Talking Grit: A Detroit Lions Podcast
Talking Grit: A Detroit Lions Podcast
E27: "Biting Re-Caps" - Week 4: Lions vs Seahawks: Sweet Revenge!
In this episode of Talking Grit, hosts Jason Harwood and Jacob Litton review the Detroit Lions' dominant 42-29 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football. They discuss various aspects of the game, focusing on offensive and defensive performances. Highlights include Jared Goff's perfect passing game, the significance of key plays such as the Jared Goff touchdown catch, Jameson Williams' deep touchdown, and a crucial forced fumble by Jack Campbell. They also touch on defensive challenges, particularly penalties and coverage issues, and praise Gino Smith's performance. The duo briefly contemplate potential trades, like acquiring Davante Adams, and reflect on individual player contributions. The episode wraps up with mentions of upcoming plans and personal anecdotes about game day experiences.
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Welcome everybody to another episode of Fighting Recaps here at Talking Grit. My name is Jason Harwood and with me as always is Jacob Litton. We are talking about our Monday Night Football win with the Seattle Seahawks. Pretty dominating offensive performance from our Lions winning 42 to 29. We'll talk about the offense. We're going to talk about the defense. So I want to ask Jacob first, because you may assume as a listener that Jacob and I watch a lot of games together, Jacob and I has never watched a game together. We're both use it with our families. So, Mike. My, uh, question for you, Jacob, is when you're watching a game, are you sitting on a couch or are you pacing or how do you watch a game?
Jacob Litton:That depends on what's going on in the game. Right. I mean, generally, you start the game, you're sittin down, you're ready, and then depending on, if it's a big third down, you gotta get up out of your seat, you gotta get in focus. Uh, gotta do the same thing, right? You can't just sit there the whole time.
Jason Harwood:Yeah, I'm up all the time. It's funny because I was watching my boys, like, I'll watch a, regular season Tiger game with them and Preston's doing the same thing that I would do during a football game. He's pacing, he's moving around, he's got a lot of nervous energy. And, uh, Um, generally in regular season baseball, I'm kind of just sitting there. It got a little crazy towards the end of the Tiger season because of, us fighting for playoffs. I noticed that the boys are up walking around, but then I noticed they were doing the exact same mannerisms that I have, because last night there was a lot of get up out of your seats. And. Really focused, like three feet from the big screen TV, you're sitting there staring at it, you got a lot of nervous energy. And yeah, it was fun. Yeah. I'm all, I'm like that, Michigan game, whatever I'm fully invested. Um, last night was a get out of your seat game. Uh, the Cardinals game was kind of more laid back, so I don't think I got out of my seat as much, but yeah, definitely. Uh, last night was a lot of standing and watching really close to the TV. Yeah.
Jacob Litton:The adrenaline was pumping, for sure.
Jason Harwood:Yeah,
Jacob Litton:time. An important game for us, we really, how long's it been since we beat the Seahawks? We really, we really wanted that one. Still early in the season, but I mean it, that was an important win for us.
Jason Harwood:yeah, for sure. And yeah, like you said, adrenaline was going because there was a lot of, a lot of key plays in that game. A lot of awesome offensive moments, a lot of nail biting defensive moments, uh, waiting for a flag to come out, even after play was over, you're staring at the bottom right corner of the screen saying, is there a flag? Uh, one of my favorite things to do with the boys is let them celebrate and then go flag and then just watch their reaction. It's really cruel, but it's really fun at the same time.
Jacob Litton:So even when there's not a flag, you just like to bring them down a little bit by pretending there's one,
Jason Harwood:yeah, they'll run in the room or run out of the room cause they're screaming and having a good time. But like, Oh, flag. And they'll be like that. And they always, My boys are funny because, you and I have watched football for a long time, a lot, depending on where the flag is, or, there's a flag on a play, you could, you might see the foul, or you could just anticipate what the call is going to be, right? So, anytime there's a flag, the boys are like, is it on us? And, because I have a good idea of, it is, but I made a couple of wrong calls on, whatever flag and a couple of times the games, I don't remember the exact situations, then they wouldn't trust me after that. They were like, I was like, no, it's offsides or whatever. And they'd be like, well, you were wrong the one time. So we're going to wait for the ref. I was like, okay, I've lost.
Jacob Litton:You've lost all credibility. Now they already see right through it. It's like the boy who cries wolf too. You caught a flag. Now they don't even believe you.
Jason Harwood:yeah, I know, but it's still fun. They still fight, they still bite on it too. So, uh, man, just,
Jacob Litton:though. When you, you're up, it's a huge third down. You got a huge stop. And then here comes that yellow flag.
Jason Harwood:oh yeah. I mean,
Jacob Litton:like defensive holding or list, something Kill you. All right, let's get into it.
Jason Harwood:All right. So I thought. This game was a lot of fun to watch. Even if I wasn't an Alliance fan, I would have had fun watching this game. It was just so many big plays and just so much excitement. So I want to ask you, I don't think you can do this in every game, but, cause I, I know you're going to leave out of play, but I want you Jacob to name the top three It could be offense, defense, special teams, just the top three plays off the top of your head. We didn't talk about this at the time. We didn't prepare for this. I just want you to say your top three plays from the game.
Jacob Litton:I can think of five or six,
Jason Harwood:Yeah, I know. But you can only name three, you can't name five or six. So you're going to have to leave off a big play and I want you to rank them two, three, two, one, if you, if that's not too much pressure,
Jacob Litton:real quick I do want to touch on that because you made a point like, and I just got to say I love the Lions play on primetime, hearing all these national outlets and even some of the smaller things, just all the positive things they have to say, there are just so many people that are so hyped on our team right now, just because of how we've done, we've been performing in primetime. I mean, obviously we love it as fans because we won, we love seeing us in primetime, but then to hear, us kind of get hyped by the national media and everything like that too. That's just awesome. And especially because the other game was such a dud, like the Titans and Dolphins, they tried to do the double prime time and that really failed epically. And I think, as soon as the lions and Seahawks game, pretty much anyone that wasn't a Titans or Dolphins fan, you flipped that channel over and you made a good choice because it was a heck of a game. It was awesome. Uh, so yeah, I guess if I'm going into the top three plays, the first one you have to mention has got to be the Jared Goff touchdown catch. Right. I mean, just, was Goff's, he said that was the first time he's caught a touchdown in his life, dating back to like, 7th grade, or 7 years old, starting playing football. Uh, it was a dime by Amon Ra, that made it even better, just, perfect. Amon Ra was on his podcast, uh, with his brother. This was, I want to say this was like a month or two ago, they had Jared Goff on, and they were talking about, he, he was trying to get Jared Goff to say that, Uh, he would be the emergency quarterback. I don't know, I was trying to get him to say, he's like, Okay, if we only have two, who's the third quarterback? He wanted him to say it was him. And he, he wouldn't, but he wouldn't bite on it. Uh, maybe be interesting to see what he says after that perfect pass. Um, good play design. I guess they've had that one in the works for a while. They were waiting for the right time to call it. Couldn't have picked a better one. Works perfectly. Executed perfectly. Lobbed right over that linebacker. Just couldn't quite get there. Um That, that was just an awesome play. So I think that's number one on my list. Do you want to go back and forth or do you just want me to keep going
Jason Harwood:no, you, you name your three and then I'll, I'll, chime in, go ahead.
Jacob Litton:Alright, second one, I gotta go with the Jameson Williams. Uh, the deep touchdown. That was another one that was kind of just It flipped the momentum back. Cause the Seahawks had scored. We get the ball back just right away. throw by Goff right to where Jameson Williams is. We talked about this in the preview too, we soften him up with the run a little bit, and then all we had to do was get a crossing route, a slant, something with some space, and let Jamo do the rest. He catches the ball in the crossing route, he's already running, and then I think it was Witherspoon that was like kind of uh, on that side of the field, by the time he turned around, Jamo was gone. And shouts out to Witherspoon. He did not give up on that play even though there was zero chance he was catching Jamo. Jamo high stepped the last 35 40 yards and Witherspoon had just got to him when he got to the end zone. And the nice guy on the cake for that one was, uh, Jamo dunking the ball over the goal post. And then jumping into the crowd and celebrating and, Really enjoying himself. We got the 15 yard penalty, but you know, I think it was worth it. He said he paid homage to Megatron with the dunk over the goalpost there. So that was an awesome play too. Electrifying for sure. Ah, you know the third play? I only get to pick one more. I'm gonna say the, uh, the forced fumble that we had on DK, just because that was a huge momentum shift also, and, uh, it almost had my grit guarantee come true. I was watching it live and I thought, no, here we go, this is it, he catches the ball underneath. Um, I don't know. It must have been Carlton Davis that was kind of on him first. Anzalone was also there. They're kind of dragging him. And DK's just trying to fight for more yards. He doesn't see Jack Campbell coming. Campbell smokes him. The ball comes loose. picks it up and runs all the way down. I think they tackled him at like the 14 yard line. He almost made it all the way. And if he did, you best believe I was going to text you right away.
Jason Harwood:Yeah, it was, it was close. Uh, that, that was a big plan. I was wondering if you were going to name, name that. As far as like a, a turning point in the game and how important that was in the game. It was very important. We got up by two scores because of that. Otherwise, they could have went down and scored them on seven, seven. It's a different dynamic. We got up and they didn't run it for like that whole first half, which I think was. Based on how they were doing in the second half, um, Seattle rushing the ball, but yeah, that was, uh, that was a, just an awesome hustle play. I mean, Anzalone is the unsung hero with that. Cause he's just holding on his Jersey
Jacob Litton:Right.
Jason Harwood:enough that DK can't break free. And then, holds them up and, holds them. So, so he's up at that certain angle where, Campbell just smokes them. When you see it live, you're like, Oh God, please, nothing touched the ground before. And so when they were at the replay, that's the one where I'm standing, Four inches from the screen, my boys and I were just like, Nope, nothing. And you're so excited when you see nothing, the knee didn't hit the ground. It was fairly close, but it was, it was very clear that, um, his knee didn't touch the ground.
Jacob Litton:It was one of those things where it's like the ball was kind of moving like before the knee ever even came and it was pretty clear.
Jason Harwood:Yes. yeah, Oh, It was
Jacob Litton:don't,
Jason Harwood:awesome.
Jacob Litton:on the ground.
Jason Harwood:Um, I think you're pretty good on those. Um, one, two and three.
Jacob Litton:What do you got though? What are you
Jason Harwood:Um,
Jacob Litton:jump out to you
Jason Harwood:What's
Jacob Litton:me to say that I didn't?
Jason Harwood:The thing is that I don't think there's a right answer because the, the fun thing about this game and why I wanted to do this exercise with you is you could ask 10 different people and you're going to get 10 different one, two threes. Because, I mean, we all have different criteria of what a big game is, or a big play is. Some people will leave off that fumble. It was early in the game. But I think it was a huge play. Um, if I was going to do it myself, the demo rumbling, stumbling has got to be on there. And I, but I'm like, what play would I take off? Because I think you're exactly right with the JMO. That was a huge turning point. I mean, it was like, All right. They just scored. And then we just like, if anything, the JMO is off because it was too fast. Right. I mean, like we gave, our defense had to come right back on the field, not going to complain about a 70 yard touchdown. That's not what I'm saying. But if, if I'm nitpicking on things to get the demo play on there, the demo play was important. I mean, it was like, I think it was important for an attitude, like, that was Devin Witherspoon that he like knocked to the ground. And that was so awesome because watching it live and just with the angle, it was, I didn't catch like that brunt of that impact. But on replay, you see that he, Devin Witherspoon gives him a pretty good lick. Dave Montgomery gives one just as, if not more back. Credit to Witherspoon. He got up and still tried to track him on that play. That's why the lions would have wanted a guy like that. I mean, he, he plays ball,
Jacob Litton:I was just gonna say the same thing. He, he never gave up on that play.
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:He got right back up and chased him down. He actually was the one, close to running them out of bounds further down the field.
Jason Harwood:Yeah. That was like one of those plays where you're like, all right, we broke that first tackle. You're like, all right, man, that's going to be like eight yards. That's cool. And then he kind of like gets tripped up and then you're like, he's stumbling. Right. And you're like, Oh, first down. That's cool. And then. He somehow, he has amazing balance. Right. And he just keeps going. He's like just outside of traffic in that when he gets right to the first down marker, first down line, and he, regains his balance and then gets another 30, well, the 35 yards or something like that after the first down. After that contact, just that's Dave Montgomery in a nutshell, right there, right. Getting contact and then just still keep it on me. He's got amazing balance. I'm so glad that the lion signed that guy. Um, yeah, I don't know. To me, it's hard. I, I think the Campbell play needs to be number three. I want to, I'd almost do. The JMO play one, the DMO play two, and I can't believe I'm leaving off Alcatraz, the Jared Goff thing, um, but I'm, I'm going to. That's on my, that's probably number four. I, and then, we're leaving off Kirby's.
Jacob Litton:Right.
Jason Harwood:which,
Jacob Litton:which, ice
Jason Harwood:my great guarantee came, came true. Right. And I knew it the whole time too. I knew it. I wasn't sweating at the end. Well, that was,
Jacob Litton:You're like, here it comes.
Jason Harwood:Let's talk about that interception. That was, that was. I mean, a wide receiver making that catch is an amazing catch. That's a safety out there. That was, that was a heck of a catch.
Jacob Litton:Yes. I want to talk about that sequence actually. So, I mean, just to speak on the defense, especially towards the end, uh, Terry and Arnold had tight coverage pretty much the whole night. He definitely has a problem with holding. Uh, that. Was the really bad pass interference that was called on him was right there at the end of the game the ball is kind of like four or five yards in front of the receiver. They're both back very little contact I'm very surprised that they called PI on him But they get the pass interference the drive keeps going. I think it was the very next play is where know Levi hits Gino hard and drives him into the ground and it wasn't a late hit but it's that body weight thing where You know, you put your body weight down. It's gonna be a roughing the passer and Gino felt that for sure. He was slow to get up on it. The very next play. That's the very next play He decides he's got to take his shot to the end zone right now Exactly what it was Kirby's trap exactly what he wanted. We talked about that He's playing centerfield Kirby Joseph doesn't he doesn't make interceptions that aren't in the end zone Does he
Jason Harwood:I know, I know,
Jacob Litton:in the end zone Kirby Joseph they've all looked strikingly similar to where it's just let him make a play on the ball, and it's almost too easy for him.
Jason Harwood:I know.
Jacob Litton:that was a great catch. I mean, the ball kind of came loose a little bit, and then he's able to get his hand underneath there. Just, that was an amazing play. Amazing sequence for the defense.
Jason Harwood:that was a four incher from the screen too, where you're sitting there staring at it, like it's his hand under the ball. Uh, it was the black gloves made it obvious that, like, cause it contrasts it with the blue, blue turf and it kind of like, if you had landed on a black area, cause they had the lions outlined in black there, maybe it would have been a little less obvious, but it was very clear that his hand was under the ball the whole time. A heck of a, I mean, just to high point it, talk about, honoring Calvin Johnson, that was a Calvin Johnson catch right there. It was that, that was amazing.
Jacob Litton:Right, right. One more play that we haven't mentioned though, is I'm on Ross touchdown catch,
Jason Harwood:Oh, yeah. Yes.
Jacob Litton:know, that was another great play where, you know, he, he gets both feet down like that quick little toe drag over there. Just an amazing, amazing body control. Amazing catch. He didn't have a tight coverage right on him, but he had to make a play on that ball and that was an amazing catch and, pretty much any other night that might be your top play and that, here we are talking about, it's kind of an afterthought.
Jason Harwood:Yeah Well, and as a quick aside to what Jason was doing during that play was they called the timeout right before that play So I run I was like, oh bathroom time. I ran to the bathroom and I'm going to the bathroom and it was a quick timeout and the boys are like, Oh, they're screaming. And I just barely caught it. I didn't even see the whole play until like, I had to watch a replay afterwards to check it out. I mean, I saw the replay of the toe tap, but you know, to watch the whole play. And I was like, I was mad. I was like, I thought I had time miscalculated.
Jacob Litton:Right,
Jason Harwood:move, I guess I should have known but I thought we had a little more time They did apparently that was like a 30 second timeout didn't cut to commercial or anything I thought we had a little more time, but that was you're right.
Jacob Litton:down too. So, I mean, that was that was
Jason Harwood:Yeah. Yeah, Bob that that was an amazing play He was wide open though. How would did he get that? How do you let i'ma not get that wide open especially for that secondary that that was surprising to me
Jacob Litton:about the run. They're
Jason Harwood:They were
Jacob Litton:in there and,
Jason Harwood:well, that's that's one thing that Lions trust Jared Goff a lot. I mean, we could go talk about trusting Jared Goff in that end zone at the end of the game, right, where we eventually got the safety, but the Lions knew enough that he wasn't going to put the ball in harm's way. Um, he almost stuck it out and got that safety. I was, I had text you like right. Like when it was ruled that we got to the one before, while we're in commercial break, before they ruled that it was a safety, I said, I almost think that we should take the safety here on purpose, uh, or like, run it and just don't worry about the safety. Cause you know, they only had one time out left. And, would have been two scores, pushed it to what? 13. So, you potentially, they get the onside kick, but I thought, the way they've been playing all night, not letting them go over top and not get letting them go deep, they, they were doing it right. So they weren't going to make them do the, the length of the field. And, that was. That was amazing. Let's talk, let's get into the defense. We gave up a ton of yards. What's, what was your big takeaway on the defense of the night?
