Hockey

Game #15 – Canucks vs. Hawks Preview: It’s Only Nostalgia Week For Us

By Sam Fels 1479 0

vs.

RECORDS: Canucks 9-3-3   Hawks 4-7-3

PUCK DROP: 7:30

TV: NBCSN Chicago

THEY FILMED DEADPOOL THERE: Canucks Army

We’ve had to do this the past couple years now. Whenever the Hawks meet up with the Kings or Canucks, we have to do something of a “Remember when these mattered?” comment. This used to be the the fiercest rivalry in the league. That stopped some seven years ago. With the Kings and Hawks, there just isn’t much more to discuss because both teams are lying face down in the muck. Sadly, that might not be the case for the Canucks anymore.

The Canucks find themselves one point out of the lead for the Pacific Division, behind the Oilers and one ahead of the Coyotes, just to let you know how backwards everything is and how many different teams seem to have better ideas than the Hawks right now.

Is it real? The numbers suggest it might be. The schedule does not. The Canucks have seven regulation wins, and they’re over the Sharks at home (some teams can do that, in fact a lot of them have), the Kings twice (some teams do that), the Red Wings twice, the Rangers, and over the Panthers at home. Only the last one is a team that’s probably good and playing well at the moment. But hey, you can only play whom the schedule says you do, and the Canucks have made hay against that.

And they haven’t just squeaked by, as their metrics are pretty glowing. They’re one of the best teams in the league in terms of Corsi and expected-goals, and they’re doing some explosive work in the offensive end. Most of that comes from the top line of WHO WANTS TO WALK WITH ELIAS?-JT Miller-Brock Boeser. They’ve combined for 52 points in 15 games, with Elias Pettersson on track for a 109-point season. That’ll play.

Coach Travis Green has taken the training wheels off this line, starting them in any zone against any opponent, and pretty much doing the same with his second line centered by Bo Horvat. This has freed him up to put his plugs in more advantageous spots, which is maybe why you’ve seen scoring spikes from the likes of Brandon Sutter and Tim Schaller. What a time to be alive…to cut yourself.

That doesn’t mean Lady Luck isn’t waving her ass a bit at the Canucks, too. Again, the soft schedule helps, and they’ve ground up the chuck they’ve been served (is that how that works? Let’s just go with it). But this is a team with a 102 PDO that’s getting a .918 from Jacob Markstrom and a .938 from Thatcher Demko. The latter has been the hope for the future for what feels like 17 years now, but he’s not a .938 goalie. The Nucks are also shooting at a team-rate of 9.4% at evens, and while Pettersson and Boeser are most certainly top-level scorers, the rest of this outfit most certainly is not.

That said, they’re a top-10 specials teams outfit on both sides, with an excellent penalty kill, and with the possession they’ve gotten at evens and what they’ve done with it, you can’t really ask for any more.

And they have hope on the blue line. Somehow, and this for sure won’t last, Tyler Myers has been a possession-driving monster, with a Corsi of 56.5% while just shading most of his zone starts in the defensive zone. Should you expect that to continue? Cue Russell Westbrook:

Still, nice to have for now. That has freed up Quinn Hughes, who is going to be a thing, to take easier assignments, and he’s dinging opponents upside the head to the tune of a 57 xG% while getting third-pairing minutes and 67% of his shifts in the offensive zone. Must be nice to be able to bed in a young, dynamic d-man like that so easily. We’re looking longingly at Vancouver, folks. Eat Arby’s, puke it up, and then eat that.

Right, the to Hawks. Corey Crawford will rotate back in to the starter’s net after Lehner once again did enough to keep the Hawks from getting utterly embarrassed. This is starting to be like the end of “Little Miss Sunshine,” where Paul Dano is trying to convince Toni Collette that she has to keep Abigail Breslin from getting embarrassed by the actual pageant girls. I think Lehner is Collette in this metaphor, but I’m not entirely sure as the Hawks have basically broken my brain.

Coach Kelvin Gemstone, in his infinite wisdom, has decided to scratch one of the Hawks’ best two-way and fastest forwards tonight in Dominik Kubalik to give us more Zack Smith. Because all the kids out here with their skateboards and backwards hats have been demanding more Zack Smith. The world needs more Zack Smith. Zack Smith is the key to salvation…

…

…

…I’ve just had a brain bubble.

Everything is fucked.

Anyway, the Canucks can do pretty much whatever they want here. They can try and out-skate the Hawks, which they can. They probably have the defensive structure to use the “advanced trap,” that the Sharks used to strangle the Hawks into paste, which is just a trap but ahead of the red line. Or anything in between. And the Hawks will probably still try and dump the puck in and get it back with their not-fast-enough and not-strong-enough forwards.

I’m going to go look for a strong tree branch. You folks enjoy the game.

 

 

Hockey

Game #15 – Canucks vs. Hawks Spotlight: Come On Without…Come On Within…

By Sam Fels 1364 0

Imagine a world where a team could bring up a very promising rookie, one that was worth a top-ten pick, and play him on the third pairing, shelter him as far as zone-starts and the competition he sees, and let him hang loose on the power play where his generational skill can really shine. Imagine getting 11 points out of him in his first fourteen games, as his mistakes don’t kill you because they come against third and fourth lines.

That world exists, people. It’s just in Vancouver and not in Chicago.

Whereas Adam Boqvist essentially was tossed into the deep end full of ornery badgers (and they tend to get that way when you toss them into a pool where they don’t belong) due to his organization’s incompetence, the Canucks have allowed Quinn Hughes to land softly in the NHL and already showcase what the Canucks think will be a franchise-turning skill-set on the blue line. Oh for a different way.

Hughes has started his NHL career skating with steady-as-a-rock vet Chris Tanev in a third-pairing role. Tanev is still capable of much more, but is also the perfect centerfielder for the freelancing Hughes. As the Canucks didn’t have too many aspirations when the season started (that could be changing), they can keep Tanev in a more reserved role to develop a future star. It also helps having Edler, Myers, Benn, and Stetcher who are, at worst, representative NHL d-men. Tanev and Hughes have started 63% of their shifts in the offensive zone, keeping Hughes where he is best and letting him learn the defensive side of the game at a slower pace.

And it’s actually Tanev who has been lost without Hughes, as he has sported a sub-40% Corsi in the 40 or so minutes on the season he’s played with someone else. So clearly, Hughes is special.

And he’s shown that on the power play, where he already has eight points and one of his two goals. The top unit is being QB’d by Hughes with Pettersson, Boeser, Miller, and Horvat as the four forwards, which can be a scary one for a long time. You can see where this thing would become self-aware like the Sharks one did a couple years ago, with talented players playing together on it for season upon season until they just knew where each other was.

If you want hope for Boqvist through Hughes, keep in mind they’re just about the same size. Hughes is listed at 5-10 and 170, which is generous to the hilt. And as the years roll on, the Canucks will expect him to displace Alex Edler on the top pairing. But they don’t need him to now, as things are going well and expectations within the organization–except for ownership which is kind of a problem–are tempered.

The future looks bright in Vancouver, if they can keep owner Aquilini out of hockey side of the business too much. Something they’ve failed to do for a while now. Acquilini has never given in on doing a full rebuild, trying to do half of one while also trying to compete for playoff spots, which has handcuffed the Canucks for half a decade now. It’s why they have some unconscionable contracts on their books to the likes of Eriksson, Sutter, Roussel, and now Myers while actually producing a promising young core of Pettersson, Boeser, and Hughes. It feels like it could keep them from going in any direction.

Still, within the next two seasons they could probably free themselves up from Tanev, Edler, Eriksson, Pearson, and Sutter’s revival might make him marketable as well. Then the Canucks would really have room to boost their future. A future in which Hughes looks like he’ll be driving.

Hockey

Game #15 – Canucks vs. Hawks: Hedley Lamarr’s Muggers, Buggerers, Bushwhackers

By Sam Fels 1261 0

Alex Edler – We’re really stretching here (not Troy Stetcher-ing…we’ll show ourselves out), but the Canucks just aren’t the grouping of fuckwits you used to know and…well, know. So we’ll go with Captain Elbows here, who never met a hit he couldn’t leap into like Quinn the Eskimo just got here. Edler has been getting away with this crap for years, and perhaps one day he’ll miss and turn into shards on the boards and we’ll finally be vindicated. Probably not, though.

Tyler Myers – At least the Canucks have kept up tradition in having a big, doofus defenseman on their roster whom they will massively overpay for years. Sure, Myers is playing well now. It started well in Buffalo and Winnipeg, too. Then he gets bored with his defensive responsibilities, convinces himself he’s the big blond dork version of Paul Coffey and goes cowboy-ing his way all over the ice while the opponents gleefully and perhaps disbelievingly gallop into the spaces he’s supposed to be in but is ignoring. You’ll see, garbage-throwers and shit-ass rioters. You’ll see.

Jordie Benn – If he ever shaves, he’ll be out of the league within seven minutes.

Hockey

Game #15 – Canucks vs. Hawks: Lineups & How They Were Built

By Sam Fels 1183 0

Canucks

Notes: Pettersson started nearly 70% of his shifts in the o-zone last year but that has dipped of late, despite what that number says. Still, they’ve been one of the most dominant lines in hockey…Horvat’s production has mostly been on the power play but expect him to do damage at evens before too long…Adam Gaudette is good enough for their second line but his main running buddy in college isn’t good enough to beat out Zack Smith or Andrew Shaw right now and is in Rockford. Life is grand…Sutter is having a revival season now that they’re no longer using him as some kind of Jordan Staal/checking type and just support scoring…

Notes: Yep, Kubalik is scratched for Zack Smith. Just let that marinate…we’ve got nothing else to say….

Everything Else Football

Matthew Stafford Has A Fat Face. Is Really Good At Football.

By Brian Schmitz 3900 0

I have an unpopular opinion to share: Matthew Stafford is a Hall of Fame Quarterback who is more skilled than Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Additionally, if Stafford played in the Patriots system his entire career, he would be the GOAT and it really wouldn’t even be that close.

Now that I have your attention, let’s look at some all-time career numbers that back up my above-noted proclamation:

  • Career Passing Yards Per Game = 2nd
  • Career Passing Yards = 18th
  • Career Passing TD’s = 19th
  • Career Passer Rating = 22nd
  • Career 4th Quarter Comebacks = 10th

What is most impressive about these numbers is that Stafford is doing it with a Lions organization that can’t draft or develop anybody and has a long and dubious track record of having the worst front office in all of football.

Finally, don’t come at me with the whole “Stat Mafford” idea that his stats are ballooned because they are always trailing, and thus, have to throw the ball. Brees, Brady, Manning x2, Marino, Favre, Rivers, Elway, Roethlisberger, Flacco, and A.Rod are just SOME of the names that have attempted more passes than Stafford.

What you are going to see Sunday at Soldier Field is a guy who may be having the best year in a Hall of Fame career. This season, league-wide, Stafford currents ranks:

  • Total Passing Yards = 4th
  • Passing Yards Per Game = 1st
  • Touchdowns = 2nd
  • Passer Rating = 5th

In an effort to better explain Stafford’s 2019 numbers, let’s look at how they compare to Bears QB Mitch Trubisky:

  • Total Passing Yards = Stafford 2,499/Trubisky 1,217
  • Passing Yards Per Game = Stafford 312/Trubisky 174
  • Touchdowns = Stafford 19/Trubisky 5
  • Passer Rating = Stafford 106/Trubisky 80

There is nothing like comparing an opposing QB to Mitch in an effort to better build your case for the former.

Thru 7 games this season, Stafford’s throw charts are as impressive as it gets. In recent weeks, you can clearly see that the preference for deep balls to the left hash and outside is his go zone; the last 8 out of 10 TD throws have gone to the left side and 12 of 19 TDs have been thrown to that side of the field.

This is as impressive as it is scary; especially for the Bears secondary, who is coming into the game playing as good as they have all season. They’ll have to continue this trend because Kenny Golladay is coming into town and he’s not fucking around. Golladay ranks in the top 10 in almost every receiving category and leads the league in TD catches with 7. Marvin Jones will line up opposite Golladay, and actually has more catches (42) and only 1 less TD. Veteran receiver Danny Amendola (31 catches) rounds out a very formidable receiving corps.

Stafford doesn’t rely very heavily on his backfield in either the running game or the passing game. Running Back Kerryon Johnson is averaging about 50 rushing yards and only about 2 passing targets out of the backfield per game. All told, the Lions average just fewer than 100 rushing yards on 26 attempts per game.

Defending Stafford is difficult due to his ability to stay in pocket. He is tough, and will take some hits in order to complete a pass. He will also be a little careless with the ball, both in holding onto it and taking chances on throwing into tight spaces.

In predicting what we will see from Stafford on Sunday, I feel he will be able to make a lot throws, but will also give 1 or 2 back to the Bears. Ultimately, Stafford’s vertical passing and play-action game will make the difference in a close game.

