Lions Week 12 Report Card: Poor coaching dooms Detroit on Thanksgiving

The Detroit Lions lost again on Thanksgiving, with coaching taking the spotlight in the final minutes.

The annual Thanksgiving day game for the Detroit Lions has now come and gone.

Unfortunately, there were no Thanksgiving miracles this year, as the Lions lost yet again.

The same script has been followed three weeks in a row now. Keep the game close, have opportunities to win, but ultimately the Lions can’t get the job done.

Self-inflicted wounds have been a trend all season, especially recently. There have been way too many costly mistakes that could have been avoided, both by players and the coaching staff.

Detroit Lions Week 12 Report Card

Offense- 2/5 Stars

What a weird game for the offense. They started out on fire, with a nice drive finished huge touchdown pass on the opening drive.

Then, like they have many times this season, the offense dried up. Stalled out again, and again.

There was another brief glimmer of hope, with another touchdown drive in the second half. Then the offense shut down for good.

However, the biggest reason for concern was D’Andre Swift leaving the game with a shoulder strain.

His status for next week is currently unknown, but this has the potential to be an enormous blow to an already fragile offense.

This would however present an enormous opportunity for Jamaal Williams.

Best offensive player: WR Josh Reynolds

It took one drive with Jared Goff at quarterback for Reynolds to claim the WR1 spot on this team.

While he was pretty quiet the rest of the game, he still led the team in receiving yards by a decent margin. He’s clearly the only receiver Goff is willing to target downfield.

If Reynolds is nothing else but someone who can at least threaten a defense on a deep target, that will be enough value for what the Lions are paying him.

Worst offensive player(s): Offensive line

In the time it took you to read this sentence, the offensive line probably took another holding penalty.

An obscene amount of holding penalties plagued the Lions, derailing drives instantly. This offense struggles without being put behind the chains, and the run of holding calls could not be overcome.

It’s not like the line was terrible at blocking in a general sense, but these preventable mistakes really hurt Detroit.

Defense-3/5 Stars

The Lions defense has allowed an average of 15 points per game over the last three games. It’s unclear how much of that is opposing offenses misfiring versus the  defense improving, but it’s still a good sign.

The bend-but-don’t-break style of defense is paying off, as touchdowns are being reverted to field goals. That has allowed Detroit to stay in games for as long as they do.

Everyone has seemingly bought into this system, which is imperative given the youth on this team. It will be interesting to see how they perform against more competent offenses.

Best defensive player: CB Amani Oruwariye 

The Detroit Lions have eight interceptions this season, five have come from Oruwariye.

He nearly had a second one in this game, but he, unfortunately, couldn’t come down with the catch in a bit of a midair tussle with Bears tight end Jessie James.

Nonetheless, Oruwariye had another good game, as he has done for most of the season. He’s had some down games, but generally Oruwariye has been pretty good.

Whether or not he is a starter and long-term foundational piece, he certainly has a place right now.

Worst defensive player: S Will Harris 

I’ll touch on this more in the coaching staff section, but Harris is here simply for the last meaningful play of the game. The Bears had the ball in the red zone on a third-and-four, and Harris was playing so far off in coverage he ceded the first down that allowed the Bears to run the clock down and win.

Whether this was Harris’ fault or the coaching staff’s is to be determined. But since no one else stood out in a negative way defensively, this  section belongs to Harris this week.

Special Teams- 4/5 Stars

Let’s start with the good, Jack Fox is still an unbelievable field position optimization specialist.

The punt coverage was also good for the most part, and Detroit got some good returns out of Godwin Igwebuike.

However, on the flip side, Khadarel Hodge also had one of the most Lions-esque plays of the season.

There are going to be plenty of memes made from this clip.

Coaching Staff- 1/5 Stars

A lot of people are already done with Dan Campbell calling plays for the offense.

Multiple times throughout the game fans booed the play call, typically when a draw play was called in third-and-long situations.

But that is not what made this game so bad for the coaching staff. It was the final moments of the game.

The Bears had the ball and were driving down the field. Going into a third-and-nine the Lions called a timeout, as they wanted to stop the clock and save time for their offense.

Then, a miscommunication in the secondary caused panic on the Lions sideline. Alex Anzalone had noticed the Bears were using a “max protect”look, so he checked the Lions’ defense into a different coverage. Half the secondary noticed, half did not.

The coaching staff noticed the miscommunication, and frantically called a timeout. The only problem with that is you can’t call back-to-back timeouts, so a five-yard penalty was enforced.

Then on third-and-four the Lions were playing  off coverage, which allowed the Bears to get an easy conversion. That allowed them to wind down the clock and kick a chip shot field goal as time expired to win the game.

It’s clear this coaching staff is still very much learning on the job. But some of these learning moments have been very frustrating to watch.

Final Thoughts:

If you are someone that is all in on the Lions getting the first overall pick in next April’s draft, you left this week happy.

It should be noted the Lions can win a game and still hold the top pick because the Texans won in Week 11.

All we need is one, just a single win this year to be happy.

What’s been the most frustrating is how tantalizingly close the Lions have been to getting that first win. Though as the season drags on, it seems less and less likely to happen.

Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. All that matters, for now, is the Lions found yet another creative way to lose on Thanksgiving Day.

Final Grade: 2/5 stars