The All Gritt Podcast
Episode 1. Season Opener!
(soft music) All right, we'd like to welcome everyone into the first episode of the All Grit Podcast. I am your host, Caleb Annual. Here we go, boys. It's that time, it's week one. We're gonna break it all down. And I brought with me two of, I would say probably the best lion-knowers outside of myself that I could find in the Grand Rapids, greater Grand Rapids area. With us, just down the street, my good friend, Adrian Labra. Welcome to the show, Adrian. - Thanks, babe, thanks for putting it together. - Apps. - Well, that's really yesterday, man. - What are your thoughts? - I just, it was quite the roller coaster. I think any just casual viewer, I just didn't even like the lines, it probably got rooted for them last night. - Yep. - It was, it was a classic, like, isn't it classic? And after that playoff game, and then just this game again, it just feels like there's a real rival, you think it's great to raise the lines, though? - Yeah, I feel like that's developing, of course, with the Matthew Stafford, and Jared Goff, and all that fun stuff. But we will get back into the crowd noise and everything a little bit later, but we're gonna bring in the last person on this podcast, the one and only from, where are you from, Clay? Midland? - Grand, Wayne. - Grand, Wayne. Blah, blah, blah, blah. - I'm East Coast now. - Can we get that air horn, can one of you guys get that air horn for the pop? Blah, blah, blah. We need that. All right, Clay, what are your thoughts on yesterday's game? - I was really impressed with just the defensive stops in the first, in the first half. Like, any of you guys need a game? Just four, so then they go four on four down, Detroit's been in that position several times, as we all know. Turn over, down, turn over, on, down, so I'm pulling the field balls, and of course, a huge, huge, huge intersection I have. So that just, (buzzer buzzes) - That's such a weird, more important play, more important play. Just ahead and half time, but I'll get a half time a little bit later, I'll just go ahead and-- - That's right. We gotta slow it down a little bit. We gotta get into the, well, I don't, what do you guys think? I think it was a slow start. I mean, both teams, it seemed like it was just kind of going back and forth, back and forth. That's what I wrote in my notes. It was just super slow on both sides. - But I think that's the role it was weak one, and a lot of these furs, these guys, they have a plate since January. - Yeah. - Some new free agents from December, so that was a whole half, more than a half a year. What I really saw was the offensive line, those big guys in the front, they're with this communication, they're kind of carrying a simple, up a little walk, simple team interviews with some of those guys, they recognize it, like, Light were in, and in great blocks building yards, sometimes they were getting their blocks on time on the task protection, they were a little off, then that came with the sacks, if you saw the replay, that's where those sacks came from. - Yeah, like both hacks on golf. - Is this miss to vacation, like, who had pool? So, I think these guys can just clean that up. Like, that's just the major thing. I think it's kind of good to use, like, this is the base line, this is the worst that that whole line will play. As long as I'm a little bit healthy, this is the worst we'll see them landing. They were awesome. At the end of the day, like, those communication was bad in the beginning, but then by the end, all the both were time, they were-- - Yeah, they were armed up. - Maple lovers, man. - So, on the opposite end of the ball, you got the Rams' O-line. So, I came into this game saying, "All right, well, Hutch is gonna have three sacks by himself, "damn, port might get one, or..." But really, and we'll gonna break this down a little bit later, but for them being out three offensive tackles, I mean, they were bringing in the waterboy thereafter a while. What do you guys think about how that defensive line played against such a horrible offensive line with the Colts? I mean, of the Rams. - Well, Clay, what did you see there? You were there at the game? - Oh, there's the drop. - Yes, one of our own was there. What'd you see, Clay? - And, you know, hello, hello, hi, it's my match. - Oh shit, oh shit, there's a bunch of examples, man. Especially in the first half of this coast and I see you get to Stanford. - Yeah. - I see one, we've seen us, you know, on the hunt. - I see, on the scouting, Tom Osgood, on Dan Kanto, the cast of the quarterback just, (snaps) - Just to make all these tangles, but you don't see any stuff up there, so they got to take their ball for line up, hey, hey. - Yeah. - Yeah, I would say that the Rams, they were, you know, they obviously knew they had a bunch of backups on the whole line. They purposely told Max that for it, but to just get rid of the ball, as quick as you can. - Yeah. - And you saw that, like you were just thinking about getting as soon as you hyped it to the outside. - Yep. - And it makes you three yards and that was like the run game because they're all in, couldn't push. So, oh, that's like what they ended up doing and it looks, you