Talking Grit: A Detroit Lions Podcast

E57: "Biting Re-Caps" - What Stage of Grief are you in? Detroit Lions vs Washington Commanders

• Jason Harwood / Jacob Litton • Season 1 • Episode 57

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Jason Harwood and Jacob Litton from 'Talking Grit' discuss the Detroit Lions' crushing loss to the Washington Commanders, plunging the Lions into their off-season. They go through the stages of grief regarding the loss, sharing personal experiences and reactions. Both highlight key game incidents, such as a controversial non-call on a hit to quarterback Jared Goff, turnovers, and injuries that impacted the game. Despite the tough defeat, the hosts express optimism about the Lions' prospects, emphasizing the strong team culture, potential player returns, and promising off-season discussions.

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Jason Harwood:

back to Talking Grit. I'm Jason Harwood and with me is Jacob Lytton. This one is tough to swallow. Lions lose 31 to those commanders. The off season has begun. There are five stages of grief, Jacob. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. What stage of grief are you in right now?

Jacob:

I just got them all over with already this morning. So, yeah. Cycled through pretty quick

Jason Harwood:

Yeah.

Jacob:

as lions fans. So you really, does it take you multiple days to go through all five stages?

Jason Harwood:

no.

Jacob:

Are you stuck?

Jason Harwood:

I think I'm still in like depression for sure. I went through denial real fast. Like that was just happening during the game. I didn't have too much

Jacob:

I went through denial in like the third quarter and then,

Jason Harwood:

yeah. There was no bargaining with anybody. I mean, who are you going to bargain with? So yesterday I, during the day, my boss. Texting me, our boss texted me and said, I got the flu. I'm going to need you to work tomorrow. Well, tomorrow, but that ended up being today on Sunday when we're recording this. So I was already thinking, Oh man, that's going to suck. I'm going to come home from this game. I was hoping I'd be wired from a win. Unfortunately it was quite the opposite. I was depressed from a loss, thoughts were just running through my head last night. It was hard for me to really. I hadn't reached acceptance yet, and I don't know if I still have. So I was just, what went wrong? How are we gonna, how are we gonna move forward and all that stuff? And then I had to work today and didn't have you to talk to or any sports people to talk to, and maybe that was a good thing. I just left it in my head, but it definitely kept me in the depressions. I think for me that I talking with you today, right now, we'll hit some acceptance at some level that, come to, as the season off season goes on, we're going to have this podcast, we're going to have this Avenue, we're going to be able to talk through these things. One thing that I've learned is I used to wallow in a loss and not want to look at football. Even I had trouble watching some of the games today, just cause. hard for, to really enjoy that. I don't know how you felt about that. But I have been with this podcast and then, we're going to be on Dev and Steve's podcast tomorrow. That's. Help us move on to acceptance and just move on and talk about the off season. We have some bright stuff that we're going to talk about. There's a lot of talking points that we're going to have this off season. So that'll be fun. Yeah. So do you think you're going to hit acceptance when Deb gives you crap tomorrow, talking with them?

Jacob:

Possibly, I don't know, it might make me angry again. No. You were at work all day and I was at home, so I got to see the press conferences over and over again and the highlight videos and all the memes that people probably already had made just hoping for us to lose. Hearing Packers and Vikings fans talk crap, although they do not have a place to at all, because we are still, we still won the North. We still got the first, the buy. Course in the end, it doesn't really matter, but it's funny that they feel like they can talk trash already. As if they didn't also get bounced, last week.

Jason Harwood:

Right. It's exactly right that we got a YouTube, I don't know if you saw the YouTube comment on one of our videos from a Packers fan and he just, laid into us and said, Oh, you've, it was a Dan Skipper, like, flop. Penalty with Quay Walker.

Jacob:

Yeah.

Jason Harwood:

the lions just flopped something to that. I paraphrase it, but he said, the lions just flopped like Dan Skipper in this play and how are you guys going to do anything when you lose all your coaches? And it was just went on and on. And I was like, man, these Packers are, had it so good for so long and they finally can, dig on someone else misery. But. Whatever you gotta do. Fans got a fan and that's okay. I've dug into Packers and Vikings before and bears and it's part of the game. That's the way it's the way it's played, but yeah, right. They have no place to talk. It'd be like a bears fan talking junk. He didn't make the, didn't make the playoffs, won five games, Packers Vikings, both bounced in the first round and really non competitive games for the most part. So, it is what it is. At least we made it to the divisional round.

Jacob:

I mean, it's the same for 31 teams, every off season, right? And only one team wins it all. And then you go to those other 31, one team will be able to say they made the super bowl. You got a couple of teams that'll say they made it to the NFC championship. And then a couple of them in the divisional. What you're worried about obviously is the super bowl. So for 31 teams, it doesn't matter. You didn't win at least, we can look back that we won the NFC North back to back. Let's just bottom line. This is not the way that any of us wanted the best season and lions super bowl era history to end. But, still a lot to be proud of, it's just gonna take a few weeks before we're able to look at all the positives.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think there's a lot to be proud of. And I think at the end, we're going to wrap up some stuff, got some questions. So maybe this is the better part in there, but, better part to talk about it is in there. Yeah, there's plenty to look forward to next year. This was not our window is still open, so we can talk about that later on. Any overall thoughts in the game? First of all were you just watching it at home or Milo or what'd you end up doing?

Jacob:

I was, so, it got off to a terrible start already because I, we watched the first game. So, Chiefs Texans, that's fine, we watch it. And then, we shut it off, get maybe like 15 minutes before kickoff. It's like, okay, we're gonna turn the game on. I can't access my NFL account. And I already told you I had my Twitter hacked. I lost my Twitter account like last week or whatever. I still haven't gotten around to doing that, but can't get into my NFL account. So then I tried going to the Fox website and just trying to get into the Fox account, can't get into the Fox account. I ended up missing the first drive when we went three and out. I didn't even see the first drive. So I'm already panicking. Like, okay, I need to, well, but I'm like, I need to get this on right now. And Yeah, finally got it on the TV, got all that worked out. Milo was out here with me, JJ actually stayed out and watched the game. Until the fourth quarter, I made JJ go back in his room. He doesn't usually watch the games out here, and he was sitting out here with me. I was like, you are providing some bad juju or something, so I need you to go to your room. He thought I was kidding, I was dead serious, I was like, no, I'm not playing. Go to your room. Milo fell asleep in the middle of the fourth quarter, so he didn't really have to experience this. The heartbreak there at the end. How is it for you? I mean, you're there. You can't you can't fall asleep. Your kids can't turn something else on or go to the other room.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, I could not send my kids to the room. No, I Bradley was in tears for much of the game. A lot of the game he goes right into sadness when commanders and. I've, so I've struggled with how to react to that. As a dad, you don't like seeing your kid cry. It's hard. You've been there, I'm sure. And you could play the part where you're tough and you say, why are you crying? It's just a game. I've learned to just accept it and say, this is how, he's 10. This is how he's processing it right now. My wife has a really tough time struggling with it as well. And she says it kind of makes her not want to go to some games because she, it's hard to see him upset, but her and I talked about it last night. And I said, this is a big part of sports, right? Accepting a loss, learning how to be a good loser, all those types of things. And we all process that stuff differently. I would say when I was younger, mine went right to anger throwing things or, some, that's that's just how I process things and it wasn't a big deal. Sarah's yelled at me before for that. And then later on, apologize. Cause she was just as bad and was getting out of her anger by yelling at me. So it was hard not being able to escape it at all. And to see him like that. So Bradley spent much of the grim fourth quarter watching YouTube on the phone. And so he did, couldn't,

Jacob:

Yeah.

