November 7, 2024 • 10 mins
Justin Rogers from Detroit Football Network joins The A-Team to talk Sunday Night Football between the Texans and Lions. He talks about what has made the Lions into the team that they are now. He believes that the similarities between DeMeco Ryans and Dan Campbell are stunning. Plus, how the Lions have gotten to this position as an organization.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Texans Lions coming up on Sunday Night, second consecutive week
for the Texans in prime time. They're playing the primist
of teams from the NFC, the seven to one Lions.
To that end, special guests joining us here from Detroit,
the Detroit Football Network's own Justin Rogers been covering the
Lions for better than a decade and this is a
lot different than many of the previous years Lions outfits. Justin,
(00:22):
we certainly appreciate the time, and we just got finished
talking about Jared Goff, my co host Adam and myself
also Adam, and how much he actually should be getting
credit for what's going on there is the what is
making this engine go? No lack of recognition on how
talented the other ten or so players are around him offensively,
(00:44):
but the season he's having should be noteworthy in that
we've never seen it before.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
My Alen regret is I'm also not named Adam. It's
a big letdown on my part. I apologize. Look, yeah,
Goff is having a great season, and what it is
is it's it's not quite game manager, it's more than that.
And I don't want to put a label on him
that makes it sound like I'm taking away from what
he's accomplishing, but he's being extraordinarily smart with the football.
(01:13):
When GoF got here from Lost, I thought he had
two flaws in his game. One he was prone to
one pretty massive mental error a week that led too
often a turnover. And I don't think his deep ball
was particularly good. And he's really improved significantly in both.
And he's not throwing a deep a ton this year.
But when defenses are permitting, when they're giving those opportunities
(01:36):
to targeting Jamison Williams deep as a weapon for them,
and then other than that, he's just taking the smart read.
And yeah, that's a lot of five yard checkdowns. But
when you have guys like Jamison Williams, I'm on our
Saint Brown, Sam Laporta. Jamier gives guys that can do
things after the catch, and I have checked in a while,
but I know the Lions are very towards the top
of the league and yards under the catch, let your
(01:57):
guys go to work. Get him in space and let
him go to work. And there's not much more to
be said about a guy that's completing nearly eighty three
percent of his passes in the last six games. It's
really quite preposterous. And I think any quarterback in the
league will tell you it doesn't matter how far down
the field you're throwing. It difficult to do at that
level if.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You turn the conversation to as unsexy a place as
possible when analyzing football. Their offensive line doesn't get talked
about because of all the names you just said, saying ones,
We've been saying, well a suit throughout the week. Where
would you put their offensive line if you were placing
them around the other thirty two teams? It appears this
has got to be one of the three or four
(02:35):
best lines. And I'll add to that was Taylor Decker's
appearance on today's injury report. Any indication of an issue
heading into Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it caught us a little bit by surprise as well.
So we don't have an update because it popped up
at four o'clock. After coaches that talk. We'll know a
little bit more, and we talked to Dan Camele tomorrow.
But the group is certainly not ignored locally. They have
stid heavily in it. They have three pole from center
to right guard to right tackle. They have an all
Pro right tackle that is arguably the best lineman at
(03:08):
any spot in football. Pable Taylor Decker is a former
first round pick, Graham Glasgow is a former third round pick.
All those guys are really talented, But an offensive line
is a fist. It's five fingers. What can those five
fingers come together and forge? And this group is probably
the best in the NFL. They've been hovering in that
(03:28):
conversation for two or three years. They had a lot
of injuries, kind of a revolving door of them for
a few years there, but the addition of Kevin Zeitler
replacing another good offensive lineman and Jonah Jackson has actually
been an upgrade. It's allowed the Lions to be a
run first team, which is kind of weird in this
area all but that's what they're doing. It's giving Jared
Goff time to process and make those correct reads. It is,
(03:52):
as the offensive coordinator Ben Johnson says all the time,
it is the engine that makes the offense go. They
can do anything. They can block his own, they block
app they get to the second level, they catch passes
because why the hell not. And so this group could
delimit everything and they could do it at a very
high level.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Justin Rodgers with the Detroit Football Network joining us here
to talk Lions Texans coming up this Sunday night, and
going back to GoF a little bit. You were just
talking about him there, and you know, game manager is
almost like an insult to quarterbacks when you use that term.
