Monday Night Observations

Great game

Watching the Lions and Ravens is a little like watching Carlos Alcaraz against Jannik Sinner. Yes, there are some unforced errors — every once in a while Jared Goff or Lamar Jackson will miss an open man — but mostly they shake it off and make a great throw on the next play. Why do I suffer through the Texans, Jaguars, Falcons and Giants? Why do I have Brian Thomas and Breece Hall on two rosters when I could have had Amon Ra St. Brown and David Montgomery for less?

Fortunately, I do have ARSB and David Montgomery in the Seslowky league (got me the W), and Jackson and Gibbs in others. It’s such a pleasure to root for players on well-oiled machines. I also had Mark Andrews on my bench in the Primetime, but still got the W to get to 3-0.

• The Lions are not missing Ben Johnson one bit. That opener against the Packers was rough, but since then they’ve lit it up.

• David Montgomery had a monster game, though Jahmyr Gibbs would have scored on the 72-yarder. The beautiful thing was he really should have slid down after getting the first down at the end, burned the Ravens’ timeouts and kicked the easy FG, but he got the TD for me and gave Jackson the ball back for yet another TD pass!

• Gibbs was stuffed for a lot of the game, but the Lions kept giving it to him — 22 carries, six targets on the league’s best offense will pay the bills at 1.1 even.

• St. Brown is money in the bank, even on eight targets. I faded Jameson Williams who just can’t get the volume on this team in his present role. LaPorta, same problem.

• Goff had a game-manager performance in my lineup, but that’s okay. When your team has four rushing TDs against a good defense, and you still get 200 yards and a TD, you take it.

• I’ve never seen a team do a better job bottling up Jackson’s running. He had 35 yards, but took seven sacks, several of them on what would-be scrambles against most teams.

• Dan Campbell is just a good coach — that team is ready on both sides of the ball.

• Mark Andrews had a breakout on a lot of benches. I drafted him for this kind of game and think I’ll just have to leave him in unless Harold Fannin has a great matchup. It helped him that Zay Flowers had a quiet game.

• Rashod Bateman is a good player, but Jackson spreads the ball around so much, you can’t count on him.

• Derrick Henry looked like himself on the 28-yard TD run, but fumbled and got sidelined a bit due to game flow. He’s not entirely what you bargained for just yet, but the Ravens have played the Bills, the Browns (elite defense) and the Lions. Wait until the Ravens get the Bengals twice.