Lions

We all know what happened to the Detroit Lions at Ford Field last night. If you need a reminder, watch the clip below.

Jim Caldwell still had a timeout in his pocket and you can obviously see from pre-snap alignment and personnel on the field, the Detroit Lions were set up for failure by their head coach. He had a timeout in his pocket to use, and elected to instead let his defense make the games most critical stop, unprepared, misaligned, and confused.

https://twitter.com/WorldofIsaac/status/672641199400992768

 

Exhibit #1

Ziggy at Corner

As you can see from the screen cap from an all 22- view by the NFL, the Detroit Lions have three defenders on the near side of the field, guarding two Green Bay Packers. I have taken the liberty of circling Ziggy Ansah, the NFC’s leader in sacks, and his position on the play.

Your eyes aren’t deceiving you, Ziggy Ansah, your best defensive player, at 6’5″ and 278 pounds is lined up at corner, where he proceeds to slightly interrupt the route of James Jones and just stand there 15 yards down field with no Packers player in the same zip code.

I can’t think of any reason why a player would do that on his own. He was coached or told on the fly to do that. Jim Caldwell and his staff took the best pass rusher in the building and had him play corner-back on the biggest play of the game.

Exhibit #2

Traditionally in Hail Mary situations, the defending team puts their tallest and most gifted jumper back at the goal line to help bat the ball down. That player for the Detroit Lions is none other than Calvin Johnson. Where was Calvin Johnson on that play? On the sideline, melting into a puddle as Aaron Rodgers throw found a wide open Richard Rodgers in the end zone.

Unmute! ??? Calvin Jonhnson is out ✌(Original: @cjzero)

A video posted by SB Nation (@sbnation) on

It’s one thing if they Detroit Lions were in the middle of a scramble drill and they couldn’t get the extra defender off and Calvin Johnson on to the field, but Jim Caldwell had a freakin’ timeout left! Call it, get yourself setup and ready for it.

I would even argue that Eric Ebron, who’s 6’4″ with a 30 inch or more vertical leap should have been back there as well. Remember, they don’t have to catch it, just knock it to the ground.

This is what Jim Caldwell had to say about why Calvin Johnson wasn’t on the field:

Except you didn’t have enough guys back there Jim! Six Lions defenders on five receivers, who all had a height advantage on the guy their covering hardly is “enough”.

Exhibit #3

Call you freakin’ timeouts Coach Caldwell. They aren’t rollover minutes, the do expire. You can’t bank them and carry them over to the next game. The Green Bay Packers had statistically a less than five percent chance to come up with the winning pass.

Calling a timeout doesn’t increase the Packers chances enough to outweigh the increase in preparedness and coordination that a timeout would have provided the Detroit Lions defense. Get the right personnel on the field, get your best pass rusher away from playing defensive back.

Not to mention the pass rush effort by the three down lineman rushing on the last play was pathetic. They were gassed. Do you know what would have helped that, CALLING A FREAKIN’ TIMEOUT!

 

If this game alone isn’t enough for you to want to fire Jim Caldwell, I don’t know what it will take. I didn’t even mention the fact that the Detroit Lions blew a 20 point third quarter lead either. That is bad enough.

 

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