(10-04-2017, 01:14 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: We lost 20-0 in our opener at home.

And if we had the offense we had the last couple weeks, we probably win 27-10. Remember, a poor offense can have an effect on how a defense does, even a good defense.

(10-04-2017, 01:14 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: We had Lazor in the GB game and lost.

C'mon, man, I know you're not stupid, please don't act like you are. I clearly said that had he been the OC from the beginning, going into the GB game after 2 wins, the offense would've been far more confident and we would've done far better as a team against the Packers.

(10-04-2017, 01:14 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Just wait until there is tape out there and defenses adjust.

I wish people would stop saying this. This is isn't Lazor's first time being an OC, so there's already tape on him. Secondly, we didn't do well just because we had a new OC that no one has ever seen before. We also have goo dplayers that are able to execute the OC's plays (well, except for the OL, anyway).

Lastly, if teams can somehow look at the tape from the last 2 games and shut down our offense, then Lazor's not a good OC anyways. 

(10-04-2017, 01:14 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: We're probably still 1-3 if Lazor is the OC all year. Maybe 2-2 at best. What you are discounting is that this team finds ways to lose games. They did that against the Texans. They did that against the Packers.

You're entitled to your opinion and I respect yours, but I just feel that had Lazor been the OC from the beginning, we're sitting at 4-0 right now.

(10-04-2017, 01:57 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: And "we" "should" have 2 more SB wins and several more playoff wins and a few more HOF'ers and with my build, height, large hands and feet, i should have a couple more inches.

As it is, "we" don't. 

Sorry, Phil. Not trying to be mean but the "should" causes me the same disgust as the "hope". 

You're not wrong. It just goes to show how bad a HC Marvin Lewis has turned into.

(10-04-2017, 02:09 PM)PhilHos Wrote: And if we had the offense we had the last couple weeks, we probably win 27-10. Remember, a poor offense can have an effect on how a defense does, even a good defense.

Hmm, giving us 27 points and taking 10 away from the Ravens is a 37 point swing.  That's a bit of a stretch if you ask me.  

(10-04-2017, 11:50 AM)PhilHos Wrote: It bothers me to think about it, but it's true, we should be 4-0 right now. Clearly, Zampese was the wrong choice as OC (which is like sayiing poison is the wrong choice for lunch).

Based on how Lazor's called the offense, I think it's safe to say, we win the first 2 games of the year and probably do so easily.

You might be saying, "But he was the OC for Green Bay and we lost that game." Which is true. HOwever, had we opened the season with the offense playing like it did against Cleveland and the first half of GB, I think we would have come into GB full of confidence and would have built up a bigger lead in the first half. And we would not have succumbed so badly to GB's halftime adjustments. And let's not forget GB was dealing with a lot of injuries that a more confident team would've taken greater advantage of.

Even if you disagree with me about GB, we should still be sitting at least at 3-1. I know it's unlikely and, frankly, I'd rather things happen that guarantee a new HC, but it is becoming clear to me that we could very well be a playoff team this year. Though, to be completely honest, even if we do make the playoffs, we'll be one-and-done again this year, but that'll probably be enough to get Brown to want to bring back Lewis.

With our luck, we're going to end up 2 games short of making the playoffs, but we'll have played well enough that Brown will offer Lewis a contract extension anyway which he'll accept.

Hum, well, err, you might be forgetting that Mike Brown still owns this team. He is the 10 ton lead weight that holds this team down and sinks it when it sets sail. We have one win against the worst team in the league and failed against the rest.

Now if we had our OL from 2014 then I'd probably agree with you, but we've got one of the worst OLs in the business. It's worse than last year's and Anderson just loves the Bodine and Ogbuehi for reasons which are inexplicable without using obscene language. Anderson is Mike Brown's man all the way. The team has just drafted poorly for the OL for awhile now and they were happy to see Whit and Zietler go for salary reasons.

(10-04-2017, 03:27 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Hum, well, err, you might be forgetting that Mike Brown still owns this team. He is the 10 ton lead weight that holds this team down and sinks it when it sets sail. We have one win against the worst team in the league and failed against the rest.

