Detroit Lions Stock Report: Week 1

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

Stock Down:  Jim Caldwell, Joe Lombardi, and Teryl Austin

What a mess from a coaching standpoint this game was.  Joe Lombardi started the game off strong, as did Teryl Austin.  Sometime right before the half, something snapped and never recovered.  The offensive line was terrible (Their stock has always been low, so I can’t really feature it here), so the deep passes were obviously out.  That’s not on Lombardi, but with a running back as electric as Abdullah was and blocking that was clearly unable to hold back anything in the passing game, why not lean on your run game?  Every team wants to run more.  The Detroit Lions may have to.  Their offensive coordinator isn’t equipped to deal with this.

Teryl Austin wasn’t the sole cause of the Lions defensive problems in this game, nor was he even the primary cause.  Execution was bad all around.  That doesn’t excuse some of the decisions he made that were just baffling to everyone watching.  3rd and 19, field goal range, and he blitzes?  Stupid move.  The center of the field has always been a problem for Austin’s defense, but with Levy out it’s like he didn’t even try to cover it up.  He had Stephen Tulloch, Travis Lewis, and Josh Bynes trying to cover crossers, and it ended…well, you saw how it ended.

Jim Caldwell claimed during his presser that we don’t know their calls, and I get that.  The thing is, fans, media, everybody gets to see the results of those calls.  So when the calls look bad, and the outcome is bad, the chances are that the call wasn’t good.  With both of his coordinators struggling, we got nothing out of the head coach and that’s disappointing.  Jim Caldwell is a stubborn coach.  That can be useful if your team is doing as well out of the gate as the Lions were.  Not so much if he’s being stubborn about the coordinators that blew it.

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