Jason Harwood:

Like that was his equivalent of going to his room and getting out of it. Preston handled it pretty awesome, actually. I was pretty surprised. He, joked before that he'll ask, are we going to lose? Or, are we going to win this dad? And, that's. His, when he's has anxiety, that's how he gets it out. In the middle of the fourth quarter, I looked at him and I said, nobody, I don't it's not in the cards today. I still had held hope for a while and I still did. I mean, there's still a chance it's not over till it's over, but, just being realistic and not, sugarcoating everything. I was like, so he handled it pretty well. He did break down in some tears when we got home and got into bed. I texted him today on, I was at work, I asked how you doing, he goes, I'm still sad, but, I've, I'm watching the other games and I'm enjoying it. So that was good. I mean, it sucks. And the crowd was just, they were very loud at the beginning, especially when we stopped them on that fourth down on the first series, it looked good. There was moments throughout the game, but we just, our defense just never did well enough to get the crowd, to keep the crowd in it long enough. And then our offense would. Have a turnover and deflate the crowd even further. So crowd atmosphere was kind of up, Up and down, but it's to be expected. And it was still good. I mean, it's still loud in there. I was still proud of lions fans. They started in the four. I don't know if you heard on the TV, but in the fourth quarter, when it looked like it was over they started to be some defense chance pretty loud in the stadium, and that was the first time I had heard other than the Buffalo fans, I'd heard opposing fans get any was sort of loud in that stadium. So, and it's hard because on offense, if you're on offense, you can't, normally you want to cheer to drowned out that. Or normally if you're in the stands, you want to cheer it out, drowned out opposing noise, but you don't want to make noise yourself because your offense is on the field. So it, it's a, I don't know really what to do in that situation. So that was a tough, that was a tough pill to swallow.

Jacob:

Yeah, you could hear something on the broadcast, but I couldn't make out what it was. And sometimes you can hear Clear As Day when they're chanting, like, MVP or Jared Goff or whatever it may be. And you couldn't make out something. You could hear something, but couldn't tell what it was. And I figured it was probably Commanders fans.

Jason Harwood:

it was. They

Jacob:

I did see a good deal of them, staying after and everything. Once they all conglomerate in one area, it looks like there's way more of them there than actually were. So in your opinion, I mean, how many Were there more Commanders than there were Vikings fans last game? I don't know.

Jason Harwood:

there was more Vikings fans and there was frankly a lot more Buffalo fans. Buffalo was, at least, it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell, but my general basis is like, as I'm walking to the game, and am I seeing a lot of opposing fans? I did not see a lot of Washington fans when I was walking to the game. Before the game, when I text you, there was a sizable amount behind the Washington fans Bench, but I think they'd all think that's where their seats were.

Jacob:

Right, they all just file, like, in the same.

Jason Harwood:

there, they were pretty easy to notice cause they, a lot of them had like, their colors don't look anything like ours, so they're pretty easy to spot. They either had the bright yellow or like the maroon brownish, I don't know, whatever you call it Jersey. So they're pretty easy to spot in the crowd, especially when there's a group of them. They weren't really loud. And I didn't really notice them sitting down there a lot. There was a few behind the bench or whatever. there was some loud, not in my section, must be in the section behind me, because that's where the defense chant came from. So there was probably a, in the 300 level, there was probably a sizable group there, but. I would say, Buffalo was the most, the Vikings at the last game, two weeks ago, there was a decent amount of Vikings fans there, probably because of the whole, them buying 2 million worth of tickets, probably had something to do with that. But yeah, it was tough. And then I saw a lot of them afterwards and they were hugging. I saw some people, some of the commander's fans gloating, but you know, they deserve that they won the game and it wasn't terribly close either.

Jacob:

I mean, it was kind of, that's where we were at last year. We made the NFC championship for the first time in so long and, they're kind of repeating that this year. They're having their own success. So, I can't be too mad at the commanders. It's not like, I would have felt much worse if this loss was against like the Rams. There's certain teams where it's like, okay, I really can't stand them. It would have been hard. I mean, it's only been one day, so we don't have a whole lot of time to reflect. But just as of right now, do you think this loss was worse than the 49ers loss last year or now?

Jason Harwood:

That's funny that you asked me that because my wife asked me the same question last night. I think what's worse about, both terrible, what's worse about this one is the expectations were and almost felt like, us being favored by 10 and then losing by two touchdowns. I mean, that hurts. Just because of the expectations are higher, the 49ers game, I still think hurts more to me because of us being up by 17 and being one step close. I mean, we were a step closer. The difference is, it's all about expectations. Last year felt like we were playing with house money, what the commanders are, what we said to

Jacob:

Right, right.

Jason Harwood:

house money where you're kind of already exceeded expectations. Or is this we did not, at least as far as the beginning of the season and really I expected this to go. I expect us to go all the way, we'd fought through so much adversity, with injuries and everything this year, but how about you? Where are you at? What's worse for you? The 49ers of this.

Jacob:

Last year I think was much worse than this one was, I always, I guess I kind of always had my guard up. The thing was, we beat the Vikings pretty, convincingly to win the division, but then the Vikings came out and kind of really did not look like a good team against the Rams either. So then I started thinking, is the defense really, Have we really hit that next level? Are we really going to be able to stop, because the commanders are one of the hottest offenses. It's like, that's what it's going to come down to. We, we were not able to stop them. And then the offense really did not help out with the turnovers and everything either. It was just the perfect storm. I mean, I told JJ and I talked to him about it before. JJ is kind of a hater about the Lions anyway, but you know. You list all the players that have been hurt, all the injuries that we've had to overcome and everything like that, and we knew, we talked about on here too, there's going to be games where if the defense just can't quite stop them, we're going to have to outscore the other team. Like, that's going to be our avenue of winning, and you're not going to outscore them turning the ball over five times. I mean, the fact that it was as close as it was when you see that five turnover thing is kind of crazy. But the offense was moving the ball pretty easily, in the first half, we'll get into it here. But, I just don't, I mean, I just can't right now. Think that it's worse than it was last year. In my opinion, I think last year felt much worse. That was more devastating. And you're right. It probably is because of the house money thing. And the fact that we were up, it felt like, the Super Bowl was right there. We, was within reach and then it just got yanked away from us. And this time it was, the expectations were much higher, but, it wasn't ever a sure thing. It wasn't right there. So,

Jason Harwood:

I think until we get over that hump and get into the Super Bowl, I think that 49ers one is going to be because we were so close.

