00:00all right college football you got two top 10 showdowns this weekend enjoy it because
00:05they're killing the sport we'll talk expansion later in the hour john i i stumbled across
00:12a graph and i want to know if this is hopium or if there's actually something there for lions
00:19fans to buy into okay it's called the fraud alert and it's from an account uh called stick to the
00:28model it's a big analytics account okay they are not lions fans they don't have hashtag one pride in
00:34their profile they just trust the numbers this is just a numbers thing last year they predicted the
00:41three and two rams were a team that was going to surge and they went nine and three the rest
00:46of
00:46the way so the fraud meter they look at every team in the nfl how many wins each record is
00:53hiding or
00:53faking so on the extreme the biggest fraud in football they say is the new york giants
00:59okay i can i could i could see that on the other side the team that's much better than their
01:06record
01:06they say the la rams who are two and three i think you largely agree with that yeah okay but
01:11i wanted
01:11to know about our team and our division and that's where this gets really interesting the second biggest
01:17fraud in football the minnesota vikings they also list the bears and packers as potential frauds
01:24teams that will underachieve the rest of the way relative to their record the only team in the nfc
01:30north that they see the arrow trending up are detroit lions
01:38so the the numbers do matter here this is based on wins versus a typical team with the same record
01:45okay okay but i i so i i looked at this and i thought oh well but boy this is
01:51a nice graph it
01:52looks great yes and you look at the lions and they're three and two right now and they are projecting
01:57a 10 and seven outcome correct so at three and two that's a 60 percent win percentage at 10 and
02:05seven
02:06it's 58 so okay you're kind of apples and apples but it's it that's where it's at and then you
02:13look at
02:13the at the um potential frauds and you mentioned that the minnesota vikings are the biggest fraud
02:20well they're five and oh nobody thinks that they go undefeated there they believe that their ultimate
02:25record is 11 and six still better than the lions they win the division yeah it's because they banked
02:32wins we've talked about how important it is to bank these wins they think they're going to be a 500
02:35football team coming out of the bye minnesota will go six and six the rest of the way the problem
02:38is
02:39that's enough to win this division if the lions are only at 10 right and so i i like the
02:44fact that
02:44hey yes the lions are trending up they're just not trending up enough to win the division but if
02:49you're looking at this thinking did i just ruin your no no no i i that's not my graph and
02:53i don't know
02:54maybe it is just hopium maybe we're just lions fans but these people aren't this is just cold hard
02:58data and they say lions are better than their record everybody else in the division is worse than
03:02their record they've got us within a game for the division game on yeah and and so that what they
03:08have for the final records for the other two teams green bay is nine and eight and the bears are
03:12nine
03:12and eight so once again the division would all be above 500 for the second year in a row right
03:17yeah
03:19i don't know if there's anything to it that's why i asked is it is it copium hopium is it
03:24is us trying
03:24to find a positive spin i i i do agree with the fact that i think this is probably a
03:3110 win team
03:31and i think they nailed that in regards to the record and it's not going to be enough to win
03:37the
03:37division right and so yeah the vikings have banked some wins here early and they've done a great job
03:42of it because of injuries at the quarterback position maybe that's why coming out of the
03:48by as you guys mentioned yesterday when we're doing thursday touchdown that the two games against
03:53one green bay and then against minnesota those are must win games so i think we all agree the vikings
04:00are a little overinflated well unless they get better quarterback play they're going to get
04:05exposed but how much can the defense carry them can can the defense carry them to a 14 and 3
04:12record
04:12or something like that i don't think so i don't either uh i definitely feel like i know who the
04:18bears are i really feel the bears look like a 10 and 7 9 and 8 team um the only
04:23wild card with them
04:24is is caleb williams being healthy are they better offensively last year than they were then they could
04:30maybe be better i think the packers are the wild card right now they i'm scratching my head over
04:33them if like i thought they were going to be dead and then they did what they did last week
04:37and they
04:38got a big game sunday night football coming up how about this if i asked it this way john who
04:42is the
04:42biggest fraud in the nfc north well i don't believe that the vikings are a 5-0 team even though
04:51that's
04:52what their record says they are so by definition they are a 5-0 team i just think that their
04:57record
04:57currently is over inflated okay tom would you agree i do i think they're over like definitely
05:05but i don't know if they're a fraud though i know their defense is way too good to be a
05:09fraud
05:10right but i like how john answered it like relative to what they've done they've overachieved more than
05:15anybody else in the division which is good news for everybody else in the division because you're
05:19going to need them to dip a little bit if you're going to catch them right they built up a
05:22little bit
05:23of a lead here two game lead on everybody the interesting thing about this graphic is is that
05:27the that the rest of the division they're calling them frauds yes like that's a good sign for the
05:33lines if you trust this thing it looks like last year it nailed it with the rams uh i mean