But I also, and I was mentioning this to Wex
earlier in the show, I don't feel like at the
beginning of the season, even if you thought, all right,
(04:31):
Detroit's gonna take that next step, they're gonna be one
of the best teams, if not the best, in the NFC,
I never would have put Jared Goff in like the
top five or maybe even top ten of quarterbacks. So
what is it? What is the perfect description for him?
If he's not an elite level quarterback, like in the
sense of putting up gaudy numbers, but he's also clearly
not a game manager.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a it's it's a really good question. It's
a really tough one to answer because I don't think
Goff is a guy that we would pick. Sure is
a quarterback that carries a team. What some out of
the quote unquote elite conversation is He's not a dual threat.
You know, he doesn't have the mobility of a lot
of the elite quarterbacks to extend plays out of the pocket,
(05:14):
to pick up yards with their feet. He's not Lamar
Jackson or Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes. He's just not.
But in terms of pocket presence, elite play action quarterback
maybe the best needful. You know, it's a really underrated
skill of his, his ability to sell playfakes, and it
really does keep an offensive off balance, I'm sorry, a
(05:35):
defense off balance because they don't know whether he's handing
it off because he sells it so linebackers in it
opens things up behind those linebackers. And so Goff just
does a lot of the little things really really well.
I think he's a high level processor. He's accurate at
all levels of the field, and you know, insulter. He
(05:55):
manages the game plan to as high a level as
you can want as an offensive cour.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
What does the Lions team, what do the media members
there in Detroit? What's the perception of the team they're facing,
the team they're going up against, for where they are
after the last three weeks talking about the Texans, what
do you get the senses of what they think they're
up against.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I will tell you from my personal perspective, when the
schedule came out and we kind of knew Gift and
where things were going, this was a game I circled
that just drough general excitement, really loved the matchup on paper.
I think there is an element of looking in the
mirror and seeing the AFC version of the Lions and
(06:40):
maybe a year behind, just because Ryan's only been there
for for a season less than Dan Campbell. But you know,
he's brought a culture that people have bought into the
very much a draft and developed team, and I can't
stop laughing about it. But you know, we'll see how
it was coming out. One of his prime comps, I
(07:02):
believe land Surline at NFL dot Com. I'm comped them
to Jared Goff, and so there's this, uh probably a
little bit more athletic, right fellows, but there's just so
many similarities, and I think they see this as a
really big test. They've been answering big tests on the
road a lot. Recently. They beat Minnesota, was undefeated three
(07:22):
weeks back at the time, beat Green Bay in the weather.
You know, sus statement win for a team that you
know has to answer questions all the time about being
a Dome team playing in those conditions. They did it
certainly that Unders did on last Sunday, and so it
was just another test against a really good team on
the road. And you know, I don't think it's a
(07:43):
stretch to say, you know, it's a possible Super Bowl matchup.
I think Houston's a little bit behind in terms of
the Baltimore's and the cases of the world, but you know,
they've got the pieces that if they put it all together,
you certainly could see them making that kind of run
in the postseason.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I would certainly agree that Campbell and Ryan's are elite
culture builders, and no offense to the other thirty NFL coaches,
I think I would also say they are most currently
likely to still be able to handle business as NFL
players like they did when they were NFL players. How
fast do you think things got to where they are
(08:18):
with and I think we should always add Brad Holmes
to the conversation, how quick do you think things got
to this culture of what they are with Dan Campbell
and Holmes and everybody coming aboard and creating what is
now the best team in the NFC.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, they had to rip it down to the studs here.
You know, it is really in a bad place when
they arrived. You know, you trade Matthew Stafford, the face
of the franchise kind of on day one essentially, and
you know, really much as you're fully embracing this, this rebuild,
it took about a year and a half before things
started to click. They had a really really rough season
(08:54):
that first year. They hired the wrong offensive coordinator. It
didn't mesh well. They neignoless there with you know, no wins.
Their first eleven games, ended up winning three. They start
one and six that second season and then they start
putting it and they closed that season really strong. They
were still in the mix for a playoff spot until
the final week of the season. And you came into
(09:15):
the twenty twenty three year and he said, Okay, this
looks like a team that should win its division. And
they did, and they kind of did it a start
to finish manner. And so you know, you mentioned the
very top of this that it's a different Detroit team,
and it's it's taken a long time for fans, it's
taken a long time for media to kind of let
go of the ghosts of the past. It's six decades
a ghost of just failure after failure after failure to
(09:38):
recognize that this is real. And I think for the
first time as a media member, all these ah, is
this the week they kind of stumble? Is this the
week the other shoe drops? And you're moving past that
and realizing that, no, this this is one of, if
not the best teams in football. And they know how
to take care of their business. You sense the confidence
in room every single day and the way they execute
(10:01):
in practice and the way they execute on game days,
and it's it's just a new world. I don't know
what other way to put it now.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I think, you know, given the circumstances and with the
injuries to the Texans especially, but I do think they're
the best team in the NFL, and they're playing the
best right now. And I anticipate a very long night
on Sunday. Justin, We appreciate the time, good luck the
rest of the way this season, and we'll catch up
with you again soon.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys, all right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Justin Rogers of the Detroit Football Network here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety space City Home Network. As the
Lions and the Texans getting together this Sunday, I kind
of wanted to ask him about the you know, are
you looking at the injuries to the forty nine ers
and what's happened and thinking, all right, that's just another
thing that's going their way. Yeah, obviously Hutchinson's a bad injury,
(10:50):
but they've got it set up pretty Hopefully the Texans
can put a pause to that this weekend.
Texans Lions coming up on Sunday Night, second consecutive week
for the Texans in prime time. They're playing the primist
of teams from the NFC, the seven to one Lions.
To that end, special guests joining us here from Detroit,
the Detroit Football Network's own Justin Rogers been covering the
Lions for better than a decade and this is a
lot different than many of the previous years Lions outfits. Justin,
(00:22):
we certainly appreciate the time, and we just got finished
talking about Jared Goff, my co host Adam and myself
also Adam, and how much he actually should be getting
credit for what's going on there is the what is
making this engine go? No lack of recognition on how
talented the other ten or so players are around him offensively,
(00:44):
but the season he's having should be noteworthy in that
we've never seen it before.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
My Alen regret is I'm also not named Adam. It's
a big letdown on my part. I apologize. Look, yeah,
Goff is having a great season, and what it is
is it's it's not quite game manager, it's more than that.
And I don't want to put a label on him
that makes it sound like I'm taking away from what
he's accomplishing, but he's being extraordinarily smart with the football.
(01:13):
When GoF got here from Lost, I thought he had
two flaws in his game. One he was prone to
one pretty massive mental error a week that led too
often a turnover. And I don't think his deep ball
was particularly good. And he's really improved significantly in both.
And he's not throwing a deep a ton this year.
But when defenses are permitting, when they're giving those opportunities
(01:36):
to targeting Jamison Williams deep as a weapon for them,
and then other than that, he's just taking the smart read.
