Seems like after the Elise Jesse expose came out, the defense has played better

[THE PISTONS]

(12-26-2020, 12:11 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Maybe it's because the player(s) who weren't buying into the system have either been traded (Dunlap) or have gone to the bench for other reasons like injuries, and the rest of the no name defense is buying in to the system, and as they play better they are dragging the holdouts along with them. Over the last 2 games they are what, ranked 4th in the NFL?

Not the Dunlap part, but the playing the young, fringe NFL guys part...I can agree with. Especially on Monday night football with a lot of the country watching.

I think there's something in sports to guys giving effort on EVERY play where you can play well defensively even with less talent. An unwritten part of this is that a lot of guys on every team don't give 100% effort on every play. Not saying they just stand there and give up, but maybe 75% effort. Some sports this works better than others...like in the NBA maybe 15 years ago, a team that played defense hard EVERY night could possibly sneak into the playoffs as an 8th seed. You see it in hockey too. Although, I'd argue that a lot of leagues made rule changes which legislated out the impact of defense in favor of offense...

These guys want to go out there and put good things on tape to either stick in the NFL or get paid. Lawson probably made himself millions more in free agency. He was an absolute force. IF we saw that Lawson EVERY game...we would probably have won a game or 2 more.

Man...guys like Covington, Margus Hunt, and I could name more I'm sure. I hope we retain them and put them in a rotation. They're not starters, but as a 3rd DT, I'd take Covington any day coming in and playing hard. And that's what makes good teams great - When you have 1st string guys that are really good, and then they come out and this high-effort guy comes in and is just absolutely grinding every play tiring the opponents out. Then, the star comes in and gets a sack.