Fenway Park.     

 

Jim Schwartz took over a Lions team that went 0-16 the previous season.    The lack of overall talent on the roster was alarming.     A rebuilding project that was painful was necessary.    The 2009 Lions went 2-14,   with the season in essence being developing Matthew Stafford and as many young players with significant potential as possible.     The amount of roster moves that season was off the charts.       Waiver Claims were the norm.   What did the Lions have to lose!       The following season,  Stafford injured his shoulder and only played in 3 games all season.    The Lions had a victory taken away in the season opener in Chicago,   because of the '  Complete the TD Catch Process rule'  .      The Lions were 2-10,   with injuries piling up.     Things changed that December.    The Lions won the final 4 games,  breaking an NFL record 26 game road losing streak.      I was very impressed with the way the team responded late that season.      It carried over to 2011,  with a 4-0 pre-season,   which is normally meaningless,  but not for a franchise that set records of futility the previous decade.     The Lions started 5-0 in the regular season.    The team had an attitude that I didn't see from the Lions since the 1990's.      After a rocky 7 game period in which the Lions went 2-5,   the team responded with 3 straight wins to clinch a playoff spot.   Something the Lions didn't do since the 1999 season.     This after being 0-16 three seasons ago.         This didn't happen by accident.     Granted,   the roster was much more talented than in previous seasons.    But the Lions won many close games that season.

 

Things got off track in 2012.    It was Schwartz's worst season as Lions HC.    The multitude of off-season arrests set the stage for a very disappointing season.    Injuries compounded the situation.    Schwartz's decision to throw the challenge flag on an automatically reviewable play on Thanksgiving Day against the Texans was costly.     Unlike in 2011,   the Lions lost most of the close games.

 

To Jim Schwartz's credit,   he made some difficult changes on his coaching staff in 2013.    Yet,   he kept Offensive Coordinator Scott Linehan and Defensive Coordinator Gunther Cunningham in place for the 5th Straight year.    The Lions continuity with both Coordinators and systems is the antithesis of the consistent changes that took place before Schwartz became Lions HC.     This is one of the key reasons why I'm a supporter of Coach Schwartz.

 

Unlike in the previous off-season,   there were only 2 off the field incidents in the 2013 off-season.     Both players that got into trouble in the off-season got cut this summer  (  Ronnell Lewis and Amari Spievey.  ).    The team was much more focused.      The use of the Senior Bowl,   as the Lions staff coached the South team,   made a huge difference with the Lions draft.    Both Ziggy Ansah  ( 1st Round )  and Larry Warford  ( 3rd Round  )  were coached by the Lions staff in Mobile,  AL.     Both players are off to terrific starts to their NFL careers,   

 

While the penalties are still problematic at times,   overall I'm happy with the direction the team is going.      There's quality leadership on all 3 units.     I was thrilled with the aggressive 4th and 1 call on the Redskins 12 yard line with less than 5 minutes remaining in the game,  with the Lions up 20-17.     Matthew Stafford ended up getting the 1st Down with the QB sneak and the Lions scored a TD on a bullet from Matthew Stafford to Calvin Johnson,  despite the Redskins staff making a good Defensive call.    Sometimes,  great talent wins out.   That was one of those times.   Yet,  it was made possible by Jim Schwartz playing to Win the Game,  as Herman Edwards would say.    

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Regarding the criticism of Rashean Mathis from the Lions win over the Redskins,    even though Redskins WR Alrick Robinson got behind him for what was ruled a TD before the play was reversed by instant replay,    Mathis actually helped prevent the TD.      I wasn't sure of whether Mathis impacted the pass becoming incomplete when watching the play.    It was hard to tell for me,  even with a 51 inch HD TV.     Yet,  after reading Mathis'  description of what happened,   I'm convinced that Mathis made a great play on the same play in which he looked like he was beat.       I doubt Darius Slay or most other talented rookie CB's would have had the savvy to make the play Mathis did after it looked like he was beat:

 

http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/201...nefit.html

 

 

Robinson beat Detroit's Rashean Mathis and appeared to corral a diving 57-yard touchdown. That's how the play initially was ruled.