Now if we had our OL from 2014 then I'd probably agree with you, but we've got one of the worst OLs in the business. It's worse than last year's and Anderson just loves the Bodine and Ogbuehi for reasons which are inexplicable without using obscene language. Anderson is Mike Brown's man all the way. The team has just drafted poorly for the OL for awhile now and they were happy to see Whit and Zietler go for salary reasons.

Of course you mean Alexander who is definately one of if not the biggest problems around here.

Doubt they were happy to see Whit and Zeitler go, but Whit was getting up there in terms of age and Zeitler
was overpaid by the Stains. Should of atleast kept Whitworth though and this seems pretty evident about right
now watching our young guys and then seeing what Whit is doing as a Ram.

But i definately understand Philhos sentiment. If we would of had Lazor the OC from the get go this season we
would be much better off than we are right now. Big time difference from the first two games Offensively and
having a decent Offense that can score points gives our Defense that added edge so they can rush the passer.

(10-04-2017, 02:30 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Hmm, giving us 27 points and taking 10 away from the Ravens is a 37 point swing.  That's a bit of a stretch if you ask me.  

well 2 turnovers in the endzone...  One of which was ran back far enough to lead to ravens 3 points...   is a 17 point swing on just 3 series.

(10-04-2017, 02:09 PM)PhilHos Wrote: And if we had the offense we had the last couple weeks, we probably win 27-10. Remember, a poor offense can have an effect on how a defense does, even a good defense.


C'mon, man, I know you're not stupid, please don't act like you are. I clearly said that had he been the OC from the beginning, going into the GB game after 2 wins, the offense would've been far more confident and we would've done far better as a team against the Packers.


I wish people would stop saying this. This is isn't Lazor's first time being an OC, so there's already tape on him. Secondly, we didn't do well just because we had a new OC that no one has ever seen before. We also have goo dplayers that are able to execute the OC's plays (well, except for the OL, anyway).

Lastly, if teams can somehow look at the tape from the last 2 games and shut down our offense, then Lazor's not a good OC anyways. 


You're entitled to your opinion and I respect yours, but I just feel that had Lazor been the OC from the beginning, we're sitting at 4-0 right now.

We beat a team that is 1-19 over their past 20 games and you suddenly think Lazor has developed some unbeatable offense.

The offense was mediocre against the Packers. Good in the 1st half. Terrible in the 2nd half and not good enough to win. 

The big issues we have are: 1) Our offensive line is terrible.
2) Our running game is terrible

Lazor is limited in what he can do to fix either of those issues.

(10-04-2017, 12:58 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: People are looking at how good we looked against the Browns who are 1-19 in their past 20 games and projecting if we played that well against other teams. The Browns have a bad offense and defense.

Let's see how we do against Buffalo before we annoint Lazor the savior. I saw Lazor's stuff work in the 1st half against the Packers then get shut down in the 2nd half.

Once there is tape out there on our offense, we'll see how it does.

We absolutely cannot run the ball. That is a big hurdle to winning.

You saw the Bengals after Lazor was in charge for 10 days.....

(10-04-2017, 04:01 PM)BengalsBong Wrote: You saw the Bengals after Lazor was in charge for 10 days.....

That was against a Browns team that was 1-19 over their past 20 games. The Browns are the 4th worst scoring defense.

We beat a TERRIBLE TEAM and the homers on this board are rationalizing it into Lazor being an offensive genius and being 4-0.

Lazor has been a middle-of-the-pack offensive coordinator with the Dolphins before here. I assure you he's not some offensive genius. I assure you that not being able to run the ball will come back to hurt us against good defenses.

(10-04-2017, 03:55 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: well 2 turnovers in the endzone...  One of which was ran back far enough to lead to ravens 3 points...   is a 17 point swing on just 3 series.

Yes, and if the Browns would have spent less time turning the ball over and more time scoring they could have beaten us, too.  I'm just saying if you can look at 20-0 and squint hard enough to say it should have been a win you can probably say most losses in the NFL should have been wins.