And yeah, that's a lot of five yard checkdowns. But
when you have guys like Jamison Williams, I'm on our
Saint Brown, Sam Laporta. Jamier gives guys that can do
things after the catch, and I have checked in a while,
but I know the Lions are very towards the top
of the league and yards under the catch, let your
(01:57):
guys go to work. Get him in space and let
him go to work. And there's not much more to
be said about a guy that's completing nearly eighty three
percent of his passes in the last six games. It's
really quite preposterous. And I think any quarterback in the
league will tell you it doesn't matter how far down
the field you're throwing. It difficult to do at that
level if.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
You turn the conversation to as unsexy a place as
possible when analyzing football. Their offensive line doesn't get talked
about because of all the names you just said, saying ones,
We've been saying, well a suit throughout the week. Where
would you put their offensive line if you were placing
them around the other thirty two teams? It appears this
has got to be one of the three or four
(02:35):
best lines. And I'll add to that was Taylor Decker's
appearance on today's injury report. Any indication of an issue
heading into Sunday.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it caught us a little bit by surprise as well.
So we don't have an update because it popped up
at four o'clock. After coaches that talk. We'll know a
little bit more, and we talked to Dan Camele tomorrow.
But the group is certainly not ignored locally. They have
stid heavily in it. They have three pole from center
to right guard to right tackle. They have an all
Pro right tackle that is arguably the best lineman at
(03:08):
any spot in football. Pable Taylor Decker is a former
first round pick, Graham Glasgow is a former third round pick.
All those guys are really talented, But an offensive line
is a fist. It's five fingers. What can those five
fingers come together and forge? And this group is probably
the best in the NFL. They've been hovering in that
(03:28):
conversation for two or three years. They had a lot
of injuries, kind of a revolving door of them for
a few years there, but the addition of Kevin Zeitler
replacing another good offensive lineman and Jonah Jackson has actually
been an upgrade. It's allowed the Lions to be a
run first team, which is kind of weird in this
area all but that's what they're doing. It's giving Jared
Goff time to process and make those correct reads. It is,
(03:52):
as the offensive coordinator Ben Johnson says all the time,
it is the engine that makes the offense go. They
can do anything. They can block his own, they block
app they get to the second level, they catch passes
because why the hell not. And so this group could
delimit everything and they could do it at a very
high level.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Justin Rodgers with the Detroit Football Network joining us here
to talk Lions Texans coming up this Sunday night, and
going back to GoF a little bit. You were just
talking about him there, and you know, game manager is
almost like an insult to quarterbacks when you use that term.
But I also, and I was mentioning this to Wex
earlier in the show, I don't feel like at the
beginning of the season, even if you thought, all right,
(04:31):
Detroit's gonna take that next step, they're gonna be one
of the best teams, if not the best, in the NFC,
I never would have put Jared Goff in like the
top five or maybe even top ten of quarterbacks. So
what is it? What is the perfect description for him?
If he's not an elite level quarterback, like in the
sense of putting up gaudy numbers, but he's also clearly
not a game manager.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, it's a it's it's a really good question. It's
a really tough one to answer because I don't think
Goff is a guy that we would pick. Sure is
a quarterback that carries a team. What some out of
the quote unquote elite conversation is He's not a dual threat.
You know, he doesn't have the mobility of a lot
of the elite quarterbacks to extend plays out of the pocket,
(05:14):
to pick up yards with their feet. He's not Lamar
Jackson or Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes. He's just not.
But in terms of pocket presence, elite play action quarterback
maybe the best needful. You know, it's a really underrated
skill of his, his ability to sell playfakes, and it
really does keep an offensive off balance, I'm sorry, a
(05:35):
defense off balance because they don't know whether he's handing
it off because he sells it so linebackers in it
opens things up behind those linebackers. And so Goff just
does a lot of the little things really really well.
I think he's a high level processor. He's accurate at
all levels of the field, and you know, insulter. He
(05:55):
manages the game plan to as high a level as
you can want as an offensive cour.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
What does the Lions team, what do the media members
there in Detroit? What's the perception of the team they're facing,
the team they're going up against, for where they are
after the last three weeks talking about the Texans, what
do you get the senses of what they think they're
up against.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
I will tell you from my personal perspective, when the
schedule came out and we kind of knew Gift and
where things were going, this was a game I circled
that just drough general excitement, really loved the matchup on paper.