Jacob:

correct.

Jason Harwood:

and I think outside of us not making the playoffs or just looking like crap, um, the overall season, I don't know. I feeling this off season is going to be different than it was last year, especially if we'll talk about losing our coaches a little bit later on. So this off season is going to be a, there's going to be a lot more talking points. I feel like going into this off season than there were last off season. Cause last off season just feel like, Hey, it's back to work and we're, going to, we have some notable free agents coming up, a lot of stuff to talk about this off season. So, you're listening to this, pay attention for the rest of the off season. Cause we've got plenty of things to talk to, but I also just the fan outrage and just we talked about the Packers and the Vikings and central or the North, just central that's how long I've been Alliance

Jacob:

Central, old man,

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, exactly. Well, what was I doing? Why did we have to delay

Jacob:

yeah, right. We were like an hour late getting on here because Jason had to take a nap today.

Jason Harwood:

I did. Hey, my, my defense. I got home at two, got up at like 630 to work and I worked eight hours. So, I didn't get to sit

Jacob:

Boohoo.

Jason Harwood:

football all day. So then I did have to take a nap. So I'd be sort of awake for this podcast. For you to take your verbal assaults,

Jacob:

Yeah,

Jason Harwood:

but yeah, let's move on here. Let's talk about this

Jacob:

let's yeah, let's break it down.

Jason Harwood:

And so let's talk about special teams first, Jacob. you want to open up with Jake Bates and Jack Fox that's there.

Jacob:

Yeah, special teams, I mean, special teams were on, as always. Jake Bates went at 4 for 4 on extra points. 1 for 1 on field goals. He had that 28 yarder towards the end of the game there. Jack Fox only had to punt one time for 43 yards. Not much to talk about with special teams here. They did their jobs as expected.

Jason Harwood:

I thought the commander's kickoff team was very good. They pinned us, we didn't get to the 30 yard line very much. the only outside of that first one where he kicked it out of bounds and then we got at the 40 and that started the game off, man. We had, I was feeling great right off the bat. We got at the 40. We're going to, we're going to go down and score three plays. And we punt the aforementioned Jack Fox punt was on the first drive of the game. so yeah, it started out Rocky right away. I didn't like, I was like, Oh, we got the ball first. You and I talked like if you win the coin toss, was surprised that the commanders didn't take the ball first. I thought that they'd want to get on the board early. we got the ball and I was like, Oh, we're going to go up seven. Nothing right away. Let's just do this. And wasn't to be all right, Jacob, let's talk about this defense. So many things to talk about in this defense. So where do you want to start?

Jacob:

I mean, we got to start with the rookie quarterback, how he did Jaden Daniels, 299 yards, two touchdowns, 51 rushing yards pro football focus greater than was zero turnover where the plays. So he played just about. As well as any quarterback could play as a rookie in Ford field, just absolutely lights out incredible performance by him. So, good job for him. I mean, he basically is the main reason that the team was able to turn around. And the reason I've had so much success, we were hoping that, we'd try to get some pressure on him and try to rattle them a little bit. If, we did talk about if that could even be done and we didn't really get in his face enough to really find out if it could be done. So I guess the jury's still out on that one. We don't know. But he, did not face enough pressure. The crowd really didn't get to them that much. It didn't really affect his play at all.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah. 12 quarterback pressures. I know Brian branch got, in, on a blitz a couple of times forced him out of the pocket, but he was able to either escape and scramble or. Do what he does. He was throwing down field. We were playing very good back end defense. It was a tough pill to swallow, man. This whole thing,

Jacob:

I mean, beyond just Jane Daniels, though, the Brian Robinson, 77 rushing yards and two touchdowns, Eckler, 47 yards on six carries. And then even Jeremy McNichols, their third running back, he punched in a one yard touchdown there in the fourth quarter. So we've really been able to rely on the run defense, to take that away and make them one dimensional and make them throw. And they were able to have success moving the ball in the running game too. And that, that really hurt us. The only game we allowed this many rushing yards outside of this was the bills, which was another high scoring game. And we lost that one too.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, this, this is where the game was law. I mean, other than the turnovers on offense, but on defense, this is where the game was lost to me. I know they had some big plays over the top or whatever it was. We could never get them behind the sticks. We, they kept. on first down, they were getting huge runs on first down, getting a second and short, and then you're stuck. It was especially with Jaden Daniels. I thought that actually, we handled Jaden Daniels running fairly well, to be honest with you. He only, it was 16 carries for 51 yards, 3. 2 yards per carry. I thought that we actually did an acceptable job him. It's just, Like you said, Eckler averaged almost eight yards per carry Robinson for whatever reason. The commander's boys did not like him at all, but of course he came on and, 77 yards, average five yards of carry. We, if we could have stopped them and that's been our hallmark on this is stopping them on a first down run and then making it second and long, we just couldn't do that consistently. And it really killed us.

Jacob:

Right, I have to mention obviously, I hate using the injuries as an excuse when we've been playing so well and we've been winning despite all the injuries and everything we talked about. You have to play with the hand that you're dealt. This is what we have going into it. But I was really worried. I don't know if you were as much, but I was really worried. Extremely concerned when a meek went down. That was we were really counting on him to be out there. Cover McLaren at least, It's just another guy that gives everything that he has every single play and he played so well last week. It was just really deflating for him to get hurt on the second play of the game. And I think I texted you, I knew right away, like, yeah, this is bad. It does not look good at all. I don't know if you could tell from the replays or if you guys knew in the stands, but

Jason Harwood:

Well, the way he was laying and I knew when the players come over, you could, you just get the gist when the players come over, they know it's a big deal. And then, they, he just walked, I don't know what they showed on TV, but he just walked straight. Like they didn't bring the cart on. I think that he could have had a cart, but they walked from the injury, which is like on the totally opposite field of the tunnel. Directly to the tunnel. You, I could see him. They didn't even go to the sideline. He went directly to the tunnel. And then I saw the replay afterwards and, oh God, that was disgusting. I, it's either broken or like a dislocated elbow.

Jacob:

I don't know, it's broken. It's the top, it's the top half of his arm is broken. It was kind of the same sort of play where Anzalone got hurt. I think that was Branch that came in.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah.

Jacob:

Anzalone's got the guy wrapped up, Branch comes in, bang, you just hit the right part, and then he broke Anzalone's forearm. Which was not as bad as this. This was Amik had somebody, this was Jack Campbell, full force came in and just, yeah.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah.

Jacob:

you can see the pictures on X and everything when Amik's laying there, but it's clearly, you can see how bad the arm is. It's just horrible. Terrible. We could not afford that.