Jacob Litton:I know I was texting you during the game, too. It just I didn't like the game planning for this one. The first quarter, we kind of established that we were stopping the run. And, they kind of abandoned the run. They were just content with, alright, well, if that's what you're gonna give us, we'll drop back and throw. I mean, it's hard to say, but obviously we're without Derek Barnes. Ben Neiman is really just not effective in that Derek Barnes role. He's not able to get the pressure, and if he's trying to drop back, to in past coverage, I won't say he was a liability, but he just wasn't enough of a factor out there at all. And then when you have, our other linebackers, Anzalone and Campbell, They kind of were getting lost out there. basically were spotting them the first five or six yards. And then whether we're in zone or man, I mean, it's unreasonable to expect Anzalone to hang with like Tyler Lockett, or, you've got Jackson Smith and Jigma down there and they, they really made us pay. It seemed like we were playing too far off. Um, as far as the cornerbacks go, I think the coverage was great, especially for how much they were passing. Carlton Davis, he had three pass breakups. He was on top of DK pretty much the whole game. I mean, he, I think he did a really good job in pass coverage. The run game, he probably didn't help us out a whole lot. I think Anzalone missed a few tackles too. It was just, a very sloppy defensive game. I think the perspective is that it's kind of okay because of how good the offense did, but I think that's worrisome going forward. I think we need to figure that out in the bye week.
Jason Harwood:Yeah. So my feeling on it, it's hard. I mean, we're four games in, we played good defense, I would say in three of the four games, for sure. I mean, I would say overall, I'm happy with the defense, my feeling on this. Play on this game was the lion, the lions won the kickoff, the coin toss took the ball, right? So usually they'll defer they wanted to score and get up and I think they really, Their plan was to get up by a couple scores like they did and just make Seattle go the long way on the field the Lions defense is usually really good against the run stop the run game, which you know We did in the first half I, I think, Gino was their top rusher in the first half with it on like that 12 yard play or whatever. And so, I mean, that's, and that's fine. I mean, I'm fine if he's going to run for 12, it's better than what happened with kind of Kenneth Walker in the second half. But I think they just felt lions felt like, Hey, we get up by two scores and we're making a, The length of the field and then our offense, we're going to score there. I mean, their whole front seven was decimated by injuries. I think they felt pretty comfortable that they were going to just be able to run, run and enough to make them pull their safeties up and then, open it up over the middle where. I'm an Ron, and obviously on that JMO one, that JMO crosser was because,
Jacob Litton:Right.
Jason Harwood:they pulled the linebackers up and he was, they, they were able to open even on the play, we got the safety. I'm an, I was running wide open and just Jericho, it wasn't, Jericho's fault, he just got too much pressure early and couldn't, just couldn't get the ball out to it, uh, out to him. So, uh, my feeling is it was more complimentary defense that they were just willing to give up what they gave up and let, I don't want to also discount, they got six first downs from penalties. This is a, this is a big theme for the Lions defense thus far. He's given up a lot of first downs with penalties. That's got to be cleaned up. Tarion's got the target on his back and that's not a good thing. He's definitely grabby. He's definitely handsy. But once you get that bullseye on you, the umpires start looking for it. And then it becomes even easier to call it on you. The stuff on Carlton Davis, some of that stuff was not cool. The one past interference where he was over the middle, he did pull DK shoulder and held him up. I don't think he even necessarily needed to do that. He had good position on it, but you know, he
Jacob Litton:ball.
Jason Harwood:could play on the ball. He didn't need to do that. We had talked about this at work, borderline doing a, uh, uh, chase move where he was, just in the referee's face and gonna, going to get a additional personal foul or unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. So luckily Kirby came in and said, no, no, no, no. So
Jacob Litton:I mean, that, that does have to be incredibly frustrating, though. If you go back and watch the plays, most of DK's separation, gotten from him with those shoves there at the end of his routes. The top of his routes before he makes the cut. very first catch that he made was like, uh, first down he got just behind Carlton Davis. Uh, so maybe the second, third play of the game or something. It was really early on. And, just the same kind of, little shove at the top of your route to create that separation and then you make the catch. And, that's just the way the NFL is. They really do, they let the receivers get away with a lot more than the defense for sure.
Jason Harwood:I agree.
Jacob Litton:And I mean, I get that's frustrating, but at the same time, you, you gotta keep your head there, especially when they're driving. I mean, they scored, I think, the next play after that.
Jason Harwood:well, I mean, also, I mean, DK blatantly shoved, um, on that two point play ruled. He was out, but there's questionable whether it was in, went to another play. They didn't get it, but his hand is fully extension, uh, fully extended on Carlton Davis, and just gives them that clearance and you're right. That's not fair, especially for a guy like DK. It's so noticeable with him. Cause he is so big and so strong that, even just like. A small little shovel does, he's strong enough to just
Jacob Litton:right
Jason Harwood:right off. So
Jacob Litton:Well, and when he did that, though, they threw the flag. That was one of the DPIs in Carlton.
Jason Harwood:yeah, I know. Yeah.
Jacob Litton:know, how does that make sense?
Jason Harwood:No, it doesn't.
Jacob Litton:let him play, but you can't That's what it's turned into is where the offense is, you know, kind of able to do whatever they have to do to try to get to the ball. And the defense is really, you're just not allowed to touch them. even when you're making a play on the ball, sometimes if you make incidental contact, they're still going to throw the flag depending on what team you play for.
Jason Harwood:Yeah, it's definitely, definitely in favor of the offense. And, that's just every, every rule change and everything like that is, um, definitely, garnered towards, just to get more high scoring games. But it, it's just frustrating when it keeps happening, Arnold, I'm hoping with, the buy and just extra time to cool off, he he's the thing that's encouraging about Terry on is that he's in good position, right? I mean, the guy's not, he's not. Missing assignments, the guys aren't blowing, way past him. He's there. He just needs to clean up some stuff, and I think that, he's got to be able to show and be able to do that. Because if he doesn't, teams are just going to throw the ball his way, hoping that they call a penalty. And that's not a good place to be, to be picked on like that, and especially if the refs are looking for it, so they'll need to clean that up along with just, we just have way, way too many just overall penalties. It, um, it's really uncharacteristic of a Dan Campbell team to have so many penalties, so I'm hoping, with the buy and just everything that's that's something they really focus on. Um, cause we're in right position. We're playing good defense. We don't need to make these penalties.
Jacob Litton:Yeah. No. I mean, I, like I said at the beginning, I, think it was about the play calling, and like how you said too, I mean, it seemed one of those Ben don't break, let's make them have these long drives. We're going to let our offense keep the lead, but I mean, we give up 38 first downs. That's the most the Seahawks have gotten in franchise history.
Jason Harwood:Mm-Hmm.
Jacob Litton:yards of offense for the Seahawks. Uh, that's the highest total that they've got since 2022. When they played the Detroit Lions, Gino Smith, uh, career high passing yards, career high completions, career high attempts. We kind of just let them have the field. We let them throw the ball. The first half, you said, Kenneth Walker, I think he had six yards in the first half. We, they didn't run very much because we were giving them the option to throw. We were letting them have, like I said, the first five, six yards, whatever. Let him get underneath. But really, I mean, in the second half, he had runs of 28 yards. So those three plays are what all of his rushing yards came from. And on those three plays, we had to miss tackles on two of them. And then one really bad missed tackle on the, uh, the touchdown run. Anzalone had him in the hole and missed the tackle. And then I don't know what Carlton Davis was doing. He just over pursued or something. And it was like, he just got stuck in the mud by the time he turned around. Kenneth Walker is a really good running back, really quick change of direction. And yeah, he just took off, but I mean, you make those tackles and then we did what we've been doing all year, which is shut the run game down and make them throw the ball. I just am not a fan of, uh, giving up those short yardage plays. Obviously it worked. We won the game, I think it was like Nick Saban that had a quote or something where it was like, if you play poorly and win, you don't make yourself better or something along the lines of like, you're not helping the team out. You're not helping yourself when you play poorly and win. And I don't think the defense necessarily got better. We did enough to win the game, but we didn't get better this week. And that's frustrating. It's just because you flip it the other side of the ball. The offense did so well. Jared got, had more catch receiving touchdowns and incompletions.
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:just did just destroyed it. It was another great offensive game. And then, that's why the defense kind of, is an afterthought for most people.
Jason Harwood:right. This is one of the game, like Dan Campbell said they needed to lean on the offense and they did, but you know, it wasn't a total loss. We did get two turnovers and that was created on defense that, that, Jack Campbell fumble, like you said, that's your top three play.'cause that made. That stopped their drive,
Jacob Litton:swing.
Jason Harwood:gave us, we got awesome field position on it. I mean, we were instant red zone opportunity, right? So, Scott Hanson would have been clicking over. Oh, we got an instant red zone and switching over to, uh,
Jacob Litton:right.
Jason Harwood:we were just switched over to the Lions game on red zone. So that was, that was huge. And then Kirby's pick, that, just ice it at the end of the game. So that's why you give up all those yards. Cause you, we got two turnovers and we didn't have any, we were careful with the ball. Yeah. And, our off, like you said, our offenses lights out, they, as much as trouble as our defense had with Gino, the Seattle defense didn't have any answer for us either. So,
Jacob Litton:No.
Jason Harwood:we were able to do what we need to do perfect in the red zone. Again, at Tampa Bay games, looking like a little blip. Um, the difference is we're, that we ran the ball very effectively and Jerry golf through, obviously perfect eight for 18 for 18 through under 20 times, whereas the Tampa Bay game through 55 times. And I know that was a plan going in, but, It seems like when we run the ball and dominate that line, then, we do what we need to do. And, um, I want, talk about Jared Goff. It was really funny. The stat, like after the JMO touchdown, it was like Jared Goff 12 for 12 in the first half for 92 yards. And then in the second half, he was four at that point, it was four for four for 162 yards. So like he, it was so funny because it was like a third of the completions, but almost double the yards just because that JMO one was just.
Jacob Litton:Right,
Jason Harwood:huge. It was just, uh, it was awesome. Is there anything else on defense that you want to talk about?
Jacob Litton:Uh, we can't talk about defense without mentioning Aiden Hutchison.
Jason Harwood:Yes.
Jacob Litton:know, no sacks this game obviously, but he had 10 quarterback pressures and 3 quarterback hits. The line was collapsing. I saw something, uh, there's a Seahawks, Seahawks article. That was talking about how the offensive line, held up and I think that was exact opposite. I mean, yes, they were able to throw the ball, but Josh Pascal is doing a really good job of doing what Davenport was doing, which is just, I'm not going to have these fancy pass rush moves. I'm going to bull rush you. I'm going to knock you back into the quarterback. on that one play, you have Pascal from one side, you've got Hutchinson coming from the other, Gino has to step up, DJ Reader is right in your face for a sec. That's the kind of plays that we want to see. Hutchinson was doing the same thing he always does. He's he's creating pressure. He's a force back there. We didn't get any sacks this game So he kind of broke that streak, but you can have a great game without having sacks He's leading the league in quarterback pressures right now,
Jason Harwood:Well, I mean, they were doing a lot of three step drops because they had to protect for, for, Aiden and the rest of our pressure. I mean, they, that was their design is do three step drops and then we're playing man. It seems like if we're going to do that, man, we should play a little more press. That's dangerous though. Cause if you press DK and he fights through it, he gets behind you, it's over. Cause you aren't, you aren't going to catch them most likely. So I, I understand what they're doing. They're going to make them do the long way. Gino Smith had an amazing game. He really did. He was playing pressure and he made some nice plays. I was impressed with him in that game. They had a good game plan to get the ball out. He's got the receivers to do that with. And, uh, yeah, Gino Smith was, he played really well. He always does against us. Uh, it seems,
Jacob Litton:here we go.