Bears 17, Lions 20

Baseball

We Can Plant A House, Or We Can Build A Tree – No, Screw You AJ, We’ll Take Zack Wheeler

By Sam Fels 1294 0

Earlier today, our comrade and Sox correspondent AJ wrote up why and how the Pale Hose should be interested in Zack Wheeler to boost the Sox rotation that needs it. But here’s the thing: no one cares about the White Sox, and really everyone’s energy should be put into putting the Cubs back among the elite of MLB (THE! ELITE! THE THE ELITE!). And I don’t mean just us here. I mean everyone in the world. Do you really want to live through another season of the Cardinals boasting about their geniusness when they were essentially a mediocre team that had everything fall into its lap? Of course you don’t. No one wants that. And the only person who minds the Twins winning the AL Central again is Fifth Feather, and he’s a miserable little man living in his hovel and laughing at all of you constantly. He doesn’t like you, never will, so why should you do anything for him? Exactly.

So let’s get Wheeler to the Northside instead.

Why A Spoon, Sire?: AJ laid it out, but basically Wheeler is the youngest available and realistic starting pitcher on the market. Stephen Strasburg is not walking through that door (and the Cubs might and probably should be gunshy about signing any pitcher out of a World Series team who has gone longer on innings than ever before, given how their Brandon Morrow and first year of Darvish experiences worked out). Gerrit Cole is not walking through that door. I’d love it if one of them did, but it’s not going to happen. Funny how Cubs and Sox fans are dealing with the same thing in that sense, no?

That doesn’t mean Wheeler is exactly young, as he’ll turn 30 in May of next season. But the rest of the Cubs rotation is old, as so will Kyle Hendricks and Lester, Q, and Darvish are over 30. Adbert Alzolay won’t be ready for the rotation this year, if ever, and the Cubs just have to get younger there.

While Wheeler doesn’t have the strikeout numbers of some, he’s been pretty solid in that category. And while the injuries are a worry, more encouragingly is that Wheeler’s stuff seems to be getting better the farther he’s gotten away from his TJ surgery. Look at his four-seam velocity:

Or the vertical drop on his curve:

Or the sweep of his slider:

So that’s all very encouraging. If you want to go by spin-rate, both his curve and slider have picked up spin-rate from 2018 to this past one. So while he did miss two and a half seasons thanks to injury, that’s also wear and tear he hasn’t piled up. So the fear of his stuff drying up in his early 30s isn’t as high as it might be, and he appears to be on the upswing you might have expected at ages 26-28, had he a clean bill of health.

Ein minuten bitte, vous einen kleinen problemo avec de religione (he was from everywhere): As AJ said, the injury worries are still there. But he made 29 starts in 2018 and 31 this year, and really just being around 30 is basically what you expect of any starters but the top echelon these days. With the presence of Chatwood and hopefully Azolay in the pen and both being stretched out enough to go multiple innings now, the Cubs can absorb a pitcher or two that don’t make the post 33-35 times per year. And Alec Mills and Colin Rea are lying around as well.

There’s another slight worry, and that’s his ERA-. That’s league-adjusted, and it didn’t love Wheeler last year, giving him only a 98 where 100 is average. It was much more kind to him in ’18 with an 87. The reason probably is that Wheeler gave up a lot more hits in 2019, 46 more in just 13 more innings. Some of that is pure luck, as Wheeler’s BABIP rose to .311 from .279. But the latter number is more the outlier as Wheeler has a career BABIP of .300 on the nose. Wheeler’s hard-contact rate against and his exti velocity both saw a tick up this year. But as we keep saying, whose didn’t? Among starting pitchers, Wheeler was in the top-10 in average exit-velocity against. And as I’ve pointed out, the stuff seems to be getting better.

Little Silver? Little Gold?: MLBTR has Wheeler getting $20M for five years from the Phillies, because the Arrieta signing has gone so well, Nick Pivetta turned into Grover, Aaron Nola really struggled in the season’s last month. You don’t think of Wheeler as a $20M pitcher, but given his last two years that’s probably what he is. If you go by the last two years cumulative, he’s got the same WAR as Patrick Corbin had. He’s the same age as Nathan Eovaldi was last year, with some of the same injury concerns, and Eovaldi got $17M a year to sit on a trainer’s table in Boston.

MLBTR lists half the league as possible suitors, because again, why wouldn’t you want a plus pitcher on your team. That’s only going to drive his price up. But still, he’s going to get a salary a class below Strasburg and Cole. And the Cubs will have some $30M coming off the books when Lester’s and Quintana’s deals are up. Because of the bargain they’ll still be getting Hendricks at, they can splurge a bit in another spot.

