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Detroit Lions Were “Unprepared” To Play The Panthers
Eric Vincent: I kind of agree with below with what Charles is saying.
A.J. Reilly: How?
Eric Vincent: I wanna say it was a good loss for the Detroit Lions. You don’t want them to have that, but if a young team is gonna go through these kinds of growing pains, these are the kind of games that you, I don’t wanna say expect, but cuz again, the way it happened is just of epically disgusting proportions. You get blown up that much. By a Sam Darnold-led offense where he’s running the option on you in the goal line sense.
DJ Moore completely bullied Jeff Okudah the whole game. That was a bad performance overall.
A.J. Reilly: It was Calvin here that said plain and simple. We weren’t prepared and Carolina was. Yeah, you’re right. Yeah, they were. And it showed from the very first snap. Look.
And here’s maybe why. Maybe there’s also a little bit of pride that’s taken a hit for me. Cause I wrote all the preview and prediction things for the Detroit Lions last week. I wrote the preview and prediction that came out on Friday, and I said the Detroit Lions defense was gonna set the tone early was my number one prediction.
They set the tone early, but it wasn’t the right tone. It was as offkey as you could get.
Eric Vincent: Absolutely. It was.
A.J. Reilly: And that was not, not, not great. When I saw Chuba rip off a 30-yard run on the first play of the game, I was like, whoa.
Eric Vincent: You could see it form too.
A.J. Reilly: This is not good.
Eric Vincent: Aidan Hutchinson crashing so hard on the inside. Whoa. And he just opened up this huge gash to the outside. And then after that, it was everything up the middle that was just wide open for the people wide run through, wide open. I didn’t, I don’t know what…
A.J. Reilly: I don’t necessarily know if Gavin is correct. I think he’s got a point that there was a, look, professional athletes had their routine, right?
How much of it do we say was playing on a Saturday? Messed up their routine traveling, and their travel schedule was messed up because of the bomb cyclone that was supposed to happen. That didn’t happen. Super cold. So there, there’s definitely things like that, but at the, at a certain point like just say you got your butt whooped.
Don’t give me the, oh, the field was as hard as a rock. I don’t care. Because there were two teams playing on that field. Exactly. Save those comments for me cuz I don’t care about that. Carolina found a way to make it work to its advantage. You did not. And you got beat. Austin, I think has a good point.
Did anyone think that the Detroit Lions would be this competitive and on the cusp of a potential playoff hunt? No, not at all. Not after one and six for sure. No, but at the same time, expectations can change. Three weeks ago, I told you they would win out if they beat Minnesota because my expectations had changed.
This is a team that I only saw going six and 10, or six and 11 this season. I did not have them winning more than six games. The Detroit Lions have exceeded my expectations, so therefore my expectations have changed. So, yeah, you’re right Austin. No, we don’t think that they would’ve been competitive and it’s really exciting that they are competitive.
Exactly. And I’m not giving up hope. The Detroit Lions got two more games and they still, to an extent, control their own destiny in the playoff hunt. But you gotta take care of business when it’s time to take care of business. And they didn’t. Oh, they didn’t.
Dan Campbell Didn’t Do His Job
Eric Vincent: Yeah. We have gotta get into that Dan Campbell quote now, because this is the, maybe the second or third time he said, I didn’t get them prepared.
It’s one thing for us to see that on TV and assume, or for us to, guess that. But when you say it publicly. If you heard that from a player, he would get destroyed. Yeah. Coaches saying that is never acceptable. It is literally your job to make sure you get off the bus and make sure your guys are dialed in.
A.J. Reilly: Yeah. So I wonder how much of that was just like him, like trying to take the blame and like grabbing the first thing that he could think of, right? We didn’t put ’em in the best position to win. That’s a better reason than saying I didn’t have them prepared.
Because literally what you’re saying is I didn’t do my job for a week. Which I don’t believe. I actually do not believe that Dan Campbell didn’t do his job last week. Meaning, I think that he just misspoke, and this is my personal opinion publicly expressed. Charles wonders if playing before the holiday has any type of mental impact.
I’m sure that it probably does, but guess what? There were, every team played Saturday and Sunday. Except for the Jets and the Jaguars who played Thursday night and the Chargers and whoever’s playing tonight. Okay. I get it, but like you are a professional athlete.
Your game is that Saturday. I don’t care if Christmas the New Year or Hanukkah is starting on Saturday. You play the football game and you play the football game to win.
Eric Vincent: Detroit Lions, your job is to be prepared. Your job is to be ready for these games, regardless of what your schedule says.
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