Studs and Duds vs Seahawks

[gopkrs]

After the Lions game, LaFleur said that the challenges are a combination of what he sees live and what his staff sees in the booth on the television broadcast. Someone here already stated that LaFleur seems to throw the flag with too much emotion and not enough thought in his decisions. The guys in the booth are seeing the broadcast the same as us, but only have probably 5-10 seconds to give a recommendation. We get more time to second-guess it before the staff communicates and LaFleur has to decide to throw it or not.

All that said, I completely agree that the intern (or whomever it is) up there needs to be reassigned. The decision to throw the flag should only be made if the staff sees conclusive evidence -- a no doubter -- or if it's 50/50 and the team might normally use a timeout in this situation.

Sometimes the play is too important not to throw the flag if you aren't sure

 

[DoURant]

Dare I say that the outside CB's, Valentine (90.2 PFF) and Stokes (77.8 PFF) were studs? Valentine had two PD's and an INT. Stokes gave up 2 catches for 10 yards. Metcalf and Lockett weren't factors, combined 4 catches for 50 yards. The pass defense was only hurt by the slot, Jackson-Njigba, and most of his damage was in the middle of the field.

That's what happens when you have an effective pass rush. 7 sacks and double digit pressures helped contribute to their high PFF grades, IMO. We need more of that moving forward.

 

[rmontro]

Going to be an odd 3 weeks. By the time they play Monday night, possible that they have a playoff slot locked up and they are only realistically playing to be the 6th or 7th seed. I can't recall a scenario like this. Once you clinch this early, normally playing for better seeding and the division with 3 games left. You want the team to be consistent and having their play continue to improve, but really the next 3 games are somewhat meaningless so MLF will have his work cut out.

Maybe the fact that they're playing division rivals will help, make them play harder. Maybe a little more pride involved. You don't want your rivals to sweep you, or feel like they have one over on you.