Jason Harwood:

how many broken bones does this team had this year? It's sickening. And a lot of it friendly fire too. That's

Jacob:

Yeah. Well, but so then he goes down. I'm really concerned because that means Vildor is playing outside. And in his plays, Vildor gives up four catches for 136 yards and a touchdown. The screen pass to McLaren was credited to Vildor, which that play was kind of a perfect timing. We blitz branch from that side. We leave two defensive backs to cover three receivers and Kirby just had to take an angle on him and he couldn't, he couldn't catch up. Couldn't bring him down. That was kind of just the perfect play call for the defense that we ran. But that's also the kind of play that Amik is really good at. He's really good at playing those screens and making those tackles for a loss. And, I think it was Vildor and Ify that were out there. Neither one of them, he ran right up in the middle. They were blocked, but they didn't really slow him down enough. If he at least makes some better contact, then Kirby's gonna catch up to him. And he, he took off. A big play that we couldn't afford to let happen.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah. It's. don't want to see a big, long touchdown, but it's almost tougher to swallow when it's a screen pass and it busts for like a 70 yard or whatever it was. Oh, that was, oh, that sucked.

Jacob:

Devastating.

Jason Harwood:

It was.

Jacob:

but, outside of that, you also have Branch miss some snaps cause he got banged up. I don't know what happened. They showed on the Showed on the broadcast them cutting off like his I don't even know what you would call them. Like the leggings or whatever the underpants like that he's got on there, the compression, he had the compression pants on and they were cutting those off. I don't know if that was just, had anything to do. Cause then he gets banged up again, like after that. He ends up missing, I don't have it right in front of me. I think he missed like eight snaps or something like that, but the snaps that he missed, we're going to be probably the most crucial drive that we had of this game on defense. So this was in the end of the third quarter, early fourth quarter. And one second, I got it over here. Yes, he goes out and then we have two plays where branch is not out there. And instead we have to have Maurice Norris. Who's played one defensive snap before this game. He actually was in, sorry, he was in because Iffy got hurt. Maurice Norris came in before because Iffy got hurt. So he was already out there. But then, Stantley Thomas Oliver, both, they're both in on this drive, on these plays, because Branch is out too. So this is the first play of the fourth quarter. This was when it is 31 to 28 and this is big time because they've been moving the ball. We've got them on third and two first play. I think it was Kirby that kind of blitzed in there. He gets pressure on Jane Daniels. He has to throw it to Zach Ertz. Terran Arnold makes a nice play. Maurice Norris actually also attacked the ball and they make a nice stop. And then probably, it's hard to say the worst thing that happened in this game, but I guess probably the worst coaching mistake, in my opinion, I don't know how you feel about this, but, they make that stop, it's fourth and two, obviously they're going for it, everybody knows they're going to be going for it. Trevor Nowacki comes onto the field, and then nobody comes off. And this is actually ironic, because the crowd is so loud that the lion sideline can't even get out there. I'm not entirely sure who was supposed to come off, but based on the body language of the other players and everything, it looks like it was probably Stantley that was supposed to come off the field. He's been here for one month. He's got five special team snaps in one game This is a second game active and now here he is on fourth down and probably the biggest drive biggest game of the season for sure This I want to say is a coaching error. I just you have got to call a timeout there They don't have everybody out there. I don't know if you got a chance to see the replays I know you were today and everything but everybody's yelling from the sideline like they know Shep can't believe it like he's they're all screaming out there Nobody knows what's going on. I don't know how a timeout's not called there.

Jason Harwood:

Yep

Jacob:

How do you feel? I mean, being there and everything, did you know what happened?

Jason Harwood:

I saw no ASCII come in last second and I was saying no one went off. So I was like, were they so I didn't, I'm focused on the play. I wasn't counting players, but it looked like we were just, everyone was disheveled then the flags came out and the flags came out from the secondary and I was like, That's not good. Cause if it was like a legal motion or like false start, it was going to come out from behind the offense. This came out behind the defense. I was like, it's got to be 12 men on the field and that's exactly what it was. And yeah, you're right. I mean, I don't know if we'd have stopped them anyways, they were, So good on fourth down in this game anyways, but you're right. Terry on the play before that was a really nice play. And that was one of, if we had stopped them in this fourth down, that would have been a key play because they both made a nice play in the box. Cause when that was complete, I thought for sure that was a first down and they stopped them dead in his tracks and got them down. I know. I thought Terry and actually played a pretty good game. He had some pretty good. Defensive snaps. I haven't seen all, I haven't had time to watch the video to look at all back and see some of the breakdowns in the secondary were, but I've been pretty impressed with Terry on second half of the season, as far as his off the ball play, his ability to attack the ball carrier. I see some promise going into next year, which is good. Cause we're going to have some questions in that secondary of, who's going to bring, if we're going to bring CD three back or worldwide, or if we're just going to leave a meek out on the outside. Then we'll have to bring in something for the nickel. A lot of good stuff to talk about.

Jacob:

Right, but I mean, there you have, there's a rookie cornerback and here you are in the big situation. He's got to be our number one guy. So you're right. I thought he played well. I thought he stepped up. He played, he's had good coverage all year. I know he didn't end up getting any interceptions. He's had some nice past breakups and he's not gotten beat very many times where he could say, man, he just wasn't even close. He, even on the passes that he allows, he's pretty good. He's nearby. He's right there.

Jason Harwood:

yeah.

Jacob:

And I think he's only going to get better next year.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, it's a matter of him just being able to play the ball instead of the man and, but it's definitely his past interference penalties have decreased mightily from the first half of the season. And, just being in position, he was really sticky at pretty much the whole year to sticky at the beginning of the year, especially in pretty grabby, but. Those penalties have went away. So I expect big growth for him the next season. So we'll see. He's going to have to be, cause he might be matched up with Justin Jefferson next year, or if depending on what we do with the meek. So,

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, that was tough. And I looked at the set. I was surprised that the defense actually held them. They stopped them eight out of 12 times on third down. It just felt like in the game that we never, maybe they just never got to third down that much. And they were just constantly getting first downs. It felt

Jacob:

Well, when you see those 12 third down tries and only 4 conversions, you think, Wow, we were keeping them down there. We weren't allowing much. Yeah. The stats lie in this one. That just didn't feel like that. It doesn't seem right.

Jason Harwood:

then they went three for four and four down and really four for five. If you count that penalty on 12 men. So when you add that in, then, those are all driving center. So then you're above, I think with more teams going forward on fourth down, with more teams going forward on fourth down third down stat, it could be very deceiving because if they're very good on fourth down, it's the same thing as getting it on third down. You've extended the drive, the whole point of it.

Jacob:

And they play like we do. They play 3rd down with the intention on getting some yards so that they can go for it on 4th down.