know, if you replay, it looks like they were doing much, but, how do you say it was like two points on the side? - Oh, absolutely, he was there. - Yeah. - He probably had eight pressures or 10 pressures, whatever it was. You know, only a couple hits. But yeah, so question, if you're the defensive coordinator at that point, why would you not put, I don't know, two p, almost like gunners at that point? If you know your defensive line is getting that much pressure and where staffers got to get it off in two and a half seconds, you would think that they would just make an adjustment to where they could just literally be picking the ball off within that first five to 10 yards. But Cooper cup, you got to give him credit. He got off that line and he did everything for them. But I was a little bit disappointed in because of their, the Rams offensive line being so depleted, I think it just should have been just sack central and it wasn't, so, but you're right. I mean, they, they're prepared for that. - Yeah, they were getting the ball off pretty quick. And honestly, dude, like Stafford, he had one of the best teams I see him play. Why he lit it up. (laughs) (indistinct chatter) - It's like when he got hit by three players. Yeah. - I'm like grabbing his jersey already, like it was crazy. (indistinct chatter) - You're going to get Clay crying again, man. Don't do that. Don't do that. All right, so boys, I wrote also, so you got the Gibbs Tuddy. What do you guys think about that? I mean, ball across the plane, they're at the end. It was a good call, nothing exciting, just business. So I didn't hear anybody talk about this, but this literally blew my mind. I didn't even tell you guys about this before, 'cause I wanted to get your thoughts straight, fresh. Coaching decision. I think he did a good job throughout the whole game. One coaching decision blew my mind. Put yourself back at the end of the first half, they get the ball back at the end of the first half. And I think they had maybe 11 seconds left, or whatever it was. And I'm thinking, okay, we just stopped them. Go out and take a knee, go into halftime up 10 or 14, whatever it was at the point. And they trot out Jared Goff out there, and we're on the 15 yard, 20 yard, whatever it was. And they are trying to throw a Hail Mary. And what happens? He gets set. - Play that, 'cause I was upset with this sack. I'm like, where did this come from? So I would play that play after it was a half time, like three, four times. And Jared first, just three weeks. - Taylor Dagger, just on the outside. Like Taylor was sleeping. Like I feel like maybe he didn't expect that. - Right, right. - To run that play, like it was something like, it was like he didn't know that they were gonna do that. I don't know what happened with that last play. But can you imagine a strip sack or at least, I mean, they hit 'em, the ball could have popped out easily. And then they're sitting right there to put three on the board. I just think that was a horrible coaching decision. You're putting, I mean, you're not on the 50, you're not on the 40, you're on the 15 or 20. And it just needed a lot of help. - I think that was the only mistake. I think the rest of the game was pretty clean, but that one maybe, it was an extra. - Yeah. - All right, so we move on to the second half. I'm gonna let you take your from here, Adrian. I'm just gonna say, wait a minute. Okay. - We need to cleanse the bird's-eye view. What would you say by the way to say it? - We were all vulnerable. - Oh, it's the 43, it reminds me it's really good. We're in that way. - We're in that way. - Same thing. - So it was nice, man. - It was nice, I think. - Pretty small, a lot of the four fields. They showed out, man, four fields showed out right here. - So, question for you, Clay. Clay went to the first Lions playoff home division champ game in what, 20-something years last year, whatever it was. What was the atmosphere like from the playoff game to yesterday opening against that same team that they opened up within the playoffs? - Yeah, so, you keep teamwork then, you can't be cool if that was like last year, but, man, they showed out it was definitely, that one was a lot of it. It was definitely especially at first year. I had that quick, first three now, and the first half, first for the Rams. - Yeah. - That was all four fields right there, man. That was entirely four fields. - No, that was all the God of thunder. (laughing) - It's a loany, man. - It's a war. - Good to see that. Good to see that. - I think, last night, there was like three false starts because I'm like, yeah, like, y'all all sorts of things. Four teams, four teams after they use those timeouts as well. That's right, he did use one in the first one. That's right. So, yeah, y'all are coming with the noise. So, how was the crowd reaction with that career? You just had to do that in the first half? - Well, that was interesting. - So, before we could have time, it was going to break in that time. So, this is my, what a point it takes in a half time, but here's my negative thought about four fields was horrible, horrible, half time show. So. (laughing) - You have this fight, fight, fight, the teaching of half time, and then the, they