(10-04-2017, 04:24 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Yes, and if the Browns would have spent less time turning the ball over and more time scoring they could have beaten us, too.  I'm just saying if you can look at 20-0 and squint hard enough to say it should have been a win you can probably say most losses in the NFL should have been wins.

Yes. It's like a game of chess. People can say had I not made that 1 mistake I would have won. THAT'S THE POINT THOUGH.

What decides football games? Mistakes/Turnovers/Big Plays generally. Reverse 2-3 plays from every game and the results would be different.

I don't put the loss to the Packers on Lazor, I put that loss on Marvin because it was clear that it was Marvin's philosophy: get up a few scores, stop attacking, start playing conservative, and try to run out the clock.

We don't have to be in hurry up mode the entire game, but we should be in "move the chains" mode, not "kill the clock" mode.

(10-04-2017, 03:57 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: We beat a team that is 1-19 over their past 20 games and you suddenly think Lazor has developed some unbeatable offense.

Where did I say that? However, it's not like the teams we lost to were the Patriots or defensive powerhouses. Even Green Bay, we win with just one more score in the 2nd half.

THE PISTONS Wrote:The offense was mediocre against the Packers. Good in the 1st half. Terrible in the 2nd half and not good enough to win.

Dude, the game went into overtime. Just one more score in regulation and we win.

THE PISTONS Wrote:The big issues we have are: 1) Our offensive line is terrible.
2) Our running game is terrible

Lazor is limited in what he can do to fix either of those issues.

I don't disagree. I never said our offense was unbeatable. I never said Lazor fixed our offense. I'm not saying we're going to the playoffs. All I said was that I believe we would be 4-0 right now if Lazor was OC when the season started. That's based on how our offense has looked under Lazor so far combined with the fact that the teams we lost to, we could've beaten with a decent offensive showing (or in the case of Green Bay, a decent offensive showing in the 2nd half/OT).

(10-04-2017, 04:29 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Yes. It's like a game of chess. People can say had I not made that 1 mistake I would have won. THAT'S THE POINT THOUGH.

What decides football games? Mistakes/Turnovers/Big Plays generally. Reverse 2-3 plays from every game and the results would be different.

Close games are a killer, but good teams tend to win them and bad teams tend to lose them.  I recall in 2010 when we lost like 8 games by 8 points or less and the Packers won something like 6 games by a similar margin.  We were a dreadful abomination of a team that needed to be blown up and they won the Super Bowl. We shoulda been 12-4 and they shoulda been 4-12 but that's not the way it went.

Back on topic, I could see us wining the Packers and Texans game if we score instead of failing to score (boy, that's quite the generic comment), but we lost that first game by 20 points.  No amount of squinting makes that look like a win to me, regardless of how crap Zampese is/was.

(10-04-2017, 02:30 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Hmm, giving us 27 points and taking 10 away from the Ravens is a 37 point swing.  That's a bit of a stretch if you ask me.  

Yeah idk. I'd say our completely stagnant offense that gifted the Ravens 4 turnovers played a key role in some of their "offense". With a much better offense (like we've seen the last couple weeks), I could easily see a huge swing in both points scored and allowed in that game. Woulda coulda shoulda though. Lazor will have 14 games to prove himself.

To the OP: I'm far from a homer, but I can see where you're coming from. Those saying "wait til we play a real defense" were probably among those saying Lazor wouldn't make a big impact mid-season. I tried showing people how Jim Bob Cooter turned things around for the Lions in 2015...with a terrible o-line...but that was pretty much ignored. 


People are basically giving Lazor the "Andy Dalton" treatment. Any good is downplayed. If the offense sees any dip at all against the Bills, it'll be used as evidence. If he produces again, it'll be met with more excuses or luke-warm praise at best. Honestly it's a long season and Lazor may prove to be a dud, but I'm excited about the extreme turnaround we've seen, and honestly I couldn't care less who it came against.

Would anyone have guessed after the opening goose-egg and 9 points in 2 games, that we'd score 55 in the next 2 games? People were talking about playing McCarron or drafting a QB and now that same guy has a nearly perfect 138.2 rating in his first 2 games with Lazor. It's worthy of some early praise at least, and I'll forgive him if he only put up say...17 on the Bills. They do look like a good D so far. I don't expect others to be forgiving at all though. Especially if we lose.

(10-04-2017, 04:52 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Close games are a killer, but good teams tend to win them and bad teams tend to lose them.  I recall in 2010 when we lost like 8 games by 8 points or less and the Packers won something like 6 games by a similar margin.  We were a dreadful abomination of a team that needed to be blown up and they won the Super Bowl.  We shoulda been 12-4 and they shoulda been 4-12 but that's not the way it went.

Back on topic, I could see us wining the Packers and Texans game if we score instead of failing to score (boy, that's quite the generic comment), but we lost that first game by 20 points.  No amount of squinting makes that look like a win to me, regardless of how crap Zampese is/was.

Yep. But guess what?

We're 1-3. We'll probably finish 6-10.

Then we can all post in the 'IF Hue Jackson was our head coach we'd be 12-4 thread'.

Beating a 1-19 over their past 20 games Browns Team has the homers thinking big. 

We somehow choked away a lead to a Packers team missing 6 starters. Good teams figure out how to win those games.

(10-04-2017, 04:08 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: 1) That was against a Browns team that was 1-19 over their past 20 games. The Browns are the 4th worst scoring defense.

2) We beat a TERRIBLE TEAM and the homers on this board are rationalizing it into Lazor being an offensive genius and being 4-0.

3) Lazor has been a middle-of-the-pack offensive coordinator with the Dolphins before here. I assure you he's not some offensive genius. I assure you that not being able to run the ball will come back to hurt us against good defenses.

1) So? They're still an NFL team. It's not like the win doesn't count because they're the Browns. AND I'm sure that had the offense only scored 7 points that that would be used against them.

2) As far as I know, I'm the only one that said I think with Lazor we'd be 4-0. But, I never claimed him to be an offensive genius. He's clearly more than a step up from Zampese. Is that okay to say? Or do I need to fear being called more derogatory things?

3) Again, never claimed he was an offensive genius. Just pointed out how well the offense has played the last game and the first half of the game before that. Combined with the lower quality of the first 2 teams we played, and I think we would be 4-0 right now. 

A lot of y'all need to realize that this is all moot because Zampese was our OC and nothing's going to change that. But I'm amazed at how many people are taking my opinion on a 'what if' scenario awfully serious.

(10-04-2017, 04:54 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Would anyone have guessed after the opening goose-egg and 9 points in 2 games, that we'd score 55 in the next 2 games?

That was a pleasant surprise.  If you add the facts that we melted down in the second half against GB and then ran up the score against the punchless Browns things get less surprising.

I think we knew that the offense was playing beneath itself in games 1 and 2 and clearly things have gotten better (hard NOT to get better, though).  Still, 55 points is great but all we have to show for it is a single win over a team that is barely NFL-caliber.  That win over the Browns reminds me of that season where we got all pumped that Hill "got his mojo back" every time we were playing a god awful team.

Anyways, positive signs but saying we should have the best record in the NFL right now is.....well, it's just beyond wishful thinking.

(10-04-2017, 02:07 PM)rezolve11 Wrote: I can give you 3-1. But the beat down by the Ravens wasn't a win.

Eifert lost us the Texans game by not staying in bounds.
Bullock lost us the Packers game by missing a kick.

We should be 3-1, but we aren't. Luckily there is still a lot of time left to make up ground.

This week feels like a must win for the season to me. Otherwise we're sitting at 1-4 and I don't think you come back from that.

On the bright side...if we lose someone can start a 'We should be 5-0 right now' thread. 

(10-04-2017, 05:03 PM)PhilHos Wrote:  But I'm amazed at how many people are taking my opinion on a 'what if' scenario awfully serious.

Ehh, if you would have said 3-1 I doubt we'd be having such a robust discussion.  A record of 4-0 would tie us with the Chiefs for the best record in the NFL right now and from what I've seen, we hain't in their league and we aren't automatically in the league of the 20 or so teams we'd leapfrog record-wise.