Coaching Staff: 1/5 stars
There’s not much to say that wasn’t said last week about Aaron Glenn’s defense. Hopefully, the bye week brings some level of answers on that side of the ball from a coaching perspective.
Ben Johnson called a fine game, the players just simply did not execute at a high enough level offensively. Johnson does need to be criticized for how quickly he would go away from certain concepts though. The run game was working early, picking up chunks, then Johnson would interrupt that rhythm with an ill-timed screen as an example. Going away from what was working happened too often.
Simple plays get them in position, then one mistake and Lions move away from what's working.
— Erik Schlitt (@erikschlitt) October 9, 2022
As for Dan Campbell, questions are starting to circulate surrounding his decision making. The 4th-and-9 in the second quarter for example. What’s the point of signing a kicker if you’re so unconfident in them to the point where you won’t attempt a 49-yard field goal on a fourth-and-long? In general, fourth down aggression is a good thing. The issue comes when that aggression turns to recklessness. Campbell said himself how the Patriots live off the mistakes of their opponents. The fourth down calls were consistently contributing to that, and Campbell dug himself into a hole where he had to keep going for it on every fourth down even though it wasn’t working.
Additionally, the lack of execution all around falls on Campbell. It’s his job to get the most out of his players, and that certainly was not the case on Sunday. Detroit needs to come out looking like a much better team against the Cowboys in Week 7.
Final thoughts
The product that has been put on the field throughout the first five weeks has been woefully inadequate for where the team should be. Part of that is on the coaching staff, part of that is on the players, and part of that even falls on the front office. From all sides, the Detroit Lions have not been good enough.
At the conclusion of “Hard Knocks”, Dan Campbell said the 2022 Detroit Lions would be the team that “can and will”. We’ve seen the “can” part, as the Lions have been in four of their five games this season, but we’ve yet to see the “will” part come. The Lions are a young team that still doesn’t know how to win, which extends to the coaching staff.
Lions fans have been left with a lot of questions about this team. Preaching patience can be tolerated, but only for a time. Sometime very soon Detroit needs to start showing tangible results on the field for people to continue believing in this rebuild.