have a drawn team on how to do a half time show. - Wrong line, baby. - Totally. Just comes to mind. - Jills of mine, everybody's sitting there for a long time, and it's, and they come out and it's way out, and it's totally, totally on. - The drum line. (laughing) - It's Sunday night football. - It's a drum line, so each and a half time, and we come out and go through it now, and that's entirely on fours, and then it comes out and goes over there. (laughing) - It just comes out and it comes out and the crowd is gone, and that's what leads out. (mumbling) - That leads us into the second half, and sadly, yeah, we had to deal with, was that, was that third quarter or fourth quarter that drought? I really don't, it just seemed like it lagged the whole thing. - What was that? (mumbling) - Yeah, it must have been the start of the second half, 'cause that's in my notes, that's, I got, you know, way more. Yeah, yeah. So what did you think? You wrote a couple of things down, Adrian, about going forward after seeing them kind of spread the ball to Jamie, what do you think's gonna happen now? - Sure, Tom. - Well, that touch on him, that is exactly what I dreamed of. Like, if you came up with the lines and you know how last you ended, weren't down, receivers, we lost Josh Reynolds, we really need a Jameson to step up. The biggest reason is to spread up the defense on the opposing side, and now that was just like the perfect start to have Jamieo have just the bombs thrown into him, and you're just like embarrassing the quarterback. (laughing) - Jamie, what was it, I got 60 yards, touched on him, like he heard him just easily running. I'm sure he was going super fast, but what that does now is that that puts it on field. - Yep. - Now that the team, Tampa Bay, they're reviewing them, okay, what are the lines running this year? They're looking at Jamie, they're like, okay, now we have to play deeper. And that just helps us through the rest of the season to have more of a spread field, because last night in a locker room in Granville, Florida, they didn't really do much, and everybody's part of them and have a big game like they did in the playoffs, but we had to ramfer me or prepare to double team those guys, and put a lot of people in the box, but now Jamieo doing that, and I think it's going to spread at more than a lot of opportunities to prepare and have to find his guys in the middle show. So that was ideal, and hopefully Jamie will have to go there. - Another big game next Sunday, too. - Yeah, they have a big show, we'll put it to Take River Warrior. So, I think that if anybody take River Warrior they'll have a group of Jamieo, and it's tied to Take River Warrior and I know Jamieo is on a games machine on Saturday as well, I just, she's come so far since once the suspension, 'cause I've had a lot of movies around the last year, has just really been on, I think they were fun doing for a while, actually, so I'm going to take some of them, or I'm going to tell them to take all of that and he's coming out far since coming out of the games when he's early. So, to check it out, I mean, he was wide open and he had a flag on the guy, and he was still like, "He's taking parts ahead of that band." So, one table here, what a flag and a man. - Yeah, that flag really messed up the camera and his celebration, if you saw that, 'cause the camera span to everybody else, but Jamieo, and he's over there riding the horse and getting up and down on it. So, we need to see more of that. Yeah, I'm glad he caught it, he was wide open and I've heard he's had the case of the drops he's during camp. So, if he can keep doing that during mid-game, that's all that matters. Now, on a little bit, dare I say, downside. So, that was a good uptake, right? So, what do you guys think about Brian Branch? I feel like he was rusty, he missed tackles, he over-pursued, he, I don't know if, I think he dropped a pick, it was a bad day. - When he didn't have to jump, he couldn't just have that and he jumped up on the two and it's like, "No, don't make it pretty, man." - Mm-hmm. - He snagged it, I don't know, look. - I think. - Yeah, I think he's rusty, a couple of his tackles. So, he's huge in his tackle, I got him a little as well. - Oh, Johnson, yeah. - Yeah, Brian's got that. - 60 yards or whatever it was. - Take up and you couldn't have been a loss. I couldn't have been a tackle for a loss and they had a game like you. - Yup. - 25 yards on it. - Yup, big time. - Yeah, that was a bummer. But, I think with Brian Branch, you know, he had his injury in the off-season and he didn't have a full training camp. So, he had to run, he's had to rush to shake off and he's usually like purposeful to the tackle. - For sure, yeah. - He's like hands-alone, he was yesterday just like killing people one-on-one. So, he's just gonna get back in shape. - Yup. So, I also have in my notes here guys, we've been dealing with kicking issues ever since. Let's see, we can go back to Matt Prater, we can go back to Jason Hanson, we can go back to Eddie Murray. I mean, we've had a great lifetime of kickers, but for the last couple of years, it's been sad since Prater left. So, what do you guys think? Money baits, thoughts. - Oh, my heart, I