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Detroit Lions: Gameplan for beating the New Orleans Saints

By Forrester Solmen

DETROIT, MI - OCTOBER 08: Matthew Stafford #9 of the Detroit Lions calls out signals to his team against the Carolina Panthers during the first half at Ford Field on October 8, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images)
DETROIT, MI - OCTOBER 08: Matthew Stafford #9 of the Detroit Lions calls out signals to his team against the Carolina Panthers during the first half at Ford Field on October 8, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan. (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images) /
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Against a quality offense like the New Orleans Saints, the Detroit Lions need to keep up. Luck can only get them so far, so their play has to get better.

As the weeks pass, you can see the Detroit Lions’ struggles offensively. The defense can only bail out the offense so often.

Now would be the time for the Lions to put together a complete game right before the bye week.

Keep the quarterback upright

Matthew Stafford has really taken a pounding the past two weeks. Getting sacked six times back-to-back games is not good. Luckily, Detroit can still win while giving up a lot of pressure, that is if Stafford can keep playing.

His health and availability is the single most important key to winning any game. Being a tough SOB only lasts so long. The Lions can’t afford to have Stafford taking the shots he has.

It will take a collaborative effort from the coaches, blockers and the highest paid quarterback in NFL history himself to stay on the field.

Play a clean and complete game

Coming together in all three phases of the game isn’t easy. The New Orleans Saints are a perfect team to do it against. Overall, there’s no excuses for the Lions to lose.

Dropping passes, missing tackles, not sticking to the fundamentals are not qualities of championship caliber team. These mistakes are very correctable. Detroit is lucky they haven’t turned it over more because a lot of passes could have been intercepted by the opposing teams’ defense.

More efficiency on offense, please

Jim Bob Cooter, had a nice ring to it at first. Fast forward to 2017, and it lost some luster. So has this Lions offense.

With the players Detroit has, this offense should be able to move the ball more effectively. Personnel, players, they got it all.

Next: Detroit Lions: The curious case of Eric Ebron

Perhaps trying to throw some long balls down the field, picking up blitzes, maybe not running the ball on first down almost every play would be nice. It won’t take much to turn this season around. 3-2 isn’t ideal, but the Detroit Lions are very fine football team and have a great shot to go 4-2 on Sunday.

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