Happy Friday to everybody out there. Merry belated Christmas as we get ready to take you on a therapy session here in the city of Detroit, a much needed talk that we have to have today.

Mike's off for today, but I do think we need to have an honest conversation today. And I know people don't love

these types of conversations in this town, but guys, they're necessary. Missing the playoffs this

season, that's a setback. You could try to dress it up whichever way you want, but it is. This was

not a rebuilding year. This was not a just happy to compete type of year.

This was a team that you that told you that directly or indirectly that it had arrived.

They were there. They were elite. They were all over television. They were on Christmas Day.

And they were on all of these prime time games.

Expectations changed.

The national respect changed and with that comes responsibility.

But you know what?

There was one show that tried to tell you one thing wrong with this team.

Hold on. There it is. Something was wrong with this team. Hold on. There it is. Something was wrong with this team from the start.

But I was told, don't worry about it. We got this. Just give them a little bit of time. Don't worry about

the coordinators. We can work that out. We got Dan Campbell. We have grit.

You sold expectations. You're so legitimate. You sold contender talk. Banners, national TV

games, preseason hype, Super Bowl whispers that maybe this was a team. But then when it came time

to cast that check, it bounced. Now here's the part that people don't want to hear.

This is what happens when expectations show up, but your team is not ready for them.

Everybody loved Dan Campbell when he was biting kneecaps and playing with the house money.

But when the games actually matter, when situational football matter, when discipline matters, suddenly the margins mattered.

And then they lost those margins over and over and over again.

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