Jason Harwood:

and at the time they didn't get it. I don't know if there was a snap that went wrong. It was hard to tell from the stands where they just got stuff. They tried to hike it to the tight end or the tight end or

Jacob:

On the 4th down,

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, the one that they didn't get at the beginning of

Jacob:

so that was Marcus Mariota gets the snap. That's funny because he gets the snap, he goes to the line, like, like a quarterback sneak would be. He turns around immediately, and it looks like he's supposed to pitch this ball back. That looks like the play design is that maybe he, runs up for the sneak, turns around and pitches it to Jaden Daniels. Cause then Jaden Daniels is also moving outside, and that could have been a nice play, could have been, even more trouble for us early on. But Bryan Robinson, I guess, was not, they weren't on the same page or something, cause Bryan Robinson runs up with the intention on pushing Mariota like, you would a regular sneak or tush push or whatever. So Mariela turns around and Bryan Robinson's right there in his face, too, and then they just get stuffed. So that was a miscommunication on their part.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, it just looked all sorts of funky. I don't know what happened there. So that's yeah I couldn't tell who was from the stands. And like I said, I didn't have much time with work today to watch the

Jacob:

Yeah, right?

Jason Harwood:

did I want to watch that game back. That was, I will

Jacob:

Yeah.

Jason Harwood:

but just not today. So let's talk about I broke down like what happened in the drives. Just the first half was terrible. First half, the first one, we get them down and downs on that fourth down play. We just talked, but after that it was field goal touchdown, pick six touchdown, and then they finished up with a touchdown and then the second half, we got them with a punt. At the beginning. So I was like, all right, we're, this, that could have been the turning point for the game, but then it was touchdown. Then they had a missed field goal and then they ran the clock out at the end. I still, I hit, like I said, I haven't hit acceptance. I still can't believe what happened. We did lose, they beat us. There's. Nothing more I could say about that. Our defense just could not get them off the field. We could not get any pressure on Daniels. 12 quarterback pressures, couldn't rattle them and they were able to just Constantly convert. And like they did in the red zone, four for four and touchdowns. We knew that was going to be big. We're going to need to to some of those field goals. They converted them all to touchdowns.

Jacob:

Yep, I mean just, like we said, couldn't get pressure on, couldn't do enough, they were able to move the ball pretty easily, and then we did not help our case on the offensive side of the ball.

Jason Harwood:

No, we did not. right. Anything on the defense that you want to talk about, or you want to move over to

Jacob:

No, let's move over to the offense.

Jason Harwood:

right. So I just talked about the defensive drives. Let's talk about, I'm going to start out with the offensive drives. First half punt. Touchdown, fumble in the red zone, touchdown, pick six, touchdown, interception,

Jacob:

Every other drive, we're just turning it over.

Jason Harwood:

you can't do that. And the second half it was touchdown, interception, field goal, interception. It's like every other drive we're giving them a chance. I

Jacob:

Yeah, I have a,

Jason Harwood:

game like that earlier this year with Houston, not going to win again in a playoff game like that. Just

Jacob:

absolutely not. I've got a just quick breakdown of these five turnovers. Cause that's really the story of the game. If you don't turn the ball over, if we turn those into points, then, maybe the over under should have been at 90 or whatever, but I mean, then we could've won, could've went out. could've went out on top. The first turnover, we're up seven to three. We have the momentum at that point. We drive down the field in four plays at that point. It was like, man, they just, they cannot stop us. Gibbs is going off. We're doing great. We have a third and one, and then we decided to go pass and turns out that was a mistake golf. I don't know if he just didn't feel the pressure this time. He was kind of loose with the ball, get sack, drops the ball. And, we lose the opportunity to go up 14 and three. And. If we do go up 14 and 3, maybe that's when, some rookie mistakes start to happen. Maybe they changed some play calls up, thinking, that we gotta score real quick. Maybe not, maybe it doesn't really change, but 14 3 would have felt really good, and it hurt us not getting any points. When we were moving the ball so well. Second turnover is, they had just scored a huge play to Terry McLaren and it was a 17 14 score. There's plenty of time in the second quarter. Second and 14. This was just a really bad throw by Goff. So he tries to chuck it deep, he way overshoots Tim Patrick and this is the one they return for a touchdown. So this was the beginning of when you start panicking a little bit because We already know we're gonna have trouble stopping their offense, and we can't give them points on defense. 100 percent that was, like, worst case scenario was them turning it back for a touchdown. So it's still early, but You know, that's concerning at that point, right? Third turnover was only five minutes from the second turnover. So the second turnover happens and it is 17 to 14. They get to pick six, five minutes later, it's 31 to 21 driving again on the cusp of the red zone. Golf tries another deep shot and it's undercut by saying, we're still on picked off. And this one was ugly because we still had a time out left. There was like 30 seconds left, but we still had time. I don't know, I guess Goff just felt like he needed to take a shot there. It was one on one coverage, Jamo did have him beat by a step, but it's underthrown. Jamo didn't really cut in and take, make a play on the ball either. He was going over top for sure. But, they end that threat, and then we end up going in the half down 31 to 21. Fourth turnover is the fourth quarter. We had just had that 12 man thing happen, and they were up 38 to 28. So if we stop them on fourth down, it's 31 to 28, and we get the ball back. But instead, they score, they're up by 10. And, yet again, we're driving, we're making positive plays, we're moving the ball. And this is where we try the trick play, where Jmo passes the ball to Gibbs. He's not open. Jamo has some pressure on him. Obviously, if you're Ben Johnson and you make that play call, you don't want Jamo to throw that ball unless Gibbs is breaking free and there's nobody around. Jamo does try to force it. He's not open. Nobody got fooled. I know we've talked about this before, but it's kind of funny in these situations where the wide receiver running back has the ball because they don't always have the, they always have it in their mind to throw the ball away, right? They want to try to make the play. They're a little bit nervous back there when there's pressure on him. You would have liked for J Mo to throw it away or maybe try to run. You would have even taken the loss there rather than that pick. We, it was a really bad play call in that situation. We needed to settle in, we needed to have a good drive and put any points on the board at that point. We just taken the field goal too. We just couldn't afford for that to happen. Fifth turnover, the game was pretty much over at that point. We're still fighting to the end, but get down to the red zone, Gough gets some pressure, moves around a little bit, and then just another bad throw, and then Jeremy Chin of the Commanders picks it off and seals the win.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, I, I go back to the first turnover that fumble in the red zone. That was a turning point in the game. Cause I think we go up 14 to three, we're feeling pretty good and we can weather some other, some of the storm that they're going to have for us on offense. And I, that hurt. And then the end of the half. Interception. I just don't get, I don't get the pressure because any points would have been great right there.

