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Inside the Article:
Grading The Detroit Lions Season
A.J. Reilly: We wanna move this to kind of more the macro. How would you grade the Lions 2022 season?
Eric’s Detroit Lions 2022 Season Grade
Eric Vincent: I did a lot of thinking on this one. I am very pleased with what they did. Yeah, I feel like that’s, we’re in agreement on that. How excited I want to be in terms of what they did is the question, if I had to give them a grade, I’m flirting between a B- and a B.
A.J. Reilly: Wow.
Eric Vincent: And that’s like a low B, like an 83, 84% B because
A.J. Reilly: wow.
Eric Vincent: The Detroit Lions came into the season and I remember what I said they would be either eight or nine or seven and 10. They’re nine and eight, so they’re above 500. They dominated the division outside of one, you know, a terrible game that they played against the Vikings to close out. They beat meaningful teams, which is something that we haven’t seen them do.
We’ve seen Dan Campbell take a step forward. We’ve seen the other coaches that we questioned. Aaron Glenn take a step forward, and Ben Johnson looked like one of the most elite coaches in his position. Don’t go after him.
A.J. Reilly: No.
Eric Vincent: I think,
A.J. Reilly: Hold on. Did you see what Penei Sewell said today?
Eric Vincent: What’d he say?
A.J. Reilly: They asked him about him taking a head coaching job. He goes, yeah, he’s not really that good. It was the players that really made…
Eric Vincent: Yes. Push the agenda. Yes. Good job Penei. Keep Ben Johnson in 2023. There you go. But yeah, also again on the back of a Jared Goff who we counted out,
A.J. Reilly: oh,
Eric Vincent: on the back of a bunch of rookies, Oh, he’s cap. I don’t wanna hear nothing from Ricky. Ricky’s the Fakest Lions fan. I don’t wanna hear nothing from Ricky. we’ll talk about that off-camera. I wanna do something, we’ll talk about that later.
A.J. Reilly: Okay.
Eric Vincent: I would give them a B- on the strength of how they developed throughout the season, how they started, the way we counted them out, the way they surpassed the expectations.
Finishing above 500, a B, B- is what I would give him.
A.J. Reilly: Man. Now you sound like the pessimistic one.
Eric Vincent: I do.
A.J. Reilly: Yeah. You do
Eric Vincent: what?
A.J. Reilly: Yes. And I tell you why
Eric Vincent: Do I gotta give the chain to you?
A.J. Reilly: Yeah, you might have to. In fact, I’ll probably have to wear it next week.
Eric Vincent: Oh my gosh.
A.J. Reilly: So look, I have an educational background. I worked in education for almost a decade.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
AJ’s Detroit Lions 2022 Season Grade
A.J. Reilly: With education, we sit here and we go, okay, this number gets this letter grade. Okay. But what is education? Education is about growth and development.
Eric Vincent: Mm. That’s deep.
A.J. Reilly: And so what I want to do, is I want to grade my students, not based on what they scored on one test, but how they grew and developed. Okay. Does that make sense?
Eric Vincent: Yeah. I like that.
A.J. Reilly: So I could grade them off of the one-in-six start. That final exam would be an F, right? But see, what we do in education is we offer retakes. Come to my tutoring session.
Eric Vincent: You’re a fun teacher.
A.J. Reilly: Let’s learn the content. Okay. And let’s retake the test so that I can see you master the content rather than just have to regurgitate the content.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: Okay?
Eric Vincent: Yeah.
A.J. Reilly: So if I’m a teacher grading the Detroit Lions season, they’re getting a very high B+ to an A-.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: And the reason why? The reason why is because of the improvement.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: Let’s talk about that improvement. First eight weeks, Eric, according to Football, outsiders, DVOA. Do you know where the Detroit Lions ranked?
Eric Vincent: Where is that?
A.J. Reilly: 25th.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: Full team. Their offense was 11th, their defense was 32nd.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: So as a team, and as a team, they were 17% below league average as a team.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: That’s not good.
Eric Vincent: No, not at all.
A.J. Reilly: That’s like a D. But let’s talk about weeks nine through 18.
Eric Vincent: Let’s do that.
A.J. Reilly: Where do you think the Lions ranked weeks nine through 18?
Eric Vincent: I’m gonna say top 10. I’d say top 10.
A.J. Reilly: Go higher.
Eric Vincent: Go higher than that? Top five? Oh, okay.
A.J. Reilly: Weeks nine through 18, according to football, outsiders, DVOA. the Detroit Lions fifth best team in the NFL.
Eric Vincent: Okay. All right.
A.J. Reilly: 22% above league average.
Eric Vincent: Right.
A.J. Reilly: That offense that was 11th had moved up to fifth. That defense that was 32nd had moved up to 17.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
Did The Detroit Lions Master Their Content?
A.J. Reilly: Did they improve?
Eric Vincent: For sure.
A.J. Reilly: Could we say that they mastered their content?
Eric Vincent: You could make the argument that they did.
A.J. Reilly: Oh, no. That argument was made Sunday night.
Eric Vincent: Okay. Okay.
A.J. Reilly: Dan Campbell called a flawless game, except for one moment in the first half when he let too much time run off on that final drive.
Eric Vincent: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He for sure did.
A.J. Reilly: But Dan Campbell called a phenomenal game in week 18.
Eric Vincent: He did.
A.J. Reilly: Aaron Glenn calling an all-out blitz on third and 10, forcing Aaron Rodgers to make an Aaron throw to Kirby Joseph. Ending the Packer season. he played, he schemed phenomenally for week 18. Ben Johnson.
He’s no good. The players make him. But no, Ben Johnson, schemed, phenomenally.
Eric Vincent: Mm-hmm.
A.J. Reilly: Golf got better throughout the game. The running game got better throughout the game. The defense continued, started great, and continued to play well.
Eric Vincent: Okay.
A.J. Reilly: Throughout the game.
Eric Vincent: Yep.
A.J. Reilly: And our special teams unit. How many times did Packers start below the 20? A number of times?
Eric Vincent: A lot.
A.J. Reilly: Jack Fox averaged 47 yards on four punts. His long was 57. I originally had this team at six and 10 this year. Eric?
Eric Vincent: Mm-hmm.
A.J. Reilly: They exceeded my expectations, and when students exceed my expectations, they get rewarded.
Eric Vincent: As they should.
A.J. Reilly: For me, that’s an A-.
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