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Detroit Lions - Team Notes

Two more missed calls from Lions-Packers on MNF.
Please don?t buy more billboards.
Just when you thought we finally had the full reckoning of officiating mistakes from the Monday Night Football debacle at Lambo, a new stream of information trickled in yesterday. Return man Jamal Agnew told Kyle Meinke from Mlive.com, that a 53-yard punt in the second half downed inside Detroit?s 20-yard line should have been nullified because it hit an ESPN skycam wire.

The rule in question is Rule 7, Section 2 Article 1(r): ?if a loose ball in play strikes a video board, guide wire, sky cam, or any other object, the ball will be dead immediately, and the down will be replayed at the previous spot.? What is particularly galling about this error is Note 1 which follows it, showing the league deliberately built in a backstop for this specific rule (emphasis added):

If there is not an on-field ruling that the ball struck an object, the Replay Official is empowered to initiate a booth review, even if the event occurs prior to the two-minute warning. If, prior to the two-minute warning, no booth review is initiated by the Replay Official, a coach?s challenge is permitted under the established rules for such a challenge.

While not as game-changing as the hands-to-the-chest flags thrown at Trey Flowers, forcing a replay of the punting down could have changed field position by a significant amount. The Green Bay punting unit would have lost the great result from the first punt (inside the 20) which would have to be repeated, and a do-over would have given Agnew a fair opportunity to at least attempt a return.

Officiating enthusiast site Football Zebras posted a detailed analysis of the Tracy Walker strict liability penalty, and concluded that it was incorrectly assessed as well. The crux of the problem with the Walker penalty was that the rule only places strict liability on the player initiating contact to prevent illegal contact. Since the contact was incidental and not ?forcible,? it did not fall under the scope of strict liability.

Many defensive players across the league have expressed concern about the way this penalty was adjudicated during the game, including Vikings safety Harrison Smith and Richard Sherman from the 49ers:

So where do we go from here? Sports Illustrated?s Albert Breer wrote about the unanimous support from head coaches in the league for the eighth official and sky judge proposals at the last Annual League Meeting in March 2019. According to Breer, ?one veteran head coach said to the others that he?d never seen that kind of unanimous support from the full group of NFL head coaches.? That work is expected to serve as the foundation for the next steps to improving officiating:

The belief that I heard at the Fall League Meeting that just wrapped up here in Florida is that all the work that the coaches put in last winter will be reprised around the time of the Senior Bowl in a few months, and potentially presented when the competition committee meets again at the combine in February.

POD
 
https://www.prideofdetroit.com/2019...preview-podcast-week-7-predictions-arif-hasan
Pride Of Detroit Lions Podcast: Lions vs. Vikings preview. Is Kirk Cousins good? 46 minutes.
Arif Hasan from The Athletic Minnesota gives us the full breakdown of the 2019 Vikings.

The Detroit Lions haven?t been able to crack the Minnesota Vikings? defensive code since Mike Zimmer carried that franchise on their back. The Lions are desperate, coming off an emotional loss to the Green Bay Packers, and they?re bringing a revamped offense via Darrell Bevell that has Matthew Stafford playing some of the best football of his career.

But will it be enough for a surging Vikings team that pulled themselves out of dysfunction to be one of the more impressive teams in the NFL over the past two weeks?

This week, we got Arif Hasan from The Athletic Minnesota to help us preview this Week 7 showdown. Hasan helped us understand what is currently going right in Minnesota, what is going wrong, and what the hell is with Kirk Cousins.

It?s an informative podcast that I promise is a lot less depressing than last week?s?let?s just say very impassioned?podcast.

As always, make sure you subscribe to our podcast station so you can get First Byte and the PODcast on your favorite platform as soon as the episodes drop.

This week on First Byte.
The Vikings offseason was focused on the offensive line. How successful were they? Which moves turned out to be good and bad?

Kirk Cousins? stats are outstanding, but his reputation remains sketchy. Hasan gives us his full opinion on the Vikings? franchise quarterback.

Has this defense changed at all from years past or is still the scary defense that it always has been?

Arif gives us his overall thoughts on the Lions: ?best team in the NFC North?????

Can the Lions wide receivers beat the Vikings underperforming corners?

How the hell are the Lions going to stop Dalvin Cook and how the hell are they going to protect Matthew Stafford?

PREDICTIONS!
 
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