00:00We'll keep the phone lines open and make room for TJ Lang in the studio.
00:04Good morning, 97.1. Thanks for getting up with us.
00:07Was that a fat joke?
00:08No, you're looking slim and trim, buddy.
00:12No, trust me. He takes shots at me all the time.
00:16Inadvertent shots.
00:17See if we can fit him through the doorway.
00:20TJ Lang!
00:22Good morning.
00:22Good morning, buddy.
00:24Good weekend, huh?
00:26Yes.
00:26Well, I mean, Eastern got smoked by state, but it's a good weekend other than that.
00:32All right.
00:33Did you expect something else?
00:35You know what? Let me ask you this question, because we discussed it a little bit last week.
00:39Your thoughts on the cinder block wall?
00:42Not a fan.
00:43Okay, good.
00:44I mean, did you expect me to say anything else?
00:46No.
00:47Eastern alum, friends in the program.
00:50Well, it's like me with the yellow uniforms. Not a fan.
00:52Well, I'll go on record. I think it's just corny.
00:54Yeah.
00:56Yeah, the yellow uniforms actually are corny.
00:58So I think we're both sitting in the same seat.
01:00You've got, you know, 12-year-olds doing it in some way to pump them. I don't know.
01:05And even the kid I was there, not this, I wasn't at Michigan State, but the week before.
01:09I don't know if you guys saw the video.
01:11The sledgehammer slipped out of one of the guy's hands and hit the guy next to him in the thigh.
01:15Oh, did it really?
01:16Oh, yeah. I'll show you the replay or the clip of it.
01:20But it's just like, okay.
01:22He's got thigh pads on.
01:23Yeah, he's got a kid, dude.
01:24He was fine.
01:25That was a good weekend, though.
01:26I missed not being on the call yesterday.
01:28My first time in six seasons.
01:30Yeah.
01:31But had a great time with the kids.
01:33Spent a lot of time at the hockey rink.
01:35John, I know you're a dad.
01:36Your kids earn a lot of sports.
01:38How was the ice time?
01:39About 5 in the morning or 10 o'clock at night?
01:41It was actually, I think I would prefer like a 9 a.m. on Sunday.
01:46It was actually at 1.30.
01:48So I'm watching the Lions game on like somebody's phone.
01:51Yeah.
01:52I was trying to do the scoreboard and play the music for the game.
01:57You know, with hockey games, you're supposed to stop the music as soon as the puck's dropped.
02:02There was one time, like 20 seconds.
02:03It just kept playing.
02:04Just Metallica blaring while the kids were playing.
02:06Because I'm trying to watch the Lions game and I lost track of what was going on.
02:12But no, it was a good weekend, though.
02:15It was a good weekend.
02:15I'm going to miss not being on the call.
02:17I know a lot of people have been asking me about that.
02:18And it was, you know, I just, like John, we have older kids now.
02:24And it's, you know, you miss a lot of things, you know, being gone on the weekends.
02:28And it was a personal decision.
02:30And, you know, I want to be around the kids.
02:32And my son and Jack, I think, are the same age, right?
02:35Both sophomores.
02:36And, hey, we've got a couple years left with them.
02:37And I want to be around for those last couple years.
02:40So I'm going to miss being on the call.
02:42But Dan and Lomas, man, they've got it covered.
02:44They've been doing it for a long time.
02:45You can still hear TJ on Sundays with this new Inside the North show, right?
02:50Correct.
02:51Yeah.
02:51So the first episode, it was our pilot episode.
02:56We were working through some things.
02:57I mean, it's just different when there's five people, right?
03:00Yeah.
03:01But I like the thought of it a lot.
03:03We have, you know, myself, I'll be talking about the Lions, Mason Crosby and Green Bay
03:07talking about the Packers, Chad Greenway, who was a great linebacker in Minnesota for a
03:11lot of years, breaking down Minnesota.
03:13And then Coach Dave Wanstead, who does a lot of media in Chicago.
03:17Yeah, for the Bears.
03:18Yeah.
03:18And I think it's 8 a.m. on Sundays, or they put it out on all sort of podcasts, YouTube,
03:25whatever it is, Inside the North.
03:26And we're going to have a lot more to talk about as the season goes on, because now we
03:31actually have games.
03:31We're not guessing what it's going to look like.
03:33So we had a good time with it last week.
03:35And, you know, it's something that we're going to be doing every single week, just breaking
03:39down what's going on in the division.
03:41I think it's a really unique, cool idea.
03:43Wins are hard to come by.