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

We would have taken that. We could have, we stopped him on the first drive in the second half. We could have tied up and then you're feeling good because you got a tie game. It was very, that was like why push that there? I don't, would have taken the points for sure. let's talk about the pick six golf, just getting blasted. Non call, I the replay on that one and is a vicious hit. Someone is just coming up and attacking the quarterback, hit him with the crown of the helmet. I don't how now that guy's not thrown out of the game. If that's Patrick Mahomes out of the game, he's thrown out of

Jacob:

I did see that immediately on Twitter, and that's right. I mean, they look out for Mahomes, they're not looking out for Goff or anybody like they do. It's hard to make that call when there's so much going on in an interception return. But it's right in front of where the ball carrier is. They're coming right through. You got to see golf flying backward, and then you get the announcers on TV or like, yeah, absolutely. It was unnecessary roughness. They should have been 15 yards from the spot. The touchdown shouldn't have counted, but too little too late. And then golf is in concussion protocol and ends up missing that next drive.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah. That was when Jamo took that one to the house call. And that was a pretty sweet play.

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah it was ridiculous. And I'm not here saying, Hey, that costs us the game or whatever, because it certainly didn't. It just shows like, if you watch a Chiefs game where they call, they call roughing the passer on a guy that hits Mahomes almost as he's throwing the ball, there's two different sets of rules here for different quarterbacks. And that should not be the case. Just glad that golf was able to come back in who knows that may have affected him later on making some of the throws that he made because those were very uncharacteristic of golf, but it just shouldn't happen. They shouldn't have been able to. That guy should be kicked out of the game. In my opinion, you're going to go with the crown of the helmet on the quarterback. I mean, it is not like golf is like moving a lot. The guy just comes and rates ends and just play. It was like old school football where you used to just interception. You used to just run and find the quarterback and just lay the biggest hit on

Jacob:

Exactly. That's what I was just gonna say is they knew, he knew it was Lou Vu and he knew it was a quarterback. He knew what he was doing. It didn't take much to take Gough out, to apply a block, or just to make sure that you score a touchdown. He went helmet to helmet on purpose.

Jason Harwood:

Yes, he did. I mean, it was crowned at the helmet. It wasn't like face mask, a face mask, his head was down and he came running right under golf's chin. The face mask. It

Jacob:

Yes.

Jason Harwood:

hit. He shouldn't have been, he should have been kicked out of the game. That was Brian branch. He'd have been kicked out of the game. I guarantee it.

Jacob:

Well, it's funny that they can, use replay assist, or use upstairs, or do whatever they gotta do to make that call on us, but there's no there's no conversation about that from New York about this. I don't know if it's because they didn't call a flag on the field. They couldn't, review it like that. I don't know.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, I don't, I mean, in college, it would have been targeting. That would have been targeting he'd have been kicked out

Jacob:

right.

Jason Harwood:

there was no targeting in the NFL. I personally think beyond just this, I think of the roughing the passer penalties should be reviewable, like replay assist should be on that. And. They could either throw the flag or not throw the flag. I don't, it's so hard for these referees to like throw it in the heat of the moment. They can't see all these angles. Sometimes the head snaps back, but the guy's hitting him in the chest and the head just snaps back. He's not hitting him in the helmet. I just review replay assist, could see those replays and just be able to throw because those are game changing plays. Automatic first down. In this case, it would have taken a touchdown off the board. I'm not saying they wouldn't have went ahead and scored who knows, then maybe we stopped for a field goal. And that's a big deal. It's a four point play instead of we take four points off the board. But yeah I just think that they need to look at the review. These are too big of a play. They, a few years ago they did the pass interference. They allowed them to review that after the whole Rams Saints debacle and the playoffs. No referee was going to overturn. They never, they hardly ever overturned pass interference because they didn't want to, it's very subjective. They didn't want to go against the ref. If it goes to replay assist, that takes all the on field refs out of the, of play. And then they could, make a correct

Jacob:

Make the right call. Yeah.

Jason Harwood:

yeah,

Jacob:

What did you think I don't know if you saw about, cause we actually benefited from one of these phantom facemask calls, did you see that with David Montgomery?

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, was it in the, it looked like in the stadium, they replayed it. It looked like face mask. Was it not face mask? Did he

Jacob:

No.

Jason Harwood:

a

Jacob:

He had a sh he had a shoulder. It was pretty clear, like, on the replay, he just had a shoulder. It was just kind of the way that David Montgomery kind of, I don't know if he was dipping his shoulder the same time he was pulling, like with the intention of breaking that tackle, cause I don't think that he wasn't tackled by him. He did break that and kind of get a few more yards, but we just didn't we didn't get it. Yeah, no, it was not a face mask. We benefited from that end up being a scoring drive for us. And that was actually, that was a third and 2. We probably would have went for it in 4th down anyway, but. I feel very rarely that the Lions benefit from calls like this.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah.

Jacob:

we did get one this game.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah. I don't know. I, it seems like, lines are always on the short end of that stick, but I think we're also looking for that too. The Packers many times, like in their game thought we were, the rest were biased in our favor. We had some, we've had some calls, I think of the bears game itself. We had, we, there was a phantom like horse collar tackle or something like that, that we benefited from. It's just, we're gonna, it's like in poker when you have, well, I know you don't play, but for me, like, you remember all your bad hands, your bad beats, but you hardly ever, remember your wins. It's like that with a penalty. I think, you remember all the ones you missed or got called,

Jacob:

right.

Jason Harwood:

On, you talked about that JMO trick play where he threw through the

Jacob:

Yeah, how did you feel about that play call?

Jason Harwood:

yeah, I mean, it's easy to say now that, yeah, that was terrible because it didn't work out. I just, like you said, it's unnecessary. Why are we doing that? Let me just, for the whole game we set, we're running the ball so well and just controlling it. And it's just, it's. has killed us, but it seems like we had just did what we talked about before the game, right control with the rushing game, we, our offense would have been fine as third and one, my son was, when golf fumbled, my son was so mad that we didn't run it. He was just, he just wanted to see DMO get the first down as all he

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

And we went, he passed there because we knew we were going to go for it on fourth down. Just, you don't anticipate. A fumble there.

Jacob:

Yep.

Jason Harwood:

I'm not going to kill that call. Didn't like, I think the trick play where JMO was going to pass was tried partially set up by the long run that happened earlier, the long touchdown run that he had. They were hoping that the defense would over pursued based on. Scoring on the last play and they played sound defense. They stayed right on Jameer and we should have just taken it for a loss. JMO just tried to make something happen with his legs.

