Detroit Lions: Just where is this team headed this season?
By Robert Jones
So the Lions opened the season purging defensive linemen left and right, but while they may have found pieces that general manager Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia believe ‘fit their system better’, it hasn’t translated into defensive success.
As a matter of fact the Lions have the worst run defense in the NFL. By far. They give up 157.8 yards a game and 5.3 a carry. This is nothing to be proud of. Meanwhile the Lions have the second rated pass defense in the league giving up only 171.8 yards a game.
However, despite how often that stat has been bandied about consider this stat; opponents are only attempting 25.0 pass attempts per game against Detroit. That’s five attempts fewer than opponents throw at the Arizona Cardinals who have the second worst run defense in the league and 10 attempts fewer than the league average.
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What does that mean? It means the Lions pass defense is actually benefiting statistically from their poor run defense. Teams would rather just go the easy route and run through Detroit’s porous run defense then challenge the secondary.
Which, by the way, has worked very well for the Lions opponents so far.
So after all of that, if the Lions run the ball more and increase their time of possession, will that increase their defensive productivity like the Patriots game? Only if the Lions start fast offensively and make their opponents play from behind. This would force Lions’ opponents to pass more often which gives this defense a fighting chance since they have major issues with the run.
But it isn’t a cure-all as some people think it is.
NFL games tend to be tightly contested and blow outs don’t happen often. This means that unless a team is behind by two scores late in a contest, they usually have the option to use their running game almost to the end. This of course works against the Lions.
So at the end of the day this leads us to a couple of questions that demand answers. First, who is more to blame for the Lions being in this situation; Bob Quinn and Matt Patricia for assembling this team or the players for being unable to run the system at an even base level of success?
The second would be; can this season be salvaged?