Lions Week 8 Report Card: Can it get any worse for Detroit?

After a second incredibly dismal showing in as many home games, are the Detroit Lions at rock bottom?

People don’t need to be reminded that the Detroit Lions are not a good football team. But even with zero expectations in a season that’s starting a rebuild, this team still manages to let people down.

Detroit got absolutely demolished by a bad Eagles team on Sunday, in a game many picked as the one where they’d finally get a win.

Instead, Detroit goes into its bye week still as the only winless team in the NFL, and the schedule only gets tougher in the back half of the season.

Let’s get to this week’s report card.

Detroit Lions Week 8 Report

Offense- 0/5 Stars

The Lions’ offense put up 228 yards of offense on Sunday. The offensive line got decimated by the Eagles’ defensive front all day. Right tackle Matt Nelson in particular was really bad on Sunday, as Jared Goff took four first half sacks and five on the day.

Goff was hit a lot in this game (12 times). But he also played horribly, including the second instance this season where he has thrown the ball away on a fourth down.

Rhe run game was putrid without Jamaal Williams, with just 57 yards on 19 attempts. Rookie Jermar Jefferson did get the first touchdown of his career though.

The second game in three weeks that this offense hasn’t scored a single point when the game mattered. That is not acceptable at all.

Best offensive player: TE T.J. Hockenson

Hockenson was heavily involved throughout this game, with team-highs in catches (10), targets (11) and receiving yards (89). After a bit of a downturn in production, he has 24 catches on 31 targets over the last three games.

Worst offensive player(s): Everyone else

Just an absolute disaster offensively, as the Lions only scored six points all game via Jefferson’s touchdown.

To add insult to injury, former Lion cornerback Darius Slay scored as many points as the offense did today when he recovered a D’Andre Swift fumble and returned it for a touchdown.

Defense- 0/5 Stars

Everything seemed disjointed for the Lions’ defensively on Sunday. The tackling was bad, the discipline was awful, the defensive line was getting bullied all day. Every aspect of this defense was bad. The Eagles saw something on film in terms of vulnerability to perimeter runs, and exploited it.

The Lions knew the Eagles would keep running the ball, and they still could not stop it. It’s as simple as that.

Best defensive player: DE/OLB Charles Harris

Harris had a few pressures in this game, as the Eagles only attempted 16 passes. So he gets a crumb of credit.

Worst defensive player(s): Everyone else

Much like the offense, just about everything went wrong for the Lions’ defense this week.

The Eagles ran for 236 yards, doing whatever they wanted on the ground on their way to possessing the ball for 35 minutes. As mentioned, Philadelphia only attempted 16 passes in a game where they scored 37 offensive points.

Special Teams- 2/5 Stars

Outside of punter Jack Fox (three punts, 46.7 yard average, two inside-the-20) there weren’t any notable performances from the Lions’ special teams. Godwin Igwebuike had some nice kickoff returns, but kicker Austin Seibert also missed his only field goal attempt. So two stars is pretty fitting here.

Coaching Staff-0/5 Stars

The Detroit Lions so far have a trend of playing a close, competitive game, then following it up with a really poor effort.

The mental preparation was clearly not up to par for the Lions in this game, and that falls on the coaching staff.

I have typically given Dan Campbell’s staff the benefit of the doubt this season, but no one is free of criticism after an effort as awful as that.

Final Thoughts:

Absolutely everything went wrong for the Detroit Lions on Sunday. Now as they head into the bye week, they must do some soul searching.

Nobody wants to sit through another winless season. While I still believe this team is capable of winning some games, weeks like this one make it really hard to see.

The good news is there won’t be another loss to watch next Sunday. The bye week is coming at good time.

Final Grade: 0/5 Stars