chris98251":1g2bzzor said:
olyfan63":1g2bzzor said:
I'm on that page too, we went to SBs with a younger, faster, cheaper Russell along with an elite defense and a punishing run game. Russell isn't getting younger or faster, so cheaper is all that's left. He could get better at reading cover 2 defenses and getting the ball out faster, i.e., on time. Joe Burrow is already doing this stuff in his 2nd year in the league for Cincy, stuff that Russell hasn't shown us in 10 years. That's what Russell would need to do to be worth the money and get the Hawks back to the promised land. Can Russell upgrade his game that way? I'd rather bet on Pete making improvements. Now if BOTH Pete and Russell improved themselves, that would be an amazing result.
It was the LIONS and the Hawks brought a punishing run game that Detroit had to defend. Made Russell's job easier. Having the D get 3 picks to give the O short fields sure didn't hurt either. Also not sure how many D players Lions were missing due to covid, possibly a factor. Damned if Penny didn't *perform* like Lynch today, different styles, but tremendous impact on the game.
I did really like the Cover-0 blitz TD between Russell and DK, that was fantastic. Props to those 2 and Waldron for having that ready and executing.
Also loved the Lockett jet-sweep TD *pass*, fantastic to see. Kudos to Waldron for this play design. I didn't realize it was actually a *forward pass* until the announcers mentioned it was a TD pass to Lockett. Great design; a muffed exchange becomes simply an incomplete pass.
What we saw today was classic Pete-ball. Defense making plays, getting turnovers, offense running the ball and forcing defense to adjust, and Russell making good throws to open receivers against a defense stacked to stop the run, and Russell taking care of the ball. Turnover margin +3 unless I mis-counted.
Pete-ball at it's finest, *except* somehow the offense was green-lit to score the entire game. Maybe Waldron's influence, finally?
I tend to think this is reaction to the pressure and letting Wilson and the offense be what Waldron designed it to be, the defense went bend don't break while allowing the offense to score.
Are you saying performances like today have been disallowed previously?
If so, that's a bit ludicrous. Why we can't do this week in and week out isn't a mystery.
We were playing the 2nd worst team in the league who was starting their backup qb, which effectively makes them the worst.
Our offense was run based and we committed to it where in games earlier this season, we abandoned the run when it was working so that we could pass ourselves into a futile 2 to 1 pass to run ratio and literally throw games away. That's neither peteball nor Waldronball.
The lions team is not great on defense.
We saw what happened last time we went gaga over a blowout easy win against another weak opponent in Houston, just to show our warts again against a team that could box up our run game just enough and take away what Russ likes to do, leaving him with what he's less capable at.
Russ has raged against being held within the script of a complimentary, run based offense. If he was happy playing team qb, and not chef in the let russ cook, kitchen, that would be one thing. But then you're still faced with the spectre of having a winning enough season, maybe first place in the division, andthem, with teams knowing now hownto stop Russ in ways they didnt during our superbowl years, boxing us up and tossing us out in the first or second round of the playoffs again. There has yet to be a string of games or even one solid game where Russ has shown he can just run a good defense out of their typical kill strategy against us with his arm and ability to consistently distribute the ball and move the chains.
If there were performances like this against quality defenses, whistle to whistle, then the idea of moving on would be more difficult to embrace.