Lions vs. Bills Report Card: Grading Detroit’s preseason opener

Special Teams – 5/5 Stars

I mean what more can you ask for? Punter Jack Fox was brilliant, as always, some of his punts are just absurd. And In turn, the punt coverage was exceptional, probably helps when your punter can keep the ball in the air so long.

Kicker Randy Bullock went 3/3 on field goals, none of them were exceptionally difficult but nonetheless, it’s nice to see him drill those.

The kickoff coverage was also really good except for one rep where they gave up a decent return, but nothing disastrous. Ultimately it was just a solid day for Dave Fipp’s unit.

Coaching Staff – 4/5 Stars

There’s not much to say about the coaching staff, it’s the preseason so the play-calling was bound to be pretty bare-bones and there weren’t any real personnel decisions to make because you want everyone to get reps in.

The only negative is the Lions came out really flat, the first drives on both sides of the ball were really poor, and that can’t happen ever. One thing that was encouraging was the energy, you could see that every player was having fun out there especially on defense, as the game was heading down the stretch.

We knew that this new coaching staff was going to be able to inject more energy into this locker room, but it’s still nice to see. All in all, it was a pretty good debut for Dan Campbell and his staff. Now the Detroit Lions have to make a couple of cuts before getting back into practice, and they return to game action next Saturday in Pittsburgh against the Steelers. Final Grade – 4/5 Stars