And the Cubs could use another pitcher with really good stuff. That’s the kind of thing that matters in October, and this is still a team that should keep in mind how to negotiate 11 bonus wins after the 162.

Fetch. And AJ smells anyway. You don’t want to play in front of him, Zack.

 

Baseball

Burden In My Hand – White Sox Offseason Wishlist: Zack Wheeler

By Andy Jonathan 1479 0

The White Sox need another starter, perhaps even two. The immanent return of Michael Kopech should satisfy one of those needs, but successfully returning from Tommy John surgery is no sure thing. In addition to that, you can almost guarantee that his innings are going to have a cap on them, as the most he’s ever thrown in a season is the 140 he tossed before his elbow went “TWANG” in 2018.

So Kopech fills in for Ivan Nova, but that still leaves the Black Hole of Sadness that is the Sox 5th starter. Carlos Rodon won’t be back until August at the earliest, and he faces the same questions Kopech does. Reynaldo Lopez hasn’t cemented his spot in the rotation of The Future™ as of yet, either. Besides, you can never have too much starting pitching (or so I’m told).

So that brings us to the next person on the White Sox offseason shopping list. He’s a front line starter who comes with some risk attached but (other than Gerrit Cole) is the youngest available free agent starter on the market. I of course speak of Zack Wheeler.

Why Him?: First off like I said above, he’s the youngest starting pitcher available on the market this winter that the Sox would realistically (as much as I want Cole or Strasburg) pursue. He has that first round draft pick pedigree that Rick Hahn loves so much (though to be fair that’s a hangup of most GMs) and would immediately make the Sox starting rotation a thing to be feared.

He’s had an ERA of under 4.00 every year but 2017 (when he missed an extended period of time due to various maladies), has a 22.8% K rate, an 8.5% BB rate and has been a 4+ WAR player the last two seasons.

His fastball sits in the upper 90s with movement, and he has a nasty slider that he throws in the low 90s for his strikeout pitch. He also has a plus curveball and an average changeup that he doesn’t throw a whole lot in the zone. He also has a 44% ground ball ratio compared to a 32.5% fly ball that would play well at The Down Arrow.

Him lining up with Giolito, Kopech, Cease and Lopez gives you four starters that will rack up strikeouts at a hilarious pace, and would hopefully take some of the onus off the bullpen to have to eat up so many innings. Plus with him just entering his age 30 season, the threat of a downturn in velocity seems pretty low.

Why Not Him?: First and foremost, injuries. Wheeler has had issues staying healthy, as he’s never broken 200 innings in his career. In 2015 he had Tommy John surgery to repair a torn UCL which cost him all of the 2016 season. In 2017 he got tendinitis in his bicep which cost him some time on the IL, then after than he had a stress reaction in his right arm (a stress reaction is basically a broken bone that hasn’t totally broken. I had to google it.) which resulted in him being shut down in August. He also missed time this past season with a shoulder impingement.

In addition to the injury risk, he’s another righty which with Carlos Rodon out would make the current starting rotation entirely right handed. In and of itself this is not a terrible thing, as if the stuff is good then the results will be good. Still it’s not the worst thing in the world to be able to vary the handedness of your starters from time to time. Especially when the Indians and their bevy of left handed mashers is in your division.

He was also issued a qualifying offer from the Mets this last week, so any attempt to sign him after he turns it down results in the Sox sending a 2nd round draft pick to NY. Thus far, Rick Hahn has been loath to part with ANY of his draft picks…but the time for the Sox hoarding them is well past.

How Much Is This Free Resort Weekend?: FanGraphs has Wheeler looking at a four-year deal with about an $18 million AAV running at a grand total of just under $80 million total. This contract would blow past the $68 million the Sox gave Jose Abreu as the highest ever issued by the team (pathetic). Being that the Sox are most likely going to have to overpay due to the fact that the South Side isn’t currently the mecca for free agents the Northside is, I would think four years and $85 million might be enough to get Wheeler in a Sox jersey.

If the free agent market is slow enough, his injury history could potentially suppress that number even further. Either way, the $85 million would probably be the cap that Rick Hahn would set for himself, especially with all the other needs (DH, RF, 2B potentially) to be filled out in addition to starting pitching. I’m a big fan of Wheeler, and I think he’d fit in nicely here. It’s a bit of a stretch, as I see the Yankees becoming a problem if they miss out on Gerrit Cole and I don’t see Hahn outbidding them, like, ever. If the dominoes fall the right way however, Wheeler could be another pillar of an awesome pitching staff.