05:39i i do think
05:40the lines could be might be better than their record is because i i just don't think the defense is
05:45going
05:45to stay this awful and i think the thing we haven't talked enough about the lions offensive line has
05:51been rebuilt oh you know we we've taken our our shots at brad holmes for this secondary and he
05:57deserves the heat for not addressing it more thoroughly but we also highlighted the need to
06:02rebuild the offensive line and john can we say they've rebuilt the offensive line oh yeah i mean
06:08it's it's with what they've done and and we talked about this early on when cade mays got hurt
06:15i thought you know i know that they were going through all of the different iterations of the
06:19offensive line but juice scruggs was going to be the starting center he ultimately earned that spot
06:24and he has he has played in again grades are take it with a grain of salt he's played really
06:32good
06:33pff right now has him graded out as the highest center in football and and it's like if you look
06:41tyler linderbaum is right around like 17 and you know some of the other guys that we thought well you
06:48know is there a chance that they could get you know x y and z in in in in free
06:53agency well what
06:55they've done is brad holmes went out made a trade and everybody thought oh how do you survive how does
07:01jameer gibbs live without david montgomery well david montgomery had a great first weekend since then
07:09he has been non-existent inefficient and now injured can we say they won the trade i i think yes
07:16okay so
07:17and i kind of felt that at the time because david montgomery was going to a team that is absent
07:22of
07:22an offensive line i don't think that he was going to be that productive and then you get a depth
07:26piece
07:26back now i didn't think juice scruggs was going to be this good no and they didn't know they were
07:30going to need him to start this many games i don't bring it up to kiss brad's ass like we
07:34still have
07:35our our gripes but he should get credit for this he won the trade he rebuilt the offensive line they
07:39have the number one offense in football they have a winning record at the bye week and it's the biggest
07:42reason why they have a chance still in this division and i'll just give you some other guys
07:48um zach frazier coming out of west virginia he was the guy that we had you know we thought
07:53still while frank was here but hey you could get him and groom him to be the next center well
07:59he is
07:59ranked third this year in in the grading scale that pff uses um and then you go to creed humphrey
08:05i think
08:05we all believe he's a really good center for kansas city he grades right now at 13 i mentioned uh
08:11tyler
08:12lundabomb is actually at 19 connor mcgovern who stayed in buffalo wasn't actually available at 18
08:16just to give you an idea of where some of these players are and now you go out and you
08:22get cade mays
08:23as your big offseason signing we asked ross tucker yesterday and i've been talking about this does when
08:30cade mays is healthy and available which we believe he will be after the bye week do you take out
08:36a guy that's performing as the best center or one of i'll just say one of so ross said no
08:41he'd
08:42ride the hot hand and he spoke personal experience he was right he was that guy came in yeah now
08:46and i can't confirm he was terrible at one at once terrible we have the audio of dan campbell
08:53because he's non-committal as to how they're going to handle this moving forward it's a good problem
08:57time to have
08:59you
09:07you
09:08you
09:13you
09:14you
09:15you
09:24you
09:35i say it's a good problem to have because the offensive line had been a weakness a year ago
09:39and now is a strength christian mahogany has graded out very well at left guard too it's
09:43what makes this a little more complicated john how would you set the offensive line for the green
09:47bay game i would keep i would keep juice in there and you know because you don't know what injury
09:55is
09:56going to happen next and if i mean let's just say something happens because he does have a history
10:01of injuries that all of a sudden you bump juice over no guarantee that he plays well at that
10:08position but you do have some confidence that he can go in there he's going to understand the
10:14offense he's going to understand the calls in fact he could be helping cade as cade gets adjusted to
10:18this offense we haven't seen cade in this offense i think the offensive line is in a really good spot
10:23and if you're you know since we're going down the pff you know rankings this offensive line
10:28is currently ranked as the number one offensive line in the nfl yeah for all the critics you know
10:35and the critical stuff we said about brad holmes he deserves credit like you said in the juice scrugs
10:39thing is masterful if you really look at it considering that was a throw and everybody's
10:44like who and uh when your center went down this is like crucial it could have saved their season
10:49i would say you said mchogany's playing well he's third pff left guard yeah i think that's inflated
10:54sewell's number one so they have two number ones and then a three all next to each other and tate
10:59ratledge is making all of the steps that we want a second year offensive lineman to make
11:04and blake miller has played like he belongs and is comfortable at right tackle
11:09yeah it's exciting we're up against it i don't have time to take kevin's phone call but he was
11:14going to say that this is a little overblown because they haven't played anybody i'm willing
11:18to accept they're not the best offensive line in football but even if they rest somewhere in that
11:21five to ten range that's a job well done up front oh it's a gigantic improvement over what we saw
11:28last year we got the picks coming up next we'll talk 24 teams come on college football that's the
11:33end of the hour it's 97 one
