00:00Three o'clock. Good to have you guys with us. Let's turn our attention. First time this
00:05week we've done it'll be the only time lion schedule because it's happening again. And
00:10all I can try to do is just, just warn you. That's all. Um, morning show was, was on their
00:19bull jive again. John Jansen, 13 wins. This schedule's easy cookies, just pounding the
00:27easiest schedule thing into the dirt. All I'm going to ask is, are you really doing
00:32this again? This is, this is what we're doing. Let me hearken back to last year. Remember
00:38how, oh man, we just got to survive the first six weeks and then it's easy street. Oops.
00:45You dominated the first five weeks and then you got hit by a garbage truck for the next
00:4910. Remember those easy games against the Vikings? Yeah. You lost to them twice. Remember
00:56that easy game against giants? Oh yeah. You needed a miracle just to get to overtime.
01:00You damn near lost. Remember that easy game against the, the, the, the flaccid penis that
01:06is the Pittsburgh Steelers. Oh, oh wait, you got walk like a dog in that game. So my question
01:12is, are we really doing this again? Or do you want to take a more enlightened approach? We
01:18just got done with wins and losses, right? The over unders the NFL's business model is parody
01:25volatility. Volatility. What that really means is no one really knows who's going to be good
01:32and who's going to be bad. And sometimes a presumed good team ends up terrible and terrible teams
01:40end up good. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's just when you play them, the idea that anyone
01:49on this station is just going to go on the air in may, see a schedule on a piece of
01:54paper and predict
01:5513 wins because by some stupid metric of last year's win percentages, even though last year,
02:03every team turns over at least a third of its roster, if not half, I think it's full last behavior.
02:12I will not say the lines have an easy schedule. I do not care. If you want to, you want
02:18to do your
02:19thing with your gherkin, it's your business. It's ridiculous. Seriously, you're Lucy with the football.
02:25You do this every damn year in this city. Don't do this. Oh, but we got the Titans and, and,
02:32and they're
02:32what? What if Cam Ward does what Caleb Williams did last year? And all of a sudden he's good.
02:42I just recall. Look, I'll say this. I'm not blind to the fact that like the odds of the Arizona
02:48Cardinals being good or low, but the last place scheduled, you know what? It really gets you
02:52three games. Correct. Three games. Correct. You still play in one of the toughest divisions in
02:57football and you still play a lot of teams that presumably will be good. And I guess the good news
03:04is you play those three games early in the year. You get the saints, you get the Cardinals,
03:08and you get the jets. Sure. So you could fatten up and say, see, I told you we were going
03:13to be so much better. Or you could come out week one, like heavy favorites do every year
03:17and get dusted. You want me to start charting those? I can go back in the notes. The point
03:22I want to ask you guys is, are you one of these people that when you look at the schedule,
03:27you're already doing this win and loss thing? Or are you learning and going, whatever, man.
03:34Schedule is the schedule and the week of the game, when I know the injuries or when I know what
03:39I'm
03:39up against, I'll deal with it. Then this idea that the lions got a quote, easy schedule, and we're
03:46going to start doing this double digit disco crap. I think it's a fool's Aaron. Yeah. Now in all
03:52fairness to the cookies, he had them at 11 wins and he almost got raked over to coals because it
03:57was
03:57like just 11. He was like, guys, it's still over the Vegas over under, but he was frowned upon for
04:04saying 11. I, in a group text, Mike would a bunch of my college friends and boys, like one of
04:10my
04:11roommates from college, not Doug was like immediately up 13 and four. Okay. But that's okay. Again,
04:20there's that's hopium. When you look at the, I want to say this again to people. When you look at
04:25the
04:25national football league and you look at the wind total spreads, the dregs of the league are at four
04:30and a half and the elite are at 10 and a half every week in this league. Almost three forts
04:37of games
04:38are decided by one score or less. This is not the ACC on the CW. I consider myself a man
04:47of faith.
04:47This isn't wake forest versus UNC and a 28 point spread. Oh, we're going to murder the saints.
04:54Cool. You're a seven point favorite. Like strength of schedule is dumb, but I understand what it is.
05:02It's a sales pitch. Now, whether you want to fall for it or not is on you. I don't even
05:08consider
05:09the lion schedule. I don't care. I don't, it's a bunch of logos and only once you start watching,
05:16look at last season, think about the teams that were presumed to be good. Think about the teams that
05:21were presumed to be terrible. And then think about the week to week minefield. That is the NFL.
05:28Oh man, this could be such a scary game in Baltimore week four. Cool. You just kick their
05:33ass and half their players are dead. So I'd love to hear from you guys. Look, I wouldn't do this
05:41the
05:41other way either. Oh my God. The lions have the most difficult schedule in football. It, that,
05:45that doesn't it's ether. It's not real. And to add to that, you don't know who's going to get injured
05:51because back at the beginning of the year, when you saw that revenge game against the commanders,
05:57well, then their team fell apart and you walked into Washington and got an easy victory. But in
06:02between that, that was sandwiched by the loss to Minnesota and the loss to Philly where you
06:07didn't score a touchdown. So there's that.
06:10Two, four, eight, five, three, nine, 97, 97. Let's have one conversation. Cause then I'm not
06:15doing this again. There's a reason we didn't do this all week. Oh my God. They just leaked our
06:19game against Buffalo. I don't care. None of it means anything, but if you want to do the win loss
06:26thing, go ahead, but do not use strength of schedule between the hours of 2 PM and 6 PM. Don't
06:32do it.