I think there is an element of looking in the
mirror and seeing the AFC version of the Lions and
(06:40):
maybe a year behind, just because Ryan's only been there
for for a season less than Dan Campbell. But you know,
he's brought a culture that people have bought into the
very much a draft and developed team, and I can't
stop laughing about it. But you know, we'll see how
it was coming out. One of his prime comps, I
(07:02):
believe land Surline at NFL dot Com. I'm comped them
to Jared Goff, and so there's this, uh probably a
little bit more athletic, right fellows, but there's just so
many similarities, and I think they see this as a
really big test. They've been answering big tests on the
road a lot. Recently. They beat Minnesota, was undefeated three
(07:22):
weeks back at the time, beat Green Bay in the weather.
You know, sus statement win for a team that you
know has to answer questions all the time about being
a Dome team playing in those conditions. They did it
certainly that Unders did on last Sunday, and so it
was just another test against a really good team on
the road. And you know, I don't think it's a
(07:43):
stretch to say, you know, it's a possible Super Bowl matchup.
I think Houston's a little bit behind in terms of
the Baltimore's and the cases of the world, but you know,
they've got the pieces that if they put it all together,
you certainly could see them making that kind of run
in the postseason.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
I would certainly agree that Campbell and Ryan's are elite
culture builders, and no offense to the other thirty NFL coaches,
I think I would also say they are most currently
likely to still be able to handle business as NFL
players like they did when they were NFL players. How
fast do you think things got to where they are
(08:18):
with and I think we should always add Brad Holmes
to the conversation, how quick do you think things got
to this culture of what they are with Dan Campbell
and Holmes and everybody coming aboard and creating what is
now the best team in the NFC.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Yeah, they had to rip it down to the studs here.
You know, it is really in a bad place when
they arrived. You know, you trade Matthew Stafford, the face
of the franchise kind of on day one essentially, and
you know, really much as you're fully embracing this, this rebuild,
it took about a year and a half before things
started to click. They had a really really rough season
(08:54):
that first year. They hired the wrong offensive coordinator. It
didn't mesh well. They neignoless there with you know, no wins.
Their first eleven games, ended up winning three. They start
one and six that second season and then they start
putting it and they closed that season really strong. They
were still in the mix for a playoff spot until
the final week of the season. And you came into
(09:15):
the twenty twenty three year and he said, Okay, this
looks like a team that should win its division. And
they did, and they kind of did it a start
to finish manner. And so you know, you mentioned the
very top of this that it's a different Detroit team,
and it's it's taken a long time for fans, it's
taken a long time for media to kind of let
go of the ghosts of the past. It's six decades
a ghost of just failure after failure after failure to
(09:38):
recognize that this is real. And I think for the
first time as a media member, all these ah, is
this the week they kind of stumble? Is this the
week the other shoe drops? And you're moving past that
and realizing that, no, this this is one of, if
not the best teams in football. And they know how
to take care of their business. You sense the confidence
in room every single day and the way they execute
(10:01):
in practice and the way they execute on game days,
and it's it's just a new world. I don't know
what other way to put it now.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
I think, you know, given the circumstances and with the
injuries to the Texans especially, but I do think they're
the best team in the NFL, and they're playing the
best right now. And I anticipate a very long night
on Sunday. Justin, We appreciate the time, good luck the
rest of the way this season, and we'll catch up
with you again soon.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, guys, all right.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Justin Rogers of the Detroit Football Network here on Sports
Talk seven to ninety space City Home Network. As the
Lions and the Texans getting together this Sunday, I kind
of wanted to ask him about the you know, are
you looking at the injuries to the forty nine ers
and what's happened and thinking, all right, that's just another
thing that's going their way. Yeah, obviously Hutchinson's a bad injury,
(10:50):
but they've got it set up pretty Hopefully the Texans
can put a pause to that this weekend.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.