Detroit Lions: No Hope If They Lose To The Patriots?

Detroit Lions Vs. Matt Patricia

Matthew Bassin: Hey everybody! We’ll get to the Detroit Lions‘ preview as soon as we welcome in another edition of Small Business Friday. Today’s Spotlight Girl Power Hockey Apparel. This story begins back in 2015 when the owner’s middle daughter came to them and said she didn’t wanna take dance classes no more say suggested softball, volleyball, horseback riding, you know, the activities that are perceived as more feminine.

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So if you’re trying to get your girl on the game, visit girl hyphen power.com. That’s gurl-power.com and help your girl step her game up. All right, Ryan speaking of stepping their games up 

Ryan Griffin: It’s important to get those female athletes involved, that little girl grew up to be Sidney Crosby. 

Matthew Bassin: Right.

Ryan Griffin: BAM, off and rolling. 

Matthew Bassin: Well, speaking of step in their game up, our lions are gonna have to do just that, especially defensively is they travel to New England to Foxborough to take on the New England Patriots. Bill Belichick and the former head coach of the Detroit Lions, Matt Patricia. This should be an interesting contest, Ryan, as the Detroit Lions’ defense is just plain awful, allowing 165 plus yards, a game on the ground at over five and a half yards per carry, which ranks dead last in the league.

 And the Patriots they got a pretty good one, two punch at the running back position. So this should be interesting even with the whole third string quarterback in Bailey Zappe taking over because Mac Jones are still not sure his ankle, low ankle sprained, but he did throw some passes, but they’re not expecting him to start.

Bailey Zappe is gonna be getting his first start of the year for the. Which should give some hope to the Detroit Lions fans out there and trying to find a way to pull on this flat out upset here as the lions are three and a half point dogs, but that running game is no joke in New England and our running defense is terrible.

Ryan Griffin: So you hope what the Detroit Lions are able to do since Bailey’s happy is back at quarterback is just load up the box and then make their running backs who aren’t great? No, they got Rhamondre Stevenson over there And who’s the other running back?

Matthew Bassin: Damien Harris?

Ryan Griffin: Damien Harris, there he is. It feels like he’s been there for 10 years, so it’s not like it’s a two headed monster at running back.

Right? Like you should be able to. relatively and reasonably stopped. Those two gentlemen, especially if you have a rookie quarterback back there and a rookie quarterback, who’s you? It’s not Kenny Pickett, right? It’s not some guy that was drafted in the first round or even the first three rounds. Think Zappe was probably a sit or six or seventh round draft pick coming out Western Kentucky.

I guess your kind of fear would be that Zappe looked pretty good against the Packers defense and the Packers have a much better defense than what the Detroit Lions do. The Packers also, of course, weren’t preparing to play Bailey Zappe and the Detroit Lions have an entire week to prepare for what Zappe brings to the table.

And hopefully for, what he’s not bringing to the table, which should be a whole heck of. The Patriots game is a game that I thought the Detroit Lions were going to win anyway. Even if the Patriots did add Mac Jones, even if they had Brian Hoyer and now with this happy. So for the Detroit Lions, I think you just keep the game playing and you keep the defense simple.

You make Bailey’s Zappe, beat you because what the Patriots don’t really have is weapons. Jakobi Meyers is a pretty good receiver and they spent a whole bunch of money on their tight ends, but their tight ends, none of ’em are any. So it’s not a team like the Seahawks last week, where even though you have Geno Smith, that quarterback, they have, DK Metcalf and they have Tyler Lockett and they have these guys that can hurt you.

Excuse me, and suddenly they have, those guys that can end up hurting you. The Patriots just don’t have that. So if I’m Detroit Lions, if I’m Aaron Glenn, this is gonna be my simplest game plan that I’ve had all year. I am going to stack the box. I am not going to let you beat me by running the football.