Jacob:

Right. You're probably right. I mean, we did have that nice reverse play to Jamo that went for that touchdown, and then we also had a nice it was a toss to David Montgomery, who then had a shovel pass to Amun Ra. That was a really cool play that went for a big one too. So we did score on a couple of those trick plays. Yes. But I mean, this one, it's just like, it's the fourth quarter, we're down 10 and what I talked about before we, we needed to have like longer drives. We were almost scoring too fast when we were moving the ball, we're moving the ball too fast. We're doing well. But then our defense is right back out there. They're doing the same thing to us. And then it was just like this time, especially if they were down by 10. We need to have a decent drive. We have to give, you absolutely have to have some sort of points. A field goal would have been fine too. We have to get something. I think that was just a mistake. Yes. In hindsight, it was a bad play call. I think it was a mistake on JMO to make that throw. And I know Randall L, was talking to him about it afterward too, but I think it just so badly wants something to happen that he's just, firing it up there. And it was another nice play on senior still to be able to make that adjustment and move his body over and get that catch.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, I don't get one thing that made you made me think of something back on defense. I wanted to talk about was the kept coming to the line. Like they do this, they come to the line then they'll switch players out while they're on the line. And then, our defense is coming in we were just, they kept coming. That was one thing that really hurt on defense is like, they were, I want to say almost no huddling, but you know, it, it just caused a lot of confusion on defense. There's multiple times that

Jacob:

Exactly.

Jason Harwood:

weren't set on defense. So

Jacob:

I mean, that's just also a really good coaching too, because they know what we're dealing with. They know our players on defense, not everyone knows everything. They're not all on the same page. And that was a perfect way to try to exploit that. And I didn't really catch that, but you're right. I mean, that, that probably. Played a hand in it that worked for them.

Jason Harwood:

it did. And you could see it live because you the defense, especially in the, like in the secondary, they were still shuffling, trying to find out who's got who, and it was. Especially after a meek went down,

Jacob:

Yeah. Right. Right.

Jason Harwood:

for backups and just, we weren't quite ready for that one play that we should talk about before we move off the offense is that touchdown catch by Sam Laporta, that one headed catch. That was sweet. I,

Jacob:

Absolutely.

Jason Harwood:

an awesome catch.

Jacob:

Yeah, that was Milo's probably favorite play of the season. He couldn't believe it. He was reenacting it with his Nerf football as the game was still going on. Yeah. Golf is, he gets hit too. He's like falling down to the side. The ball doesn't come out good. Just, awesome. I'm sure it'll be a nice picture when they get that picture out of him diving like that. Great play by LaPorta. That was to give us the lead again, so. It was still when the vibes were still high.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, couldn't believe he caught it. I thought golf was just throwing it away. And then, the reaction, I, it happened. I think that happened in, yeah, it happened in my end zone. So I was like right on top of it. And you see it and then balls, never hits the ground and you're just like, he caught that. And then you're waiting for the replay. And it took forever for the stadium to play the replay because we just wanted to see what had happened. Cause we're like, how did he catch that? It looked like it was totally thrown away and one handed stab, just really good catch.

Jacob:

For sure.

Jason Harwood:

All right. Let's move off the offense here. Let's just wrap up with a few questions before we get going. So is this loss more on the offense or defense, Jacob?

Jacob:

This is tough because I do feel like it's a full, like a total team loss. I don't know that you can put the blame on any one person, but you can't turn the ball over five times on offense. I mean, that's too much for any defense to overcome. You're asking too much for us to be able to stop them so many times for you to turn the ball over, especially giving up that pick six. They're scoring enough on offense, and now, you allow them to score on defense too. I don't like saying that either of them are more to blame, but I think if you had to go one way or the other, you would say those five turnovers on offense, that the offense just didn't do their job. How are you feeling about this?

Jason Harwood:

I agree with you. I mean, you can't, I don't like to blame either side cause I think. There was mistakes making on all sides of the ball, coaching maybe not so much on special teams, but mostly on offensive defense. There was just mistakes all over the place. I think the offense felt the pressure that they could, especially how the first half went, Washington, we were having trouble stopping them. So the offense feels like they got to do more and that's not how this team is built. I mean, everyone's supposed to just do their job, but with all the injuries on the defense, they're doing the best that they can. It

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

week. We forget that we had Hutchinson on this team. It would have been vastly different if we had a Lehman Hutchinson in this game, their run game, wouldn't have done anything with a Lehman there. they gashed us a lot up the middle. get Pat O'Connor out really hurt. I feel like, cause I think they were bottling up. He did a fairly good job of bottling, doing what he needed to do with DJ reader. They just, we could not stop the run game, obviously getting Hutch in there. We can get pressure with four, maybe move Jane Daniels just didn't happen. So I think the offense felt like they had to do more. Certainly it looked like golf thought he had to put some balls out that. He normally wouldn't put up the pick six was, that was a tug going to be a tough throw. He had to throw it over the linebackers. He sailed it, to Tim Patrick, they ended up getting picks, touchdown on it. Just JMO feeling like he had to throw instead of just running and taking it for loss. I mean, just, you can't turn over the ball five times, especially if you're not getting a take 10 turnovers on defense. It's not going to happen.

Jacob:

Right, but I mean, when you look at the total numbers, we 521 total yards. We had more rushing yards than them. We had more passing yards than them. We just, I mean, that's what it came down to is those turnovers. We lost the time of possession because even those drives when we were scoring seemed to be happening really quickly. So, it sucks because you can't say it was a bad performance on the whole as the offense, because we were moving the ball. We were doing good for the most part. It's really you got to take away those five turnovers. Those five plays were all the difference in the game.

Jason Harwood:

yeah, it's situational football, man. I mean, you could have great numbers. I mean, look, let's look at the Tennessee game. We'll go back to that game. Our offense had like, but less than 200 golf through less than a hundred.

Jacob:

Right.

Jason Harwood:

We got all those turnovers, right. Or we kept getting special teams was doing awesome in that game. The stats can be all over the place, but you know, you and I watched the game, it's a turnover, you can't give up the ball like that. I think we could have weathered the storm with like, like two turnovers, maybe even three, but five without getting any of them back. And especially with our defense, not stopping them, just, it was, it was over, And I had originally planned on talking about, Aaron Glenn or Ben Johnson. this episode is kind of running long. Let's save that for the next episode, but real quick, by the time we do the next episode next week, Jacob, our just real quick answer. Yes or no, Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson. Are they still coaches for the lions next week we have this when I have our next podcast, at least one of them I'm not sure I yeah, I think Aaron Glenn's gonna be gone by next week. I think someone's gonna want to pull the trigger I know there was talk today about Ben Johnson going the Raiders that was a done deal But I don't know if I believe that just yet. I think Aaron Glenn is probably gone So yeah, probably by next week at least half of the code, half of our our coordinators are gone before we go, I just want to tell you what I told my kids we're walking back to the car, because I think as fans I just want to let you know my perspective is,

Jacob:

I'll say at least one of them is gone already. What do you think?

