One player that stood out for me in the secondary: Schweigert. Before the game I had no knowledge of him, but throughout the second half it seemed like he was picking up every other tackle. And the thing is, he was recognizing run as a safety and getting to the running back at the line of scrimmage and even the backfield. Now given, this was against the Falcons’ scrubs, but he’s someone I’ll keep my eye on this preseason.

Stanton gave me some mixed feelings at the end of the game. He didn’t bring to the table what I would like to see him bring to the table in a preseason game. He was slashing through their 3rd team D like it was nothing, but it was with his legs…at this point in his career everyone knows he can run. We need to see that he can make all the passes and that he can hold up behind the line of scrimmage without running away every time he gets flushed from the pocket. There were multiple times where there was no way the play had even come close to developing and he was off to the races when the D-line was just beginning to collapse the pocket. During the regular season, I’m all for him running the D to shreds, but for now he’s got to showcase his passing game because I don’t think he’s going to be that successful running the ball against an experienced 1st team defense.

I was pretty happy with how the Lions played. Aside from the one run by Turner, I thought that the defense had an ok performance. Not great, but definitely not worst in the league.

One thing that disappointed me was that Felton didn’t get any carries in the game. I thought that the coaches were going to give him some opportunities this year, and with Morris out, I thought that he would get a series or two. I would really like to see him run it, and if he works out as a power back, then a backfield of K. Smith, M. Morris, A. Brown, and J. Felton sounds pretty good to me.

And Chris Roberson really looked solid. If I remember correctly, he made the very first tackle on special teams, and then I noticed him a few times coming up and making a play at CB. I think that there is still a big drop off from Buchanon and Henry to anybody else on the Lions, but C. Roberson looked better than I expected.

It was hard to see details due to the overall poor quality of the broadcast, and what was with the stutter-step replays? Yikes. It’s usually better than that for the preseason broadcasts.

I will say that while it’s not great to get burned by Michael Turner for a long TD it’s not as if better teams than the Lions haven’t suffered the same fate. Still worrisome though.

I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen the Lions where I felt like they actually have some talent at the QB position; in all three spots, even. The RBs looked like a solid and deep group as well; It looks like Aaron Brown will get some carries as a change of pace type back. Honestly.. the offense looked pretty solid other than the WRs dropping passes.

The defense is what concerns me the most. It still looked like they were prone to giving up runs up the middle, and short 5-10 yard passes. But the secondary looked like they actually knew how to tackle anyone not named “Turner” and covered the deep ball fairly well considering the Lions didn’t blitz much or get much pressure on the QB.

I wondered why Ernie was on the strong side for the Turner run that resulted in the TD. I thought he was a weak side LB. Maybe they were just trying him out on the strong side, or maybe I’m just crazy?

- Ernie Sims got sealed off rather easily on that TD run, and had a very non-descript game
- D Williams looks fast out there, and can play WR pretty well
- Stafford has the tools and the head to be a star in this league. But, if Stanton had gotten some PT last year, and looked “pretty good”, like he did in this game, would we still have drafted Stafford?
- We need healthy WRs – that was your “area we could least afford an injury”, and it shows!