06:33It's just proof. You're dumb. Don't do it. You're smarter than that. You're good people.
06:38Don't be dumb. Strength of schedule based on what? Rosters that don't exist anymore.
06:45Players that aren't playing anymore. Coaching staffs that don't coach anymore. It's idiocy,
06:53especially where the CBA of the NFL, no league has done a better job squeezing the margins than the
07:02NFL. That's their business plan. Everyone has hope it's different. Okay. In football,
07:08we say Miami has no hope. We say Arizona has no hope. There really aren't many teams beyond that
07:13with no hope. If I go down to Cleveland and I'm on 92, three, the fan, they could say, you
07:19know what?
07:20Since he's trash, Lamar's over to Hill and the Steelers are goofballs. Why can't we go nine and
07:26eight? And we got a defense. You can't do that in basketball. You can't. Well, you can a little bit
07:31in hockey, just not in Detroit. And you can't do it in baseball. In baseball, two thirds of the team
07:36start the year with absolutely no hope. Football, everyone has hope. So why the hell would I go on
07:41the air and tell my listeners, this is easy street. We're going to win 13 games. That's crack.
07:47Mike, I'm with you, but a lot of people see that and they're just like, oh my goodness. And you
07:51start
07:51thinking about last year, but as you said, we'd like to harken back. Oh, if we could just make it
07:56two and four in that first six games, then we're going to turn it on. Well, you started off and
08:02you
08:02were four and two. And then you got to the end of the year. Well, Dan Campbell doesn't lose two
08:07games in a row. You're right. He loses three in a row. So I look at this and I'm with
08:13you. It's
08:14it's going to be interesting. Yes. You got three extra games. All those games are up front, but
08:20you also didn't think you were going to get swept by Minnesota. You also didn't think you were going
08:25to lose to Aaron Rodgers here at Ford Field. No one saw that coming. The Rams, I think you're like,
08:31okay, you can lose to the Rams. Right. And here's the key. Don't just use your own experiences.
08:37Look around the league. Why do you love the NFL? Shocking results. Why do you, why is there
08:44something called the witching hour where wins become losses? And I put a bullet in my TV
08:49because I can't stand Scott Hanson. The point is because the league is volatile and what you
08:56expect to happen doesn't happen. That's why I do not get hyped for the schedule beyond. Hey,
09:04here's who we're playing. Here's when we're playing them. Now, if you want me to talk about
09:08the lions getting boned with a bi-week, that's entirely too early for them. I can talk about
09:14that. If you want to talk about scheduling quirks, like, Hey, back to back road games, or we're
09:20going to Europe into game X. Totally cool. I'll do that. What I'm not going to do is what I
09:29would
09:29just consider Play-Doh radio schedule. Easy win lots to four, eight. I I'm sorry. You can just call
09:36somebody else. I can't do it. It's like people crying about officiating at the end of game five
09:40for the Pistons. Just call someone else. I'm not going to do that. I'll do lots of other things.
09:47So look, my big thing, my biggest takeaway from the schedule. And if you look, if you want to know
09:52who you're playing and when you're playing them here, I'll go through it one time. You open up
09:55at home against new Orleans. Then it's a quick turn Thursday night at Buffalo. Do I like that? No,
10:00absolutely not. I don't like short turnarounds. I don't think it's fair to the players.
10:04What can I do home against the jets at Carolina at Arizona, the bi-week we spoke of the bi
10:11-week's
10:11entirely too early. Then you go a little bit of a divisional run here home against
10:15Green Bay, home against Minnesota at Miami, home, New England, home, Tampa Bay, New England's
10:22Germany, Germany. You're right. And I'm sorry. And I hate NFL Europe. Thank you for that. You
10:28saved me. Oh, that's what the asterisk means. Guten tag. Then you're home against Tampa, home
10:33against the bears at Atlanta, home, Tennessee at Minnesota home against the G men on a Monday
10:40night. That's a loss at Chicago at Green Bay here. You want me to give you one more?
10:45Short thing. I'll give you one other thing. I don't like. I don't like three of my last
10:49four games at a year being on the road. And I don't like three of my last four being three
10:54road divisional games. So there's your two big takeaways. The bi-week sucks. And I don't like
10:59the last month of the schedule as far as travel. And it's all in division. Other than that,
11:04roll a ball on the field. No, for me, it's the going to Germany, coming back to play Tampa,
11:09and then you get the bears three games, I believe in 11, like 10 days, 11 days. And the real
11:16kicking
11:17into the balls for you is that new England, they actually do get a bi-week after they play in
11:23Germany. But see, now you're parsing out things we can talk about that. This is, I'm more than
11:28willing. You know what I'm not going to do. Hey, give us your season prediction. It's May 15th.
11:34I'd rather hear your predictions for the Preakness tomorrow. And nobody knows who's winning that race.
11:39But yeah, last month of the season, a little bit of a weirdness in the middle. And then again,
11:44I don't like bi-weeks too early. I am a proponent of giving players two bi-weeks. If we're going
11:50to
11:50go to 18 games, they got to have two bi-weeks. It's not fair to the players to play your
11:54first five
11:55games of the year. And then you're basically, you're on a death march. Yeah. 12 straight football
12:00games. 248-539-9797. We can get to your phone calls. What do you take out of it? If you
12:08want
12:08to parse through some stuff, happy to do it. But I'm not doing that, that Fred Flintstone radio.
12:13Schedule bad. Team good. 248-539-9797. We'll get with the people coming up next.
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