Jason Harwood:

I've walked back to the car, I said, our window's not closed, we are still a very good team, we're going to be getting a lot of these injured players back, it's going to be like getting a bunch of new free agents. That's how I feel like you're getting agent Hutchinson. You're getting the defensive player of the year back. That's going to be huge again. Hopefully it leans back at some point next year. We'll see him. Maybe we'll get some free agents or whatever. We all thought Dan Campbell was coach of the year after Minnesota. Things did not change in two weeks. He did not suddenly become a bad coach. We're still have an awesome leader. Now we may lose some of our other coaches, but I fully expect Dan Campbell To do his job. So I said, the future is bright. We don't like the result as right now, this feeling sucks that we have. But the window's not over. So that's why I told my kid, can get, especially they're not on social media. Like, we can see where it's just a lot of anger and a lot of like,

Jacob:

Negativity,

Jason Harwood:

just in general, there's in my mind, they're still positive. Do we want to end the season this way? No. Should we expect better? Yes. Were we expected too much with all the defensive injuries? Probably yes. So what, any thoughts on that, Jacob, before we, we head out?

Jacob:

no, I agree 100%. With all the injuries, everything that we've had to overcome, we're going to be getting most of those guys back. We've got a few, big decisions to make in free agency, but this is also, for Dan Campbell, the culture has changed, right? This because of this loss, it's not like all of a sudden these players aren't going to want to come to Detroit. We heard that all offseason and pretty much all season long, like, when players are available, they want their agents to call Detroit. They want to come here. They want to be here. They want to play for Dan Campbell. So, Dan came on Brad homes are going to be able to assign some free agents. We're going to be able to put some people where we need them to be. And it's not every year that you're going to be having 18 or 19 players on IR or whatever, and that we're going to be having to play with people like that. So the core of our team is together. The window is still wide open. I'm not worried about next year. I'm optimistic that we'll be right back in the same position.

Jason Harwood:

Yep. Before we head out, I just want to give a couple of shout outs. My old college roommate, Jason Lomersy gave me some nice messages on for both of us, Jacob, they really liked our episode that we had with the commander command this podcast really liked Steve and Dev. I just want to a shout out to Jason. Thanks for listening. And also our super fan, Cody gave me some words of encouragement last night and what he was dealing with, what he was thinking about, he's pretty positive about the situation. So that's good. So I want to give a shout out to Cody for listening all season long and every, anybody else that's listened or responded or talk, all year. It's been great. For those of you responded, it's been great seeing the numbers and people listening to us. I'm hoping that continues in the offseason. There's going to be plenty of talk. We, Jacob, you and I started in the offseason. So we're kind of getting back to our roots. We're going to have a full offseason to talk football this year. There's going to be plenty to talk about and maybe we'll get back to the Honolulu Blitz and have some fun, fun times with that.

Jacob:

Right, right, no,

Jason Harwood:

All right. One last great guarantee for the year. Jacob said, Joska get over a hundred plus, get a hundred plus rushing yards. He almost had that in the first half. He had

Jacob:

right,

Jason Harwood:

one Oh five. I thought Gibbs and Montgomery were going to score TD, Gibbs scored two, but Monty did not, we got on the door set a couple of times with Monty. We could have got in there, just deciding what to run with them. It was great to see him on the field. He did break a couple of tackles Montgomery. So we got a little taste of him back. Hopefully he comes back next season, healthy. And we,

Jacob:

right back to Sonic and Knuckles.

Jason Harwood:

it's going to be interesting. If they're going to play it the same next year, if they're going to give Montgomery off the bat, they started this game with Montgomery. Are we going to start the same? Are we going to start turning it over more to jock?

Jacob:

I would think it's probably going to flip. They'll be pretty close to the same kind of timeshare, but I think Gibbs might be the one getting the nod.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, maybe, as Monty gets a little bit older, they give him a little bit more of the break and just keep him for when we really need some

Jacob:

Well, and the injury stuff that we've been going through, right? Let's just keep him healthy.

Jason Harwood:

Exactly. But. It is what it is. So I glad that everybody listened to this episode. I know it's a tough one. Maybe it'll be therapeutic for you talking about it with you. Jacob has been therapeutic for me. We've kind of went through it. Part of it's frustrating, but it helps me. It's going to help me get over this quicker. I think we'll see, but we going to go down to one episode a week now? You think?

Jacob:

Probably. Right? Except for maybe like during the draft or some bigger things, but that's why I figured one a week. Keep it fresh.

Jason Harwood:

yeah, and we might have some quick we did like the quick grit take with, some Pro Bowl. So we might have some of those, like throughout the season, something big happens. We might just throw like a smaller 20 minute podcast up, just a quick reaction to something and we'll save our thoughts for. For a bigger show each week, and then we'll have some guests on, right? We're going to have, we've made some connections with people along the way. I know Morgan and Miko want to work with us and You and I, might be on that pride of Detroit podcast at some point this off season.

Jacob:

All right.

Jason Harwood:

to look forward to. So, uh, anything before we take off here?

Jacob:

No, I just, I really appreciate everybody listening. It's our first year doing this. It's been a great year. Really only getting better every week and, ready for year two already.

Jason Harwood:

I know it's crazy that we've, we haven't done it for a full year, but this is our first full season that

Jacob:

First

Jason Harwood:

it.

Jacob:

season.

Jason Harwood:

Season of football and yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's something I look forward to each week. I know it's, it is a fair amount of work that goes into this. I didn't realize. Going into, your perception as a podcast, Oh, it's an hour. And, that's what they just talk football for an hour. No, there's a, Jacob and I do a lot of work setting this up, beforehand trying to keep an organized show and then afterwards the editing and, putting stuff on YouTube and all that stuff there's a lot of stuff. Have not reaped any financial benefits, but we've

Jacob:

Oh.

Jason Harwood:

of, personal benefits. Yeah, this has cost us more money than than we've gotten anything back, but I don't think either one of us, that was a goal we've just wanted closest to the team, create a community and have access to things that we didn't have access before. Like having Jeremy Reisman in the show. I mean, it was one of my. Personal, like heroes in the podcast world. Just, I really look up to him as a lion's beat writer and all that stuff. And I'm, I don't want to like count my chickens for their hatch, but Eric has agreed to come on during draft time. So that, when that happens, Jacob, you might have to like knock the fanboy out of me because I'm going to, I'm going to flip when that happens.

Jacob:

Yeah, like when Jeremy came on the first time, right?

Jason Harwood:

Yeah. I didn't allow you to talk, but I, yeah, exactly.

Jacob:

You still do that from time to time.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, well, that's true, but I want, I want this to be a good show. So that's why I talk more,

Jacob:

That's why you have to edit yourself for hours afterward.

Jason Harwood:

I know, just like just cutting everything down. I leave all your crap in, man. I just leave all your errors in and I just sound so

Jacob:

All my errors.

Jason Harwood:

Yeah, no, you actually, to be honest with you afterwards, I'm cutting out. I tend to repeat myself. I cut out a lot of things for you. I'm just not as

Jacob:

You're overanalyzing yourself.

Jason Harwood:

I think so a little bit, but also I think a little more concise in the way you talk than I do. I eventually get to what I wanted to say just takes me a little bit, but a little bit to get there. So, all right, for Jacob, I'm Jason. Last time this season, during the season, I'm going to say this Go Lions!

People on this episode

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Jacob Litton

Co-host
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Jason Harwood

Co-host