Detroit Lions vs San Diego Chargers: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The Detroit Lions were like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde on Sunday against the San Diego Chargers. The Lions roared out to a hot start in the first half and forgot to show up in the second. Making their week one showdown the ultimate thrill ride  of emotions for Lions fans everywhere.  In the end, the Lions just couldn’t get the job done as they lost their season opener for the first time since 2010.

With any game there are good things. unfortunately there is always bad things and ugly things as well. Let’s jump right into what I saw that was good on Sunday.

Ameer Abdullah looked legit

Granted its way to early to go ahead and say Abdullah is “the guy” for the Lions, the team has to be happy with what they seen from their second round pick thus far. Abdullah opened up his NFL career with a 24 yard touchdown on his first career carry and made his presence known just about everywhere else as well. All told, Abdullah finished with 94 total yards and one touchdown. His 7.1 yards per carry has to be an encouraging thing to see for a Lions team that has not ranked above 17th in the NFL since Barry Sanders retirement.

Lions showed spark early

While we obviously now that spark fizzled out later in the game, it was still a change of pace to see the Lions strike first and fast. This was one of the Lions major problems in 2014. The Lions managed to come out firing on all cylinders opening up a 21-3 lead in the first half and the offense at the time appeared as though it could do no wrong. Even Eric Ebron jumped in on all the fun grabbing four receptions for 53 yards and a touchdown. We’ll get to what happened to those cylinders later in the game in the next two pages.

Defensive rotations worked well

By this I mean they worked well for a little bit. The defense had a bad day overall, but early on the plan was to rotate defenders in and out of the game to both keep players fresh and combat the heat. The plan worked well for the first quarter. The Lions were able to hold the Chargers to ten points in the first half. This had a lot to do with that. Obviously the Chargers found a way to shut that down and once they did the entire game changed.

Return game looked ok

Ameer Abdullah and Golden Tate took over return duties in week one and the results weren’t half bad considering the train wreck that has been the Lions special teams unit in the past few years. Abdullah and Tate were able to put the Lions offense in good position all day and if the offense can start taking advantage of that, the Lions should be able to win some games. If not, the Lions are in trouble.

Next: The Bad