But an officials' review prompted a reversal because Robinson did not maintain possession through the play.

"(QB Robert Griffin III) ran routes we knew he was going to run. We'd run them all week," Mathis said. "But he extended a play. He was sitting back there for a while. Threw the ball up, and I tried my darndest to jar the ball out, and with the pressure of my body and the ground, the ball came out."

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Agenda..........

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Agenda..........

What's that mean? Just curious.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

What's that mean? Just curious.

He hates mathis so hes pointing out anything he can find bad about the guy.

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The OP is scared to come back to this thread.

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P.F.,   my impression is most Lions fans don't have a favorable opinion of Jim Schwartz.      Some consider him arrogant.     Many don't like the fact that Schwartz gives the media as little information as possible,   much like with one of his mentors,   Bill Belichick.     Schwartz gets heavily criticized for the Lions high penalty totals and a perceived lack of discipline by the players.   
 
...and Larry Warford  ( 3rd Round  )  were coached by the Lions staff in Mobile,  AL.     Both players are off to terrific starts to their NFL careers,

Schwartz may be the kind of guy that gets run out of his first job and then succeeds in his second b/c of his experience and coaching maturation. John Fox, albeit surrounded by better players now including a HOF QB instead of a petulant youngster, is a rough parallel. Hopefully the Lions stay the course and this happens in Detroit.

I so hoped the Jags would get Warford in the draft. When they picked Gratz, I said "who?" like many others and then the Lions grabbed Warford with the next pick, adding to my angst. Not complaining about Gratz as it will be cool watching that secondary grow together. Monroe, Warford and Joeckel would have been cool to watch too- surely Blaine G would agree there.

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Season Ticket holder since 2004.

 

        

Schwartz may be the kind of guy that gets run out of his first job and then succeeds in his second b/c of his experience and coaching maturation. John Fox, albeit surrounded by better players now including a HOF QB instead of a petulant youngster, is a rough parallel. Hopefully the Lions stay the course and this happens in Detroit.


I so hoped the Jags would get Warford in the draft. When they picked Gratz, I said "who?" like many others and then the Lions grabbed Warford with the next pick, adding to my angst. Not complaining about Gratz as it will be cool watching that secondary grow together. Monroe, Warford and Joeckel would have been cool to watch too- surely Blaine G would agree there.

 

  Another coach that comes to mind that reflects the comparison you provided is Bill Belichick.     In 1995,  his final season as Browns HC and the team's final season as the original Cleveland Browns before they became the Baltimore Ravens the following year,   Belichick was basically run out of time by much of the Browns fan base and Cleveland media.   To the point that some thought Belichick was intentionally sabotaging the team,  much like with the fictional Cleveland Indians owner in the Baseball Movie,   '  Major League'.     What a difference the perception of Belichick has been in New England in his 2nd HC opportunity,  compared to in Cleveland in the 1990's!        

 

I've used Belichick as an example to some other Lions fans that want Jim Schwartz canned.    What you mentioned regarding Schwartz could easily happen.     Schwartz was 3rd in his class at Georgetown University.       When it comes to natural intelligence,   Schwartz is high up on the list of NFL coaches.     Like you expressed,   I would much rather see Schwartz learn from his mistakes with the Lions than becoming a great NFL HC with another team.    I'm encouraged to see how much Schwartz and the organization as a whole has learned from their past mistakes.     Unless the 2013 spirals downward substantially,   I definitely want Schwartz to return in 2014.

 

  Regarding the 3rd Round picks,   I think there's a good chance that both the Jaguars and Lions will be very satisfied over the long haul with their choices.     Both players are very good fits for the respective teams.

 

  The following article mentions the excellent early start to the season of Larry Warford  (  and Ziggy Ansah.  )

 

 

  http://www.mlive.com/lions/index.ssf/201...prais.html

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