00:00well let me start with this how good or bad are the lions it's a it's a debate that you
00:05know we
00:05can pretty much have every day throughout the start of this season there's been some good
00:08and there has been some bad i think it's kind of gone as expected oh look the offense is scoring
00:16points 31 oh look the yeah 31 31 and 31 oh look the secondary is struggling people are disappointed
00:25because they wanted more effort put into improving the secondary it was a concern it was a worry and
00:32i said after the the opener against new orleans it was a worse fears realized victory
00:39then it got worse in a loss of buffalo then they bounced back and played better against
00:46the lesser opponent the jets and they beat the jets so how good or bad are they well you go
00:53to power
00:53rankings when you think about power rankings and it just you know where the teams get ranked one to
01:0132 in the national football league where do you think the lions belong you say in one to 32 and
01:09power rankings where do you think the lions belong i think they belong somewhere in that
01:1710 to 14 range okay i'll say 12 okay so the wednesday is the day where a lot of the
01:27major
01:28websites come out with their power rankings espn their nfl power rankings uh let me bring it up right
01:37here one moment please uh now i've lost it i'll start with uh i'll start with the athletic because i
01:44have
01:44that in front of me the athletic power rankings number one san francisco 49ers number two the buffalo
01:51bills number three the kansas city chiefs number four the denver broncos number five the seattle seahawks
02:01number six the detroit lions wow six yeah i don't agree with that um not right now but it's interesting
02:14does it give reason why six despite the fact that their defense and their past defense in particular
02:19has been so horrible i mean not really it basically for each team they've kind of got an interesting
02:24statistic um but they've got the lions okay as the third best team in the nfc right now the one
02:33thing
02:33that you could build the case around it and it falls in line with something i've been saying for
02:38probably three or four years now i think the true i think the best team i think the your better
02:46path
02:47to success is to build a dominant offense over a dominant defense defense is important i don't
02:52want it to be dismissive of defense in any way don't misinterpret this but if you're going to dominate
02:57on one side of the ball and i'm running an organization i'm trying to dominate offensively
03:02because i think over the last six seven years that the true contenders have mostly been the teams
03:09with the best offenses now in the last couple of seasons it might be swinging back and i could be
03:16moved off this position um but i plant flags and stand by them for long periods of time and don't
03:21let
03:21you know recent and recent but small sample sizes change my opinions um which may be a huge strength
03:29or a terrible weakness interpret it as you will um but i believe offense wins championships more
03:35often than defenses in this era of the nfl and if you're going to rank the lions that high i
03:40must
03:40feel like you must believe the same thing well the other thing is if you're going and and looking at
03:45and how things have gone through three games which i think is probably ridiculous to have a power
03:49ranking after three weeks in the nfl season do they do it before a game i understand i know i
03:53i think
03:54it's just it's ridiculous but okay they're doing it fair enough so you look at the landscape of the
03:58nfc and you know who has stood out certainly san francisco has stood out i don't disagree with
04:05that and you know seattle's got their quarterback returning now he played last week and they're
04:10defending super bowl champs i get that and then you look at the rest of them you know philadelphia
04:15just got off an embarrassing loss to the bears they got beat by case keenum you know the giants have
04:21quarterback issues right now but they're a two-in-one team the bears are two-in-one but they've got
04:25the
04:25quarterback issue although case keenum looked great but you don't expect that to be long term
04:30and then the lions are two-in-one that's it those are all the teams are two-in-one or
04:35three-and-oh
04:36so right now it feels like there are no team is getting disrespected more by the record than the
04:43minnesota vikings right what's their power ranking uh according to the athletic the vikings are seven
04:50right behind the line okay so there's seven i may not terribly disrespected then but they're
04:53undefeated and they're seven um and they've had to use a couple different quarterbacks to get there
04:58and they just traded away their first round pick from a few years ago so that's interesting but
05:02i guess i could see it um my gut tells me that when all is sudden done the rams are
05:07going to be a
05:08really good football team i don't know who's going to come out of the south you know you get three
05:13teams at one and two and one team at oh and three and then one of those teams that's one
05:16and two of
05:17course is carolina who the lions play on sunday and if you look at it on paper
05:21this could be an explosive game offensively for the lions now that the carolina panthers aren't
