Voltaire

She sounds normal now. Looks like she's getting cured by reality. Looks can be deceiving, maybe just one step to sanity.

Tampa Bay may well be in the playoff hunt come trade deadline but if not... they'll extract heavy concessions from somebody. Or maybe not... they may well be more focused on the future than a ceiling of one-and-done present.

1 Eagles 2 49ers 3 Lions 4 Saints 5 Cowboys 6 Giants 7 Seahawks ------ 1 Bengals 2 Chiefs 3 Jets 4 Jaguars 5 Bills 6 Chargers 7 Ravens

Superstar 2nd/3rd round WR 1s FF anchors from years past... Julio Jones and Sammy Watkins. Otherwise Kenny Golliday, TY Hilton, and such.

I don't think expecting to go 11-6/12-5, win the division, a home playoff game, and predicting a win (then winning) against a seriously depleted Chiefs squad is pumping out chests. That's just the natural progression from where they left off last year when young players started stepping up. Then four more rookies played critical roles in this win too, which was no surprise, we'd seen that happening all offseason. Brad Holmes had done it again with a third draft class... one that I didn't like on draft day. The team still has plenty of flaws that were exposed. It'll be nice to get our CB1 back and alleged WR2. It just looked to me that KC without Jones and Kelse was going to present no more of a challenge than Green Bay but I was wrong, even at limited capacity, they are much better and the Packers and may well have pulled out the win anyway. I think playing them at full strength, we'd lose. It was only when Jones and the Chiefs brass remained deadlocked and Kelce got hurt that I expected the Lions to win - because they weren't a championship caliber team this week. Despite the massive help they got from the officials either. I compared them to Green Bay, and I was wrong about that, they were still good , but they still didn't have enough juice to win in the end. Patrick Mahomes minus Kelce was good but I expected to be about as productive as Aaron Rogers, which is overcomable and isn't particularly scary to Lions fans. 226 yards passing with clowns imitating a receiving corp was about right. That their defense played so well surprised me.

People on sports talk radio were fuming that the Lions were dangling James Houston as a trade candidate and I didn't understand it. If you want a solid WR2, that's the caliber player you have to give up to get one. If you're only willing to to move a back-end LB or DL, you're only going to get a back-end WR in return.

Yeah, I stopped fuming over the picks long ago when I figured that out. They come from a program that consistently produces quality LBs and TEs that you may be aware of. Branch with his pick-six and Gibbs also played well. Other rookies add depth. Even one of Brad Holmes' undrafted free agents that couldn't make the team got picked off waivers by Arizona. So, looks like another solid rookie class from Brad Holmes, three in a row.

The Chiefs weren't an elite championship caliber team yesterday, the game was a tossup as to who played better and could have gone either way. The Lions need a better/more reliable WR2. That was a predictable hole, they're fine everywhere else. I was hoping that Holmes would trade a solid D-Lineman to get somebody solid in return but the season started and that didn't happen. Maybe there's one in house: one game down, five more until Jaemo comes back - and they could really use him if he's actually good - but at no point has he ever given us no reason to believe he's the answer. It's merely "hope" he plays well, not "expect him to play well" let alone "expect him to dominate". Dude resonates "bust" vibes. Some of 2018's WR superstars are free agents, wouldn't hurt to check the gas tank and kick the tires.

Wordle 811 4/6 🟨🟨 🟨🟨 🟩🟨🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Had a decent shot at three, failed but picked up 3+1 green. This would have made a good starter word had I thought of it, now I'll never use it though.

I was watching UM play Wisconsin a good twelve years ago and I was amazed by the name on the back of a particular Badger's jersey: https://247sports.com/player/patrick-butrym-5231/

I wouldn't say the Chiefs are in trouble. Kelse will be back with 2+10 days of rest. Jones could resolve his situation at any time. They get the other guy back in five more games when his suspension ends. Their problem is that the AFC is a hell of a lot more competitive than the NFC and picking up an L today may well cost them a bye and home field at the end of the year. We'll try to do them a solid by tagging the Chargers with a loss later. The Chiefs are better than Detroit any week other than this one, whereas those Chargers are about evenly matched to Detroit IMO.

The silver lining for the Chiefs is that Andy Reed learned a lot about his team, especially his WRs. He'll have Jones, Kelce, as well as the right combination of receivers on the field soon enough. Even at their absolute worst, Detroit barely escaped with a W. Now they are everybody else's problem... Vikings, Bears, Packers, the rest of the AFC. We put them in a hole AFC, its up to all the rest of you to keep them from getting that bye/home field throughout advantage again.

Probably. When the schedule came out, I wasn't expecting a win. I thought the Lions could hang, would wind up losing in a close game although they had a decent shot at pulling off the upset. Then when fate struck the Chiefs, I was expecting not just a win but a blowout. I was thinking Kansas City Packers and they were going to spanked. That it was this close and could easily have gone the other way means they likely would have made the difference.

I think the same. I've said all along 11-6 / 12-5 or so, winning the North and a home playoff game to be in the last four NFC teams is what to expect this year. If you can't beat the the Chiefs when their #2 and #3 players are missing, you don't belong in the conversation.

Still thinking 11-6 or 12-5 or so. You have to beat teams like KC when they're missing key players to be in the conversation.

Campbell went for it on 4th and now the Chiefs are really close to FG range.

This is not the game I was expecting at all, but it's a tight one.

That was helpful and very needed. Trade turnover bulls*t.

They're moving the ball well enough but not stopping it terribly successfully. And I expected more from the red zone defense with Kelse on the shelf.

Well the Lions are moving the ball mostly and winning the time of possession handily but fumbling in the red zone isn't a very good way to end a drive. Meanwhile KC isn't missing Kelce in the red zone like they I'd hoped. The turning 7s into 3s plan isn't working.

For many years when I first started playing FF, Brett Favre always had Antionio Freeman as WR 1 and some new schmuck as WR2. We never knew in preseason who was going to emerge so people would shy away. Not me. What I would always get away with doing was draft Schmuck A in round 11 and Schmuck B in round 12 and so I always had a productive WR 3 plus his backup all year on the cheap.

Alright, don't fock up this time.

Me too. Dan's better at the "Rah! Rah!," fire 'em up, run through walls stuff.

Was hoping missing Kelse would turn 7s into 3s...

That went well, hopefully we get three more quarters of the same with the Lions eating clock and driving the ball.