Jason Harwood:yeah,
Jacob Litton:uh, career game for him.
Jason Harwood:yeah,
Jacob Litton:uh, no, I was just gonna say that I do think it looks vastly different if we have the capability of having Brian Branch and, uh, Iffy out there. Which obviously you can play with the cards you're dealt with, uh, and I think maybe that had something to do with the game plan as well. But if Branch is out there too, then, know, those zone packages look a little bit different when it's not. Anzalone that you're counting on to be back in past coverage. And then maybe Ben Neiman is not on the field as much. You move, around and put him down in the box. There's just different things you can do when you have a brain branch out there on your defense. And we still haven't seen Iffy at all this year.
Jason Harwood:yeah.
Jacob Litton:So obviously, the game looks a lot different when the injuries aren't in play on both sides. Obviously the Seahawks had it way worse than we did, so.
Jason Harwood:Yeah. I mean, you can't say, well, we got branch bags. You mean, you're going to have injured players all the time, but branches arguably our second best defender. Anzalone's up there. Derek Barnes is definitely up there. I mean, obviously I'm counting Aiden as our number one, but Branch is a difference maker. And I don't think that Kenneth Walker gets around, um, on those long runs. If, if, uh, if Brian Branch is there, he might get one, but he's didn't get all three of those with Branch back there. I, Branch anticipates to make some nice cuts. Cause, uh, Kirby got. Took a wrong route. Um, one of the Kenth Walker ones ran inside. Kenneth Walker just bounced to the outside. Yeah. Just bounce to the outside. And it was like, no, you can't, you got to force them back into the, into where the defenders are, but you know, it is what it is. We, we won the game and Larda that let's why we won the game. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about this offense, where you want to start. We got to start with golf, right?
Jacob Litton:Yeah, I mean, we already mentioned it, but I, this, is about as perfect as it gets, right? I
Jason Harwood:Yeah,
Jacob Litton:record for, completions, uh, or attempts without an incompletion, I guess. I saw a graphic that was like, uh, the last perfect, um, game was like the New York Giants in like the 40s went like two for two or something like that
Jason Harwood:yeah. So I think, like, I guess you got to have 20 attempts to like have the record or whatever. I don't know.
Jacob Litton:passer rating, I think,
Jason Harwood:Right. Yeah. So I don't, I don't, it doesn't matter. He was 18 for 18 and it was, I mean, they weren't all give me throws either. He had some really nice, uh, It's really nice throws. And I think after the first two weeks, we all challenged Jared Goff to play better. We needed him to step up to get this offense going and Arizona was a step in the right direction. I mean, he started out perfect until that interception, um, that he threw to, he just missed, he just missed the linebacker coming back, backing off into coverage. Uh, but this game. I, all the throws were on point at no point was I feeling like, Oh my God, we just dodged a bullet because they should have picked that, everything was, I mean, he just gunned it in there and it was, and, and also I've been impressed. I got to believe that he has made, he made some significant improvements with his footwork and dancing around in the pocket. He seems to be able to move around better than he did last year. He's run for some first downs and then obviously he was. Wide receiver on this play and he went out and caught a pass. So is that athleticism just seems to be better this year. I don't know if he like worked on that or whatever, or they just decided, what teams don't expect this because it's Jared golf, statue or whatever, and he, yeah, it's, it's encouraging to see, I think Jared golf said in his comp as press conference that he wants to get, one first down on it with his legs every game and so far, he's done that. And so I'm, I'm, it was just an awesome game from him all around and I'm happy for him. Yeah,
Jacob Litton:a really great point. Last year, he kind of did seem like he was just stuck. And if the pressure came, he was just going to kind of fold. He wasn't moving around as much, obviously, he was not running routes like that, uh, or running for first downs as frequently. So, know, maybe it is something that he's been working on and we're, seeing the benefits of that. Obviously, he knows the city has his back, the chance and everything like that. Um, But, this is kind of just, I guess, showing that the belief we have is legitimate and there's a reason we only had 53 offensive plays and have the kind of game that you did for that short. I mean, what the Seahawks had 90 and we had 53, they ran almost twice as many plays. Heard Shannon sharp earlier was talking about, don't count the plays, make the plays count. And Jared Goff, is doing that in the offense as a whole is doing that. I just, we can't say enough positive things about the offense. Jameer Gibbs, I mean, we haven't really talked about him as much, and he had that 20 yard run, huge hole, huge hole, huge gap in the line, comes in, cuts and makes the safety or the cornerback take a bad angle, they just get him by the shoestrings, just enough, he wanted the end zone, he could smell it right there. And, just, an all around effective game from everybody, really.
Jason Harwood:I, the offensive line pretty play pretty well. I was really happy with how Graham played. I know Seattle's defense was hurt. You still gotta be able to make that call. And I think it helped that he practiced all week at center knowing that Frank was going to be out. It's much easier than coming in the middle of a game and trying to. Make your mindset from, guard to center. So I was really happy with that. The line held up and we did exceptional jobs. And, again, we got down the red zone and we ran the ball. I think that's the hugest, When we got down there, the only time I got nervous is when we were at the 10 yard line and we got that offensive, um, the offense, uh, pass interference that, uh, Brock, right. And
Jacob Litton:Right.