03:45I'd love to get your analysis or your initial reaction to what you saw yesterday for the
03:50Lions.
03:50Well, I was listening to you guys discouraged or encouraged.
03:56I think, honestly, I think it was right about what I expected.
04:00And I wouldn't say I expected to blow a lead, but I think I expected to see some hiccups
04:07and I expected to see some position groups that are going to be a work in progress when
04:12you talk about the secondary.
04:13And I think if we're sitting here on the flip side, like if that was a game like last
04:18year with the Giants, where you go down early, man, and you have to make a tremendous
04:22comeback against an inferior opponent, you're probably, I think you can make a case to say,
04:27okay, not a great start, got the win, but ooh, that was ugly.
04:30The flip side, I mean, they got off to the big lead and then the Saints kind of made some
04:34adjustments, especially on their offense where Tyler Shuck went from like literally one of
04:39the worst quarterbacks I've ever seen in the first half to all of a sudden this guy can't
04:44miss.
04:44But I think there's a lot of things that are still work in progress.
04:47You talk about the offensive line, the run game kind of faltered in the second half a
04:52little bit.
04:52You couldn't sustain the ball and then you talk about the secondary, you know, there's
04:57plays where, man, he's throwing to Chris Alave and like, why are you leaving him wide
05:00open?
05:01Or you had, you had chance, there were other points too where you had really good learning
05:06moments on how to close a game out.
05:08And if I was Ben Barch on that holding call on first and goal, I would have looked at the
05:13referee and said, I intended to not hold.
05:16So, because you guys are talking about the fumble.
05:19Well, he intended to throw it forward.
05:22I intended to not hold him.
05:24So, can you guys, can you overturn that?
05:25I intended not to get beat so bad.
05:27But a great opportunity there to close the game out.
05:30And then, you know, even I think on the Saints last drive before overtime, you had a fourth
05:34down.
05:35Kelvin Shepard dialed up blitzes all day long with, you know, from the corners, position,
05:40safeties, slot, you know, nickel.
05:43He was confusing them.
05:45And I think it was Roger McCreary who had a wide open shot on a fourth down to go close
05:50that game out and just hit Tyler Shuck and rattle him.
05:54And he whiffed.
05:55Shuck got out of the pocket, kept the drive going.
05:57You know, they end up tying the game.
05:58But there's a lot of learning moments there for a pretty new team, I would say.
06:06When you look at the new secondary, you look at the new offensive line.
06:10Like, there's going to be moments in there where you could really feel good about the
06:14way you played.
06:15But when it comes to the grind time, when it comes to that chance to step on the throat
06:20and ice it, right?
06:21Like, they're going to have some good film to watch to learn how to make those plays.
06:27But overall, I mean, it's week one.
06:29Like, there's always weird things that happen.
06:32And you go back to the preseason talk.
06:34Hey, should we play in preseason?
06:35Should we not?
06:37I'm kind of a believer that it's always good to get maybe at least a couple series in just
06:41so you can start to build that trust and chemistry a little bit.
06:44But, you know, you don't apologize for it.
06:47And first time in forever, I think the Lions got a call where everybody was like, what?
06:52Yeah.
06:54This one's going in the Lions' way?
06:56Dan Campbell even said that.
06:57He was like, we finally got one.
07:01We finally got one.
07:02I don't know why.
07:03I don't know if I agree with it, but we got one.
07:06And it is what it is.
07:07Can you maybe educate us?
07:08Because we played Pereira.
07:10You heard Pereira.
07:11I can't.
07:11My whole life, it's mattered whether your arm's moving forward.
07:14And he's like, no, no, now that the ball's cocked back, you're good, dude.
07:19Because that's never been how that's called.
07:21I have no explanation.
07:22And I think that all of us and everybody listening, if that was Aiden Hutchinson hitting Tyler Shuck.
07:29It's not going our way.
07:30The score, and they bring that back, I think we are all, all, can spill.
07:35Oh, my, they're against us.
07:36What are you talking about?
07:37The ball went backwards.
07:38Right.
07:39I have no idea.
07:40From what I've read a little bit last night and this morning, I mean, people were saying that they got
07:45the call right based off the rules.
07:50Not the spirit of the rule?
07:51We're going to go down that road again?
07:54Well, it's like, not to go back to Michigan, Western Michigan, but it's like, you have this clock that 10
08:03million people are watching, but you're going to use the one that two of you are watching in a studio
08:08like 300 miles away?
08:10That's the official one that you want to use.