If you’re gonna beat me, you’re gonna have to throw it. And if that’s what happens, I guess that’s just what ends up happening. But that’s how I would approach it from a defensive side and. You’ll force Matt Patricia to try and put up 35 points on you because the Detroit Lions, and you’re gonna get to some of the injuries in a second.

I’m sure the Detroit Lions we haven’t seen them have a problem scoring points all year. And I don’t expect that it happens in this game. 

Yeah. I agree with you. It’s a brilliant plan to stack the box because like you said, they, as far. Past catching weapons, The Patriots have a whole bunch of two slash three wide receivers.

Meyer, you said Nelson Agholor, DeVante Parker. These are all the number two or number three guy. They don’t have a number one, they just don’t. And their wide and their tight ends have absolutely been disappointing. I thought their tight ends will be a much better mix in this offense than they have been since coming over to New England and it just hasn’t happen.

The running game while you want to, joke about it, they’re really not a joke. I mean, they had 150 plus yards on, 30 plus carries against Green Bay, who has a, definitely a better defense than we do. But like you said, they were preparing for a different quarterback, a different scenario. And the patch were very smart about what to do with Zappe when they put ’em in.

They, his passes, the ones that were complete and good came outta play action. So they were still fearing the run that they were able to do if it was just a straight drop back and you had all the personnel out and no wide and no running back, back there, he wasn’t completing anything, Not anything more than two yards.

Anyway, so your logic is absolutely sound for the Detroit Lions. I mean, we’re still. Offensively missing a whole bunch of people. We’ve already heard basically that D’Andre Swift is not gonna be playing in this game. The idea is to hold him out through the bi week, which is next week, and have him come back fully healthy.

That might be the plan with Amon-Ra St. Brown as well. He has not practiced yet, and they’re not sure if he’s gonna be playing or not. I would not expect it at this point. I think they’re gonna do the same thing. I think they should do the same thing that they’re doing with Swift. Let him rest.

Let him get healthy and get fully healthy after another week off after this one to where he can come back and be himself. Because when he’s himself, he is extremely dangerous. So it’s all about the other guy stepping up. Hawkinson apparently is a little bit banged up after this past week. He hasn’t practiced very much.

We’ve seen it with rentals and char as well, so it’s, not gonna be all hands on deck as far as the Detroit Lions are concerned, either offensively and yes, they have been putting up a lot of points, but they’ve been putting up a lot of points against some terrible defenses. And while the Pats aren’t a fantastic defense, they actually are so against the past.

I think they’re actually only 26th their 19th, overall 26th against the run. It’s 11th against the past. So that’s actually their strength on the defensive. But there, there’s gonna be a different situation for these paths coming in with the Detroit Lions who, I don’t know if the paths know who to scheme for wide receiver wise, because we don’t even know for sure who’s gonna be in the game for the lions when it comes to wide receivers.

I mean, if the Patriots are 26 against the run, that’s how the Detroit Lions score all their points anyway. Maybe not how you score. Cause I know Goff had what, four touchdown passes last game, But they’re moving the ball on the ground, For the most part, they’re not really moving it through the air too much And.

If you are the Detroit Lions, last week I thought they were gonna be, it was gonna be tough on offense without their weapons. I know the Seahawks have a worse defense than what the Patriots do, but it showed, as long as their offensive line was able to get that push and was able to keep the pocket clean, they were able to move the ball down the field and the Goff was able to put a few of those passe.

In the end zone. They had a, some play where Hawkinson was just wide open. And then, the other touchdown passes. Give credit to Ben Johnson and his kind of, his scheme down there in the red zone because while you might not have been overly impressed with any of Goff’s actual, like passes on his touchdown passes, because it was pretty wide open to to, to some of those guys.

That’s a testament to the scheme, right? You wanna get your guys wide. You don’t wanna have your quarterback having to make those, Patrick Mahomes type throws where it has to be in this specific spotter and it’s not gonna be a completion. So I think that is some, that’s something that the Detroit Lions can do.