05:28without not one but two starting corners in the game and they have the worst rush defense in the
05:35national football league giving up nearly 200 yards a game on the ground so you know i'd do it through
05:41the air do it on the ground however you get it done this offense should just really uh have an
05:47explosive effort on on sunday night at least on paper against carolina so yeah from the nfc i maybe
05:52i shouldn't be terribly surprised by that okay espn's power rankings what'd you say you thought
05:58they should be i thought 12 okay here's espn's power rankings number one buffalo number two san
06:03francisco number three kansas city number four seattle number five baltimore number six denver number seven
06:11the rams number eight philly number nine minnesota number 10 jacksonville number 11 chicago number 12
06:17cincinnati number 13 detroit i can't not too far off from where i thought i don't know if i'd have
06:25all
06:25those teams ahead of them but they are there's split opinions on what the lions are you know the athletic
06:33really likes the lions and has them as the third best team in the nfc and six overall in the
06:39in the
06:39national football league espn has them 13th and has them behind six teams in the nfc san francisco
06:47seattle the rams philly minnesota and chicago here's the one thing that i i really think is
06:54interesting and that is pete prisco of cbs sports also did his power rankings right and i mean we can
06:59do this for everybody and it probably starts to get less and less interesting every time but he i will
07:05just tell you because of what he wrote he has the lions at 12th and he says jameer gibbs is
07:10carrying
07:11this team as in the early mvp conversation here's the sentence that caught my attention they have to be
07:17happy to be two and one with all the defensive injuries detroit are you happy with your football team
07:31now in general i think when you ask this question to a sports talk audience
07:38unless you are three and oh and dominating in every facet of the game
07:41if you see a weakness i don't think people will say that they are happy
07:50because this season has gone actually in many ways stunningly according to script
07:57what we thought would be a strength is what we thought would be a weakness is
08:01the games we thought they'd win they did the games we thought they'd lose
08:05so far the one i mean now it's it's we're just started but
08:10this is kind of the way it was logic dictated that this season would go
08:15but i don't think many people are going to say they're happy
08:17would you say you're unhappy detroiters are you unhappy
08:24i look at it this way that i'm not i'm not unhappy and i'm not happy i'm
08:29i'm cautiously optimistic about where this is going to change and where it's going to go
08:33and i think it starts on sunday for the reasons they just gave but here's another reason i'll give you
08:37is that the infancy stages here working with the drew petzing offense they've averaged 31 points a game
08:44this offense looks like it could it could really be spectacular and and start adding to those totals
08:51you know this this team's averaged 31 points a game but they're minus two in the point differential
08:56on the season because of that horrible loss to the bills let's not you know lose that i think the
09:00problem we have as lions fans with the eyeball test is it's how they won those games you know
09:07winning by the skin of your teeth in an overtime effort against the the saints because the saints
09:13went for two and they didn't get it lions made a play right saints didn't get it they win the
09:17game
09:17without question but yikes i mean 31 30 is not how you wouldn't want to win that game and going
09:23to overtime to do it winning this game against the jets the fact that the jets have the ball with
09:28a
09:28chance to tie it up at the end of the game and then if you get into a two-point
09:31conversion you could lose
09:32it at the end of the game that's no good either but defense made a play lions win it's all
09:38you care
09:38about it's how they've won i think that has people a little concerned and i think that's going to start
09:42to change now that they're gaining more and more experience with the offensive coordinator in tow
09:48and with the offensive line looking like it's getting healthier here knock on wood they stay
09:52that way i mean you certainly have the line as it looks right now is going to be this way
09:57for this
09:57week and maybe next next week and then you get the buy and then kate mays might come back
10:01and it might shift things might see scruggs at left guard maybe it still is mahogany we don't know but
10:06the competition will be great and the offensive line should be even better these are steadying
10:11influences okay so interesting what i think what prisco wrote is the most interesting part of
10:16all this although the varying opinions is also are they closer to six are they closer to 13
10:20the athletic has them as a six best team espn has them at 13 uh but prisco said they should
10:25be happy
10:26with all the defensive injuries at two and one are you happy two four eight five three nine ninety
10:30seven ninety seven let's get to the people next it is karshen anderson on 97 one
10:34you
10:34you
10:34you
10:34you
10:34you
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