Detroit Lions Week 14 Report Card: Battered roster can’t keep up with Broncos

Defense-2/5 Stars

If you were to simply glance at the box score you would assume this was a disastrous defensive effort. However, while it was a poor one, it wasn’t as bad as the score would indicate.

Detroit’s defense, as they’ve done all season, provided a lot of fight.

This is a week where you burn (or bury) the tape and move on. There’s not a whole lot of analysis to be had here. The Lions simply didn’t have the personnel to match the Broncos run game.

Best defensive player: NT Alim McNeill

Not going to pretend like McNeill had his best performance of the year. But on a day where there wasn’t much to get excited about, he provided a highlight.

So congratulations to McNeill on his first career sack, and hopefully it’s the first of many.

Aside from that McNeill was fine, he didn’t stand out much in a positive or negative way. He did his part in this game, and that’s all you could ask for.

Worst defensive player(s): Everyone else

There really wasn’t a standout negative performance in this game, as mentioned above the Lions just couldn’t stop the Broncos run game as Melvin Gordon and Javonte Williams combined for 184 yards and three touchdowns on 39 carries.

The secondary, although they weren’t tested much (25 pass attempts from Teddy Bridgewater), didn’t put up much of a fight either (18 completions for 179 yards).

All around, this was just a forgettable game that, for all of the reasons already mentioned, shouldn’t be criticized too intensely.

Special Teams-3/5 Stars

Shockingly Detroit only punted twice on Sunday, with Jack Fox hitting over 50 yards on both of kicks.

Riley Patterson hit his only field goal attempt, and his only extra point.

But the only return attempt in this game went for -4 yards. Raymond decided to run backward, for some reason.

A quiet, yet mediocre, performance for this special teams unit as a whole. But they’ve been pretty good all year, so a rebound performance next week would not be shocking.