Jason Harwood:is out to 20, but we still scored on that. That was the ominor out toe tap, uh, possession. So, we got down there and we, we, we got yards. I think Jameer got like eight yards, like on the first play. And then we ran again and then, we got. We got into striking distance, you're not stuck at the 20, um, it felt like in the Tampa Bay game that we were just trying to, we were doing a lot of screen passes and whatever, and it just didn't work. Uh, speak, speaking of screen passes, LaPorta had a nice, nice screen pass, gave us a lot of yards down there. Brock Wright's been showing up, catching the ball this year too. I mean, they started last week using him more. Geoff's taken what the defense has given him. And, with our running game, getting, seven, eight yards at a pop when it's going well. It makes the offense just hum because as soon as, defense start having to, put extra men in the box to stop that, Jared Goff just pops it over the middle because he's getting plenty of time to throw. So it, it all seemed to come together for the offense in this game, which was really, really, uh, exciting to see. And you know we were missing that wide receiver three. Um, we might've found them in this game.
Jacob Litton:Yeah, right. Tim. Patrick definitely looks more comfortable back there. Him and golf are starting to get that connection, that he's been missing, uh, with Reynolds not there anymore. And yeah, he's been playing more snaps and he's been making more of an impact, week in and week out, that play the huge, like, uh, the 20 yard game, that's a Josh Reynolds play.
Jason Harwood:Yes.
Jacob Litton:Ja Jared Goff trusts that you're gonna be where you're supposed to be. He's gotta split those two safeties. He's gotta throw it right in this zone where the receiver should be. know, it's just a great play by Goff, too. He just times it perfectly. Patrick runs the route exactly how he's supposed to. Just bang, bang. It was an awesome play. Those are the kind of things that, uh, Josh Burns was good for. So that was very cool to see Tim Patrick pull off something like that, because I think that means We're going to be seeing more of that in the future. The timing gets down, the movement gets better.
Jason Harwood:Yeah, I exactly right. You've hit it a nail right on the head there. When you, that one over the middle, we caught for the first down and it's like, yep, that is a Josh Reynolds play. And I'm glad that we have someone to fill that role. And the other play where he was like crossing and he ran, towards, he went out of bounds. He's so big. And I was like, man, that guy is such a huge target that he's going to be a huge weapon as soon as, he gets pushed. His feet wet with the offense and Jared gets more comfortable and it can count on him, but, he did everything he needed to do in that, in that play in those two catches to like increase confidence. Um, yeah, really happy and really, uh, excited that, we were able to utilize him a little bit more. Tim Patrick's so big and I'm, he seems like a lion too. So I think he's, he's gonna, he'll block, he'll do what he needs to do.
Jacob Litton:that's a big thing for us nowadays is you know, he seems like a lion I know we talked about earlier the rumors going around out of Las Vegas that Devante Adams is available
Jason Harwood:know
Jacob Litton:know if you saw after I saw this after I left work But uh, rumors are they're looking for a second round pick and maybe some additional compensation On paper a second round pick for Devante Adams sounds like a pretty good deal
Jason Harwood:Oh yeah.
Jacob Litton:when you have a team that we have you have the locker room that we have you you know built what we've built. Do you really want somebody like that, even despite the fact he's a great receiver? Do you want him to come in and at what cost? Would that be somebody that you would want to come in for the rest of this season and then he moves on? We're not gonna try to extend or do anything with this contract Or do you think that would just kind of throw a wrench into what we've already built?
Jason Harwood:I just think that's embarrassment of riches type situation. I think it'd be another mouth to feed, and if he's unhappy already, the only reason I want him, Devante Abbs, I'll tell you the truthful reason the only reason I want him is so the Jets don't get him.
Jacob Litton:I
Jason Harwood:That's the,
Jacob Litton:say that.
Jason Harwood:that's the only reason that I'd,
Jacob Litton:Rodgers.
Jason Harwood:that's the only reason that I want Devante Adams, I just signed Devante Adams to make him inactive every week obviously I'm joking and, but I, I don't want him to, So that'd be the reason do what I want. Devante Adams, no strings attached on this team. Yes. But I don't think coming in mid season, you're going to get the bang for your buck on anything. And the way Brad Holmes drafts a second round pick is like another team giving up a first round pick just the end. So like now I'm good. You asked me during training camp and we had the option during training camp. Uh, I would have been more interested in training camp. If that, that option.
Jacob Litton:mesh and get everything
Jason Harwood:Yeah. And plus we were all just worried about that wide receiver three position, how that was going to happen. And, just, nothing, nothing really, came to fruition. Uh, uh, speaking of wider receiver three, Cleve Raymond's not. Doing anything on offense. We were, I know you thought he was going to have a big year, but we have not seen him really catch any passes. I don't know his,
Jacob Litton:That was
Jason Harwood:hasn't.
Jacob Litton:I mean, that's that's how the preseason went. I think
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:We found out based on practice and based on preseason is just not going to be able to be that kind of a dynamic player.
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:six snaps on offense and I think he's okay with that. I mean, he's just, he comes in, he's a gadget guy. Maybe we, on tougher days for the offense, we use him to try to get the ball outside, get some space. Obviously, he's there on special teams. Yeah. There's just not, he's not effective enough to be, just, okay. We were talking about that Tim Patrick play. If you put Khalif Raymond there, is he as big of a target? Is he going to catch that ball in
Jason Harwood:No.
Jacob Litton:No. And that's not, that's not really a knock on Khalif. That is who he is. And that's, his body type and just what kind of receiver he's there. he's going to, drop down on his own, I'm like one of those choice routes or something like that. Or like I said on the outside, he would be effective like that. That's just not really the way our offense seems to be working and maybe further down the season. We try to do that a little bit more and get him some more touches. But yeah, I definitely think the projection I made at the beginning was based on not having another big receiver and him being able to play. More than six offensive snaps the
Jason Harwood:Yeah. I would like to see him get some more wide receiver screens. Cause I, just. Him in space is dangerous. We haven't on punt return for a reason. And he act not so much this last game, but previous ones, he's almost, it seems like he's been close to almost breaking one and to, Just to utilize him in space and maybe we'll get there later on in the season,
Jacob Litton:exactly. Yeah,
Jason Harwood:likes to, change things up. And, as we learned with Alcatraz, they've had that play in the playbook and called it last year and just never got to it. So who knows what he's got cooked up. Um,
Jacob Litton:You know I think that they said that they actually that was a play call for a play last year and then they got out there and I think golf said he didn't like you know, the coverage or what the look was he maybe had to check out of it
Jason Harwood:Amin Ra said they called it twice in the same game last year on Scott van Pelt so when you're watching that at home, I always think these wide receiver passes, they look so obvious at home because the wide receiver isn't make, it's not like a jet sweep where he's running. You can tell he's not running at full speed. He's running just enough to like try to bring the defense over, but he almost, he's almost running backwards. We're in a real run. He's never going to do that. He's going to be running more. Towards the line of scrimmage. So on the defense, it must not look as obvious as it does on TV. I know we have a different angle. Obviously we could see how he's running, but you know, Jared Groff kind of just like nonchalantly comes out and it leaks. And then I don't know what defender was on him, but he kind of caught onto the play like he, and. I mean, Rod just dropped a dime on him and, good on Jerry Goff. Almanrod said he showed late, late hands like a good wide receiver. And so the defender couldn't, knock the ball away. And I was so happy when Jerry Goff caught that because the last thing you want to see is a perfect pass. And then the quarterback drop it, he held on to it and it was awesome.
Jacob Litton:Yeah. No that linebacker. He did he made the read just maybe a second too late But he actually he had a play he was close It was funny, he was trying to read Jared Goff's eyes, trying
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:the ball right.
Jason Harwood:Yeah.
Jacob Litton:Hilarious.
Jason Harwood:Yeah. I mean, it would. Yeah.
Jacob Litton:somebody that doesn't really get a whole lot of playing time for them.
Jason Harwood:I, I don't know what look they were looking for and, and that linebacker looked like he was going to crash, but he must've caught just enough of Jared Goff's movement to say, Oh, he's leaking out. And yeah, it was, it was great. Um, I'm an odd, we went 19 for 19 in passing cause I'm around was a hundred percent. He could have ruined a hundred percent, so that was great. Fun fun fun game all the way around loved it. Uh, I couldn't sleep for like an hour Afterwards, um, how about you? You, I think you said,
Jacob Litton:many good plays to look over again.
Jason Harwood:I know.
Jacob Litton:like, oh yeah, this, let me look at this, let me look at that. Let me, I'm all on Twitter, I like seeing Twitter, I like seeing what people are saying as the game's going on, after the game, try to see first reactions. Once the players, get their phones back and see what the players say on there, just, awesome
Jason Harwood:Yeah,
Jacob Litton:make you really live in the moment, but it's hard to do night football when it's midnight And you got a long day ahead of you.
Jason Harwood:yeah, well, you,
Jacob Litton:of that in between sets of the gym this morning
Jason Harwood:yeah, well, you're a trooper, man. You're sick and you're, working extra at work and, staying up late for football games. You're doing this podcast with me. We're running you ragged.
Jacob Litton:Right. Hey, I love it.
Jason Harwood:Just to quickly go over our great guarantees. Um, we mentioned them early. I, I hit mine with Kirby. Joseph intercepting the ball with a minute left. And then Jacob was very close, Let's argue that he got it because like we scored a touchdown on the play that Carson,
Jacob Litton:I still
Jason Harwood:Carlton Davis Yeah, it did not quite but it was close. I thought you were gonna get it. It was it was it was really close
Jacob Litton:I was like, Oh, man, here we go.
Jason Harwood:I know.
Jacob Litton:baby, go!
Jason Harwood:Yeah, it was it was awesome. But you know a quick turnaround quick red zone appearance.
Jacob Litton:You've been pretty good with these grit guarantees.
Jason Harwood:Yeah, I
Jacob Litton:score of these.
Jason Harwood:I haven't like went crazy. I mean calling an interceptions Interceptions That's, I mean, that's kind of bold cause that's, that's hard to do, especially a Kirby you got to, but I mean, that's not going to be bold anymore. He's got, um, Kirby has to get one for us to win a game. Apparently it's the only game that he hasn't intercepted a pass in is. The game that we lost. So, um, So Kirby's got to just keep getting picks. Uh, great game, still excited day later. Um, the adrenaline was going to, I told Jacob last night, I don't think my heart could take this cause that was a going and then tigers playoff game, uh, was going really good. And then the ninth inning came and heart was going crazy during that game. Uh, yeah, it was, Good, uh, really good sports time in Detroit. I'm
Jacob Litton:Right.
Jason Harwood:Love it. So
Jacob Litton:We just need the red wings and pistons to pick it up, man.
Jason Harwood:So, um, I hope you feel better, Jacob. I know I was going to have to edit out all these coughs that you're doing off.
Jacob Litton:tried to mute my microphone.
Jason Harwood:No, you're all right. I know you're doing your best. So, uh, we work together tomorrow would be good. And then, uh, you'd be off for a little bit and I'm on vacation again next week. So we don't know, we, we think we're going to have an episode out on Friday. We kind of, or maybe do a quarterly review of all the games or just. Talk about some topics that we haven't been able to talk about in the preview. And, uh, the recaps, uh, we got, we got some stuff cooking up here. So we'll get to you on, on Friday. So we'll still going to try to do the two episodes a week, even though that we're on the bi week. We'll just kind of, maybe jump into some other topics that we don't normally get to talk about. So, uh, you got that to look forward to. Oh yeah, yeah, put a microphone in front of me and I seem to be able to talk for a while and I let Jacob talk every once in a while.
Jacob Litton:When
Jason Harwood:All right,
Jacob Litton:everybody.
Jason Harwood:yes, exactly. When I hear the first yawn, then I'm up. All right, for Jacob, I'm Jason. Go Lions!