 

 

 

Football

The Vault: Bears vs Lions, 2011

By Tony Martin 1741 0

Welcome back to THE VAULT, my weekly “REMEMBER THIS IRRELEVANT BEAR” article where I threaten Fels that I’ll go be a scab for Deadspin if he doesn’t let me write 750 words about Johnny Knox. For what it’s worth, he didn’t get mad when I wrote an entire article about weed so I think I’m earning the coveted “Respected Journalist” title. I’ll be angling for a press pass so I can get into Halas Hall and score some free lunch and yell stats at the players I love. I got to go to Halas Hall in early 2018 and lemme tell you, I INSTANTLY found a pic of Corey Wooton sacking Brett Favre on what would be the last play of his pro career and was high on fumes for days after.

Today we’re going to hop back into the time machine and look at the second Bears/Lions matchup of 2011. I was fortunate enough to be at this game, a Bears win (37-17). I was at this game and in a weird place emotionally, since this ticket was originally promised to a friend who beat brain cancer, only to have that cancer reemerge months later and take his life. On top of that, Bears tickets had run in my family since the early early Soldier Field days, but they were sold in 2009, so this was my first Bears game since then and also my first Bears game with friends instead of my father. My dad was in recovery for alcoholism growing up (proud of you, pops) so I never drank at a Bears game, so even though I was 25 this was my first experience with two things central to the Bears gameday experience:

1. The $9, 8oz beers at Soldier Field
2. Tailgating next to racists

For real, I was drinking in the parking lot with some friends and there were Lions fans next to us, and at one point the guy leaned in close to ask me a question, the type of gesture that coming from a stranger usually means they’re about to say something racist or ignorant. He leaned in, smelling of Busch Light and Faygo (probably) and asked me where all the black people were. He was confused when I gestured broadly at the city of Chicago surrounding us, and he specified that he was talking about people who go to tailgates and collect cans for the return deposit. I hit him with a Big Lebowski line: “obviously you’re not a golfer” and that was the end of our conversation. He walked away and I finally saw the name plate on his apparently custom Lions #40 jersey, and it read simply “Kid Rock” and everything made sense. Say what you will about Juggalos, but when it comes to hanging in parking lots with people from Michigan I’d take a bunch of face-painted clowns who will talk to me about pro wrestling over the average Kid Rock fan any day of the damn week. Shit they might even put me through a table. Woop woop.

The Bears came into this game at 5-3, looking at a potentially deep playoff run on the heels of their NFC Championship loss to the Packers the January prior. After this victory, the Bears were on a roll that would eventually be snuffed out by Jay Cutler’s thumb injury the next week and the team then dropping their next five games. Yet on this Sunday afternoon, the orange-uniformed Bears looked like a team primed for another postseason run. This team dominated the Lions in all phases of the game, scoring on offense, defense (twice!), and special teams. Matt Forte scored on the ground, Devin Hester took a punt back 82 yards, and both Major Wright and Charles Tillman took 3rd quarter interceptions to the house. Brian Urlacher almost took a first quarter Calvin Johnson fumble back for six as well, but since 2011 Brian Urlacher didn’t have the requisite amount of hair to break away in the open field, he was caught from behind.

Hester took a punt 82 yards for a score, his last punt return touchdown in Soldier Field. Earl Bennett led the Bears with 6 catches and 81 yards, and future felon and NIU alum Sam Hurd even made the stat sheet. This one was a blowout, folks. The score was 37-6 when Tim Jennings picked Stafford off for the 4th time in the game, and the frustrated frat boy grabbed a blocking DJ Moore by the shoulder pads and whipped him down, leading to a minor brawl after Moore returned the favor by getting up and absolutely trucking a kneeling Stafford.

NFL fights are almost always the most disappointing brawls in all the major sports, save the Andre Johnson/Cortland Finnegan one from 2011, which is without a doubt the Ali/Frazier of NFL fights. If that was Ali/Frazier, the DJ Moore/Matthew Stafford dust up of 2011 was like watching a World Star video. If my memory serves me right (which it may not because the tailgating and beer vendors most certainly over served me right), that got the crowd HEAVY into the “Detroit Sucks!” chants.

The Kid Rock fans were already gone when we got back to the parking lot.