The Good, Bad, and Ugly of Week Five

The Detroit Lions came away with a thrilling 24-23 win against the previously unbeaten Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.  The offense jumped on the Eagle’s defense early in the first half, scoring three touchdowns on their first three drives.  The defense was bending and rarely breaking.  The rookie class had their coming out week.

In true Lions fashion, however, the team stalled in the 2nd half.  The strangest part of the game came late in the 4th quarter, when the defense was asked to stop an Eagles’ offense that had not faltered much in the 2nd half.   In false Lions fashion, they actually forced two turnovers in two consecutive drives that ultimately won the game.  This type of role-reversal was perfect for this contest, which saw the Eagles penalized 14 times for 111 yards to the Lions’ two for 18, and witnessed the team run the ball more times (27) than pass (25). All the while, the rookie class, rounds 1-4 at least, stepped up and made plays.

While you try and wrap your head around what transpired in this game (including Jim Caldwell jumping out of his shoes signalling for a turnover), check out the good, bad, and ugly of week five.

The Good

Theo Riddick

Had Darius Slay not made two clutch plays to win and seal the game, Riddick would be the story.  Coming into this game, the Eagles were sporting the #2 defense in the league according to DVOA and top 10, specifically, in run defense.  Riddick carried the ball 11 times for 49 yards, and added 6 catches for 33 yards and two touchdowns.  His 4.4 yards per carry mark, for comparison, was more than double the 1.2 and 2.0 marks that Zach Zenner and Golden Tate sported, respectively.

Ameer Abdullah succumbing to injury for the year really damaged the Lion’s rushing attack, but Riddick has at least kept them afloat thus far.  With the injuries decimating this position, Riddick has needed to produce and has done so.

Kerry Hyder

Hyder did not end up extending his unexpected sack streak on Sunday, but he might have played his best game of the season.  Hyder sniffed out a screen play early, blew up a few runs, and was the just about the only defensive player to get pressure on Carson Wentz.  He is a better situational pass-rusher than he is all-around defensive end, but he won’t be asked to do more once Ezekiel Ansah is back in a few weeks.

Stafford Windows

Matthew Stafford produced yet another “Stafford Window” throw on Sunday, uncorking a side-arm bullet 20 yards in the air to Marvin Jones for the touchdown.  I don’t know if I have ever seen a quarterback throw a ball 20 yards in the air to gain one yard, but Stafford is not an ordinary quarterback.

Stafford has greatly improved his pocket awareness this year, but this play is all about arm strength.  Matthew Stafford has throwing windows that no other quarterback in the league has.  While the national media and some stubborn fans are finally giving Stafford his due this year, he will continue to make plays like these with his arm.

Darius Slay

Without question, Slay was the player of the game.  Remember when the defense forced two critical turnovers late in the 4th quarter?  One of which assisted the go ahead score, the other sealing the Eagle’s fate?  Yeah, Darius Slay made those plays happen.  Without the forced fumble on Ryan Matthews, the Eagles get to punt, and the Lions offense was not moving well in the 2nd half anyway.  Without making that game ending interception, the Eagles offense had plenty of time to rack up enough yards for a field goal.

As a side note, Tavon Wilson allowed Slay to force that fumble.  Wilson deserves credit as well.  Watch the breakdown below, from the excellent Fran Duffy.

Slay has had an up and down season thus far, similarly to most of the defense.  On Sunday, he justified the contract he signed this offseason.  Wentz was not even looking his way for most of the game, and when he finally did, Slay was there to punctuate his mistake.

Rookie class stepping up

Winning cures all, at least for a while.  While this win was unexpected, and a complete 180 from last week, the most important detail for this iteration of the Lions is having their rookies playing well.  Today was one of those days that they obliged.  Taylor Decker played like a veteran again, even with a change at left guard.  Graham Glasgow stepped in for Laken Tomlinson at guard early on in the game and played well.  A’Shawn Robinson tallied his first sack and had a few stuffed runs.  Miles Killebrew continues to receive more snaps as a hybrid linebacker/extra safety and, save for one mental mistake early, did not look lost.  Bob Quinn has to be happy with most of what he saw today from his first rookie class.

The Bad

Pass rush

Hurry back, Ziggy.  Without Ansah, the Lions have no pure pass rushers on the team, and cannot put any pressure on any quarterback.  Carson Wentz had all day to throw on just about every play on Sunday.  The Lions would send five or six players on pass attempts to generate some sort of rush to no avail.  The defense occasionally sent a mere three rushers and dropped eight in coverage because they knew it was futile.

This has been a common theme for the Lions defense this year.  Besides allowing backbreaking drives deep into 2nd halves, not getting to the quarterback has been this defense’s forte.  When they do end up sacking the quarterback, it has mainly been of the clean up variety.  Between this issue and the absolute dearth of quality linebackers on the squad, creating mock drafts for this team in a few weeks is going to be an easy task.

Drops

Before this game, the Lions dropped 10 passes in 152 targets, tied for the most in the league.  The team saw that number increase today, with Golden Tate and Andre Roberts committing rookie errors.

With the addition of Marvin Jones this year, most fans and analysts alike thought the Lions’ wide receivers might have the best hands in the league.  This has proved to be patently false, and is a problem that most had thought to be solved.  The Lions need to clean them up, and fast.

Missed tackles

Another problem that the Lions had thought to be solved was that of missed tackles.  Part of this problem can be attributed to the defense being down to rookies and their 4th and 5th linebackers.  However, the starters made a few uncharacteristic gaffs on the day.  Darius Slay, Thurston Armbrister, and Tahir Whitehead all had ugly attempts at key moments, and could have affected the outcome more than they ultimately did.  Getting a healthy DeAndre Levy back to this defense is a must if the Lions still have any playoff hopes.

The Ugly

2nd half offense

Tate is too talented to be used as a glorified Tavon Austin.

The Lions had 44 yards of offense in the 2nd half.  44.  In nearly every game this season, and for that matter, since Jim Bob Cooter has taken over, the offense stalls for an extended period of time. Sometimes this phenomenon happens in the first quarter, others after halftime.  On Sunday, the Lions’ offense totaled 44 yards in the two last quarters of the game.  Yes, the Philadelphia Eagles defense is the real deal, and their coaching staff made key adjustments at halftime, but 44 yards in one half of football is putrid.  The Lion’s coaching staff seems to be dialed in for one half of every game.

Make no mistake, these stalled quarters or halves of football falls on Cooter and Caldwell alike.  Caldwell is generally a hands-off type of coach in terms of his coordinators running their respective sides of the ball.  However, occasionally, a head coach needs to know when to interject.  Caldwell does not do this often enough.

Jim Bob Cooter has done a terrific job for the most part since taking over for Joe Lombardi last year.  In terms of games coordinated, he is still in his rookie year.  However, he continues to have these consecutive baffling drives in every game where nothing seems to work.  Sunday, the entire second half was just consecutive drives of incompetence.  And while Golden Tate had a key 27 yard catch late in the game to set up the go ahead field goal, Cooter still is using him as a gimmick.  Tate is too talented to be used as a glorified Tavon Austin.

Jim Caldwell deserves a bit of praise for this week, as Jeff Risdon rightly pointed out in the post-game chat  He had a solid game plan, and executed it perfectly for a half.  When things started to break down in the 2nd half, the team did not collapse.  He used his timeouts well on defense, and actually held players accountable when they were playing badly.  This is probably a case of a blind squirrel finding a nut, but it is at least good enough to mention.  Any time your team beats an undefeated opposition, facing a quarterback who has been exaggerated as “Peyton Manning before the snap and Aaron Rodgers after it,” you deserve a pat on the back.  Now let’s hope his team can keep up this whole “winning games” ordeal in the upcoming weeks.

Next: Lions avoid disaster, win 24-23 over the eagles