was just doing it. (coughing) - Yeah. - We'll still do it. - Yeah. - 'Cause it's like, cut to hand before the kick, when he was on the sideline and he was kind of scared. - I don't know. (laughing) - Is that just his facial expression, if that's just like how he is or whatever, but he was scared and I was like, oh Lord. Like, he was the similar, like, yard is in a pretty season. - Right. - Is that your point, Jason? - Yeah, exactly. All last time, it was like, oh dude, I didn't feel good about it. - No, those are right down the middle, man. - He can't get it. - Yup. - He's a guy that can go, he's got a leg in 15, 15, 15, 18. (mumbling) - Right. - So, if you could, like, (mumbling) (mumbling) - It wasn't for Jimmy. (mumbling) - I don't think they're great. (mumbling) - I'm making this in the film. They bring some kickers in the suite. - Oh, absolutely, absolutely. - Can you guys imagine if Bates misses that kick with 17 seconds on the clock or whatever it was, to end regulation? He misses that kick. L.A. wins by taking a knee. What are we talking about today? - Well, I think some of the SOL people come back up. - Yeah. - I'm talking loud, even though, you know, I think basketball died. - Last year. - Not really a year ago in Green Bay, but yeah, I think some SOL people come out being loud. And I don't think it was a tough week. - Yup. - That's it, that's it. - Yeah, I think that is this Bates for so many ways, for Bates for one, for taking a two-two. But also, there's been a reporting for defense because the team was the effort to help the team out. - I know Stanford wanted to take a knee. He wanted that big three formation. The defense team out was a wonderful way to sort of, to reward them. I mean, he was one son and one son and one son and one son. - Yes. - Yeah, he was one son and one son and one son and one. - Yeah. - Yeah, he was one son and one son. - Yeah. (indistinct) - Right. - Right. - And we're gonna have some sad podcasts, this upcoming season of, I'm sure of it, it's the NFL. But it is nice to talk about a win. It's nice to talk about a win, win. The Lions didn't look like the better team for over 50% of that game. The drives that Stafford and the Rams put together, the time of possession. Everything that the Rams did, kept the Lions on the sidelines, really. And so, to pull out that win, when you lose the time of possession, you almost lost the turnover battle, but I think that was dead even. But yeah, just to get away with one, honestly. And like everyone says, you're never gonna apologize for a win. But it's good to win and you still have stuff that you know you need to improve on. - Yeah. - I wanna back up real quick for the cake. I was off through it to get on the route you made it where you was blind open to the end zone, which would have been like the game way touchdown. And then slip. - Thank you for bringing that up. - I was up to all the slipping yesterday, dude. I don't know what was the deter from what, like I'm the raw slip, like so many players are slipping. - I think, I was able to back to just being rusty and able to. So many people on game playing, and round, golf, games, so great. I don't look for any of the pretty game running, but so many players who've just been playing that. - Who's the fan? - And I know how pretty Stephen Deakin used to, but he also used to be an entrepreneur in a car park. So I think they were used to that sort of, you know. - Adrian, to your point, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause that made me think of something. So put yourself back, you're at, end of regulation, Stafford throws the ball right sideline. Do you remember who was at Carlton Davis slipped and had the ball hit right off his chest? He came down, got the win, knocked out of him a little bit. So rewind that. He makes that catch if he doesn't slip, right? Let's just say he makes that catch. Now Lions are 17 seconds away or 11. I forget which one it was. But they had one or two time outs at that time. So they could have easily put Jake Bates in position to kick a 60 plus for the win. A little bit longer, I think. - He picked the four on that field. - Oh yeah. I was ready for him to kick a 71, like Dallas set up for a 71 yard earlier in the day. - Yeah, they just left. But honestly, earlier, the Dallas kicker did hit a 66 when they took a timeout or whatever it was. So he literally tied the NFL record and it didn't even count. So he's a beast and our kickers a beast. So let's get that record this year. We know he's got it. And if you were to tell me over under Jake Bates, I would take the over, he's gonna get it. He's gonna get it this year. He's gonna kick a plus 66 for the win. - Oh yeah. - I think it'll be in the spot. Even if it's not like a game wonder, but you know, I know the half of it. - True. Yeah. - You'll be some such a beautiful little sort of. - Absolutely. - Yeah, I think it'll be, I think it'll be, I think it'll be, I think it'll make out for a series. - That's right, baby. - Yeah, I think it'll be in the end. - Yeah. Otherwise we're not talking. - Yeah. All right, one last thing I got over time. Matthew Stafford picks heads, you never pick heads. He picked heads, it was tails. So, tails never fails. That goes back to-- (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) - Nice. So, we get the ball, and what I had in my notes, literally guys, is run, run, run, no doubt. So, I mean, they came out on a mission. They said, "We know our bread and butter gives." You take a, you take a water break, and we're bringing Montgomery back out here, and we're just gonna run. And I believe they ran eight plays or seven plays, one of those two, and it was run, run, run, hitch out to Gibbs, run, run, run, touchdown. So, quick thoughts, we're coming up on a half an hour, quick thoughts on that last drive. - My quick thought is just one driver is gonna have a bigger year than last year. (indistinct chatter) - This is, we're getting into a midnight, but these guys are, you know, they're tired, they play a whole game, and this guy looks fresh. Literally, he looked like fresh and over time, and he just took over by himself, here. It was awesome. (indistinct chatter) - Thank you. (indistinct chatter) - How many times did they do that in the fourth quarter? I believe three or four times. Three and out, three and out, I mean, back to back to, I mean, that's what gave the Rams a chance. - Yep. - So that's what, I think that first first down was so big. It's the, the day that first down, man, like, and I think that's when the lines are wrong, there's a little, this, especially that game, but just, if you get first down, there's one on the field, you just gotta get that first. Get that part of the arm, get each drive, okay? You just, man, one on the game, one on your drive. Yeah, you're right. I feel like every time we at least get that first down, they settle in, and then at least get it down to the red zone. - Yeah. - The way that it's off to the place. Moving. (indistinct chatter) - Hey, Clay, one of the last times I was at Ford Field was the infamous 10 second runoff, where we celebrated for about a minute and a half, and then they want to come back and steal the game from us from Atlanta. How did it feel in the stadium when they said 10 second runoff, and Lions fans actually took a breath, and they said, "Hey, that actually works in our favor." - But I was like, "Yeah, that's why I don't know." (indistinct chatter) So, going back to that play was, I thought that was almost a negative thing for us, because I thought there'd be 10 seconds runoff, and the brands were gonna call it my mouth. So, I thought it was gonna work against us, 'cause I was a game when I was 10 seconds, but it could have been like 20 plus. - Right. - Yeah. - But then, brands are gonna call it a time. So, that's one thing I'll put on, back to taking a little break use of time-outs. (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) - Yeah. (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) (indistinct chatter) - That's our coach, that's our coach. - So, real quick, wanted to say we are gonna be doing this hopefully every week after a Lions game. So, if the game is on a Thursday, we'll try to shoot it out Friday, just so it's fresh on our minds. If it's on a Sunday, we'll shoot it out Monday. If it's on a Monday, I got... Monday might be difficult 'cause there's Tuesday meeting for some of us, but we'll work it out. Well, maybe shoot it earlier or shoot it on Wednesday. But also, if anyone listening wants to have a question sent in, go ahead and send that question in to kliveannual@yahoo.com, C-A-L-E-B-A-N-I-O-L, and what's that? There's a slide in the DMs. We'll answer questions on that too, if you want. Yeah, you got all three of us. Clay, did you post this on your story? 'Cause I know David. Yeah. I mean, because your click of people is different than me and Adrian. So, we're trying to get... Not worldwide, but we're trying to get, you know, multinational, at least. We know we're in the United... Yeah, we know we'll be in the States, but we're trying to bump out to different countries, so. Yeah, we'll have different different disciplines. Thank you. Yep. Lomas? Oh, I thought you said "Little Miss Brown." I'm like, "Who's Little Miss Brown?" (laughs) Lomas, yeah, we could call Lomas. I got his number. Clay gave him a big ode hug, didn't she, Clay? You know, I did talk to Glover Quinn the other day too, so I might be able to reach back to him and pull that up. So. All right, boys, we just hit 30 minutes. So, closing remarks, and we're out. All right. Hope y'all enjoyed it. I hope y'all have a nice day with us. It's going to be a fun season to remember. I've been taken back off from day where I mean, I'll be just finished on Wednesday against Loram's, and I'm going into a state against Tampa, Glover, and next week, I'm getting you against Tampa, so I'm going to see you off the side of the day. You need to go ahead. And once again, thanks, Kayla. We'll keep this move together. That's going to be a fun season. That's right. All right, boys, well, it was a pleasure hosting this, and we can't wait for next week as well. Like you said, Tampa. Two one and O teams coming to Ford Field again, just like last year. So here we go. The, let's say it all together. The, what's our podcast, boys? The All-Grit podcast. Let's go. Oh, signing out later. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [BLANK_AUDIO]