08:12I just go back to all the times that this was called before, and it doesn't match up with, like,
08:18was this an adjustment that they made and it wasn't necessarily talked about?
08:23It was just a rule adjustment that is to benefit the quarterback?
08:27No, if I think I'm understanding it, this is the way the rule has been for some time, but I've
08:31never seen it officiated that way, and I think they're claiming the ball only went backwards because he was impacted.
08:38Well, yes, that's how that works.
08:40The ball went backwards.
08:41Right.
08:42Not even close.
08:43Yeah.
08:43So, I don't know.
08:44It's a weird rule.
08:45Bizarre.
08:46It's bizarre.
08:46I'm glad that the Lions were finally on the right side of a call like that.
08:51You don't apologize for it.
08:52You take it.
08:52Oh, and that's the thing.
08:53As we've talked about, it's a victory Monday.
08:55You win.
08:56That doesn't need to get lost in us diving into the good and the bad.
08:59There was plenty good.
09:00Like, we highlight three turnovers forced, five sacks.
09:03I think time to pressure, for the guys that haven't seen this yet, much faster than they were a year
09:08ago, shaving off almost a half second, I think, getting to the quarterback.
09:11Kevin Shepard was blitzing his ass off.
09:14He was, and I felt like McCreary, who had the fumble that he forced on the blitz, they were getting
09:19results out of it, but then it felt like as the game went on, TJ, I don't understand how when
09:23it becomes obvious pass,
09:25it somehow got harder for them to get stops.
09:27You would think it'd be easy.
09:28You pin your ears back, drop extra in coverage, you got them right where you want them, right?
09:31Well, that's the cat and mouse game that the coordinators have to play.
09:34We've been blitzing them.
09:35We've been loading up the box.
09:37We're firing five, six guys.
09:39We're dropping deep tackles.
09:40We're doing all this.
09:41I think that if you're Kelvin Shepard, you look at that and say, okay, there's got to be a point
09:45of the game where we adjust and we make the offense start to guess a little bit.
09:49I think he had his game plan, and I liked his game plan a lot.
09:52I really did.
09:53I love the fact that he was trying to get the ball out quick from Tyler Shuck and not try
09:58to sit there in four or five seconds with a new secondary.
10:03Exposed, yeah.
10:04But you get to a point of the game where when the offense knows what you're going to do and
10:09what your tendencies are, it's just a good time to mix it up a little bit.
10:13Now that defense was also, I think they played 90 plays yesterday.
10:17I mean, they were on the field a lot, especially in the second half.
10:20And I know when you get to overtime, obviously there's going to be more, but 90 plays is a lot.
10:25You know how you can reduce the number of snaps you play on defense?
10:26Well, that's why the offense has just got to keep, you know, when you get up 21-0 and convert
10:30third downs.
10:31It's twofold.
10:31The offense can help you out, right?
10:33There were too many stalled drives.
10:35In the second half, yeah.
10:36You can get off the field if you, on third and fourth down, bat the ball down, tackle a player
10:42short of the sticks.
10:43Like, the defense is responsible for limiting the number of snaps they play.
10:46They gave up almost 50% on third down.
10:48Like, we can say offense can help them out, but the fastest way to get your defense off the field
10:53is get stops themselves.
10:55Sure, yeah.
10:55And I think offense, you also know, hey, Saints just went on back-to-back long touchdown drives.
11:01Let's put some first downs together.
11:03We got to go burn some time off.
11:05We got to give these guys a rest, man.
11:07They've been on the field a lot, and it'll be a good lesson, man.
11:11They're going to address it.
11:12I don't think anybody's walking in that locker room today watching the film feeling like, you know, they're Super Bowl
11:16favorites and, hey, man, like, we just showed the world who we are.
11:19I think these guys are realistic, you know, and even Jared Goff kind of mentioned it, and they got a
11:24quick week, though.
11:25So you don't really have time to break down games when you go right into a Thursday game.
11:31It's pretty much, hey, we'll make, like, a couple corrections here or there, but we got to get on to
11:34the next opponent.
11:35So, but I think Dan Campbell and the coaching staff that they have, they're going to make sure that they
11:40correct the issues, the biggest issues that they saw from yesterday, and then, boom, it's right on to Buffalo.
11:46Hey, we'll get your thoughts on Gibbs' workload and a little more on how the Lions played.
11:50Take some phone calls, 248-539-9797.
11:53TJ Lang in for our final hour on a Monday.
11:56It's 97.1.
11:57It's 97.1.
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