And then what the Detroit Lions are gonna have to get better at obviously, is just when the Patriots do get in the red zone, because they’re going to get in the red zone. You have to force them to kick field goals. The Detroit Lions haven’t really been able. To have anybody kick field goals all year. They were last going into the Seahawk game in like red zone.

Touchdowns allowed, like the percentage of times the opponents got on the red zone and scored a touchdown. The Seahawks game certainly didn’t change any of that because there was a whole lot of touchdowns scored by the Seattle Seahawks. So when you’re down. You have to force the Patriots to at least kick a field goal.

We talk a lot about the bend and don’t break defense with Michigan State, which is just break and break some more, which seems like that’s what the Detroit Lions’ philosophy is as well. But like you really. You really need that to come to fruition. I’m not asking Detroit Lions to hold the Patriots to under 200 total yards, but you just, you can’t let them get to, 30, 31 points.

Like you gotta keep ’em 27 to like at max 30. So that way you give your offensive chance to go out and win the game for you. Cuz I don’t think the defense will, We just need to see more stops and I think the Detroit Lions are getting a break this week with Zappe behind center and it gives. A better chance than they’ve had all year to hopefully get some stops and then get this thing sort of back on the right track and go, two and three headed into the.

Matthew Bassin: Yeah, and preparing for Zappe, I would think might be a little easier for Dan Campbell because he knows him. Dan Campbell coached him in the Senior Bowl last year. He spoke very highly of him talking about how high his intelligence is, how quickly he picks up an offense, how composed he is, all that stuff.

But I wonder, from that time working together if maybe he picked him on some tendencies of ways to rattle Zappe and and help the Detroit Lions’ defense maybe get some. Where they haven’t really had much at all this year. Yeah, I 

Ryan Griffin: think it’s a great point about the Senior Bowl and Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lion staff as a whole.

It wasn’t just Dan Campbell down there coaching, Coaching. Those guys, the Detroit Lions were able to take their, essentially their entire coaching staff. And they coach the guys at the Senior Bowl. They got a great look at Zappe obviously. There was a reason I guess, that they decided not to draft him or any quarterback for that matter, and hopefully they can kind of exploit and show us what that reason.

On Sunday. 

Matthew Bassin: Yeah. And speaking of exploiting and showing, I think the Packers did a little bit of that in this past game against the Patriots where they have, they have their one two punch at running back as well, which Jamaal Williams used to be a part of. With Aaron Jones and AJ Dillon. And we can take Aaron Jones out because if you wanna make comparisons, we’ll put Swift as, more of the Aaron Jones style.

We’ll do the comparison of Williams and AJ Dillon. Because that’s who’s gonna be playing for us as Swift is most is not gonna be playing. So with just looking at what he did, AJ Dillon had 73 yards on, 17 carries. It’s pretty good numbers there for a split back. And if Williams can duplicate that, if he can have about 80 yards rushing.

On the same number of carries, it will definitely open things up for the passing game to attack as well. And even, be able to utilize a play action if the running game is actually doing what it has pretty much done so far all year, which has been extremely dangerous. Whether Swift is in the lineup or not, it’s just, it’s the Patriots, it’s Bill Belichick.

The man is just a ridiculous genius when it comes to scheming and planning and taking away your strongest. And making you look foolish in the process. And so it just worries me when we’re going up against someone of that ilk with a defense as bad as ours. And an offense is banged up as ours. 

Ryan Griffin: I dunno. I’m now worried We beat the Patriots and we had Matt Patricia as our head coach. Any, anything is possible. One of the few wins we got in the Matt Patricia era. 

Matthew Bassin: That was at home. This is in Gillette and I was at the last time the Detroit Lions were at Gillette. It was like a 34 to nine beat down. It was embarrassing.

It was like 2014, something like that. It’s a different animal having to go on the road. Obviously you don’t have your fans behind you and there’s not gonna be any Detroit Lions fans in Gillette. I promise that it’s gonna be packed full of Patriots fans. Even if there are a few Detroit Lions fans there, they’re not gonna be.

Not over the Patriots fans out there. Those people love their team just like ours. Love our team. And I just, it, it’s gonna be a lot for Dan Campbell to get that road win. And we just have so many things going against us in this game. It’s just it’s hard to be optimistic going in except for the fact that the Patriots defense is not the Patriot’s defense of old.

And we, we should have the advantage offensively, even with some of the guys out that are, that we’ve mention. 

Ryan Griffin: I’m telling you right now and our fans listening, If Matt, Patricia puts up 35 points and beats us I’m not gonna come in next Monday either. 

Matthew Bassin: Man why do people do this? 

Ryan Griffin: I can’t handle that

Matthew Bassin: how is it Matt Patricia doing it? 

35 points? If he was the offensive coordinator, 

How is it Natt Patricia doing it? He’s the deep facto one. You think he’s actually calling plays? 

Ryan Griffin: I do. I think that’s why the Patriots suck.

Matthew Bassin: They’ve been good. Another thing, we gotta have Hawk involved because it’s another thing that we’ve seen so far throughout the year is that tight ends have been a bit of a problem for the Patriots. Mark Andrews gave the Patriots trouble couple weeks ago.

Obviously we’re talking more of the better, tight ends of football. But I think so as Hawk, when he is on his game. And so especially with St. Brown, possibly not being, most likely not being in the game Hawk has got to ball out, continue what he did last week, and give this offense chances to move the ball down the field and utilize his size, his strength to help that happen.

And with it seemingly being a weak point of the Patriots defense, I would expect Dan Campbell to exploit that and see another big game from Hawkinson. 

Ryan Griffin: Yeah, it just, it really depends on how banged up he is. But he’s certainly gonna get the targets to do it All right. 

Matthew Bassin: Now, and I don’t know if this matters touchdowns again, but yeah, I don’t know if this matters or not Ryan, but the Patriot’s gonna be wearing some throwback uniforms based on the ones they wore in the eighties, early nineties.

It’s the Patriot logo with the white face mask and all that, and the Pats are nine and three when they’re wearing those throwback uniforms. Was that the cool red ones? Yeah, I think they’re wearing, I don’t know if they’re gonna be wearing the red. It’s that era, but it’s like the white and blue, I think.

I don’t think they’re wearing red for like at home. I’m not sure. Nope, 

Ryan Griffin: Nope. The red ones are cooler advantage Detroit Lions. 

Matthew Bassin: All right. So we’re looking at here a Pat’s line of minus three and 45 and a half. So how you feeling Froggish gonna jump on this one? Where you want to go? 

Ryan Griffin: I would definitely take the, over the Lions are four and oh and overs this year.

And as far as the spread goes, I would take I think I would take the lions. I think both these teams are just bad and I think the Detroit Lions can outright win this game. So I will take the the three and a half to add onto the lion. 

Matthew Bassin: The Detroit Lions and Dan Campbell have been pretty good when they’re the underdog.

they’ve done their job as far as the spread is concerned that the underdog, they did not do their job last week when they were the favorites. But I think I’m with you. I think the 45 and a half needs to be higher especially if the Detroit Lions put up 30 in their own right.

And I think they will. And I think the three and a half that hook makes it makes it a little nicer to pick the Detroit Lions. Cause if it was just flat out. It’s kind of harder. It might be a flat out push, but I think the lions can be inside of a field goal on this one. And it should be a close game.

Hopefully should be a good game, hopefully. And I hope you’re right. I hope Detroit Lions get a flat out victory. But I can’t pick that yet. Not with the defense being as bad as they’ve been. I need to see a little more something out of the defense to pull their weight. I know we don’t really have the horses to pull their weight yet, and that’s what, more drafts and more free agents off signings, off season signings will bring. But I think they can keep this one close and stay inside that three and a half. 

Ryan Griffin: Yeah, I think they’ll flat out win

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