I don't know why, but I watched this entire horrible game yesterday. Let me get to the point:

This game was utterly littered with Turnovers. The official statline for each team is 5 turnovers each. Trust me, in watching this game, it seemed worse. The Lions pretty much committed every turnover after the 50-yard line (sometimes in the Red Zone, sometimes within FG range). Point being: Kickers can make or break your week, when its a really close matchup (I lost the week by 3 points).

The Lions could've easily been victorious in the actual game insted of OT, had they not committed these turnovers and kicked field goals. Jason Hanson lost out on Mucho points, yesterday. And the Lions barely escaped loss to a Not so Great Vikings team. Thank god Kitna was put back in the game and had the heart to win, otherwise we might have seen our first tie of the season. Very poorly played game by both sides.

What are you talking about?

QUOTE (King Gonzo @ Sep 17 2007, 04:01 PM)

What are you talking about?

I was attempting to insinuate that Jason Hanson would've had the opportunity to kick more field goals had the Lions not turned the ball over 5 times when they were past the 50-yard line. It seemed to me that most of the turnovers happened on third-down and within field-goal range. Kitna is the man in Martz's offense, but I don't know about the NFL Europe dude. It was a much simpler win than the Lions made it.

Lets simplify things... If 2 of those 5 opportunities lost to turnover were turned into field-goals, the game would have been over in regulation and Hanson would've scored more points (yes I know he kicked the OT winner). Imagine if more than two of those drives weren't erased by turnovers. The Lions are clearly the superior team, but it looked very disorganized yesterday.

Oh I got ya mate. I thought you were trying to say he missed multiple field goals.

You can blame or credit a win/loss on a kicker all you want. But you could also do the same for the QB, RBs, WRs, TEs and DEFs as well. 3 pts may not have made a difference if that RB had of punched it in on 2 and Goal from the 1, or if that WR hadn't have been caught from behind on that deep pass. Your matchup may have come down to a kickers performance, but if any of the players on either team could have done something to put it out of the kickers hands (or foot I should say).