For the second straight season, the Detroit Lions head into the bye week with the stench of an embarrassing loss after falling 29-0 to the Patriots on Sunday.
For as much hope as Detroit Lions fans may have had to enter the season, the feeling surrounding the team is pretty grim right now. Coming off yet another embarrassing loss, this time at the hands of the New England Patriots, Detroit enters their bye week with a 1-4 record.
It was truly a pathetic effort on all sides. The defense could not stand up against the Patriots’ run game, or a third-string rookie quarterback. And on the other side, the best offense in the NFL (at least coming into the game) could not muster a single point.
At this point, it’s hard to argue the early bye week isn’t a blessing. The Lions have been brutalized by injuries, yes, but they desperately need to do some introspection and make some changes.
Run offense: 1/5 stars
It was a bit of a weird game on the ground for the Lions. It started off okay, as Jamaal Williams was a steady presence between the tackles and Craig Reynolds was providing some juice when he got in the game.
For some reason, though, any time the Lions started gaining traction on the ground they went away from it. As the game wore on, the run game also grew increasingly inefficient, which led to running the ball even less.
When it was all said and done Detroit ran the ball 27 times for 101 yards, averaging just 3.7 yards per carry. It was a clear step back for a ground game that had been really strong so far this season.
Pass offense:1/5 stars
Easily the worst game of the season for the Lions’ passing attack, and probably the worst this passing game has looked since the Browns game a season ago. Detroit struggled mightily to string together positive plays.
The pass protection was off, between Matthew Judon dominating every matchup in front of him and the Patriots scheming up pressure. As a result a lot of the pass concepts simply did not work as Jared Goff got flustered. More on that upcoming.
DJ Chark was once again absent on Sunday, Amon-Ra St. Brown was on a snap count, and Josh Reynolds was visibly injured. But we have seen Detroit succeed without its top weapons before. The execution was simply severely lacking on Sunday.
Best offensive player: WR Josh Reynolds
While his ankle issue was clearly bothering him, Reynolds was the only offensive player who was provided consistently good play on Sunday. He had a few really nice catches in this game, whether it was on a shot play down the sideline or working over the middle on dig routes. It was evident Goff was trying to get the ball to Reynolds a lot on Sunday, but it worked more often than it didn’t.
Reynolds finished the game catching six of 10 targets for 92 yards–nothing revolutionary. But on a day where no one wearing Honolulu Blue could do much of anything, Reynolds at least went against the grain.
Worst offensive player: QB Jared Goff
Regression was the main theme offensively on Sunday, and Goff was the poster boy looking like the early 2021 version of himself. From consistently locking onto his first read, looking antsy in the pocket and moving himself into pressure, Goff failed the test against the Patriots.
The point about pressure is the most important. The offensive line had far from its best game, but Goff way too often would avoid stepping up into a clean pocket in favor of rolling right into pressure. It has been well established Goff does not perform well with pressure in his face, so his lack of poise in the pocket directly led to a multitude of problems.
Goff locked onto Hockenson as his first read and completely missed the safety coming over the top on an early interception. Another instance came on one of the ,many failed fourth down plays, where Goff zeroed in on St. Brown short of the sticks with two defenders rapidly closing on him.
From all angles, this was just a horrendous performance from Goff, and a stark reminder that quarterback remains high on the Lions’ list of needs.
Run defense: 0/5 stars
Heading into a game in which the opposing team was starting a third-string quarterback, it was well known the Patriots would run the ball early and often. Yet, Detroit was unable to contain Rhamondre Stevenson.
Stevenson finished the game with 25 rushes for a career-high 161 yards, A lot of those yards came after contact, continuing a theme of tackling issues seen throughout the early season for Detroit.
It was rare in this game to see the first Lions’ defender make the stop. Typically Stevenson would break at least one tackle, or drag a defender for extra yards. For every stop Detroit generated on first down, the Patriots would answer with a big run the next play.
Much like the offense, the defense really struggled to execute in this game–particularly on the ground.
Pass defense: 1/5 stars
As previously noted, the Patriots started a third-string rookie quarterback Bailey Zappe on Sunday. Unfortunately, that didn’t help the Lions’ pass defense much as they could not generate a stop (aside from one dropped pass that ended up in the hands of DeShon Elliott).
Detroit tried a new combination of players in the secondary after last week’s debacle against Seattle, but did not help at all. To make matters worse, a litany of injuries hit seemingly everyone who played in the Lions’ secondary. By the end of the game rookie corner Chase Lucas was playing safety because of all the injuries.
But the truth is it did not matter who the Lions had in the secondary, they just could not contain the Patriots’ receivers.
Best defensive player: No one
Worst defensive player(s): Everyone
Same as last week, nobody defensively stood out in a positive light on Sunday. Alim McNeill had a few nice plays to generate tackles for loss, but he was also was a culprit on multiple gashes up the middle, including Steveson’s big 49-yard run.
No one on the Lions’ defense can make a play when one is needed. The pass rush, while a little beat up, is non-existent. Anytime Aaron Glenn blitzes to generate pressure, a receiver is left wide open.
The Lions are stuck in a cycle which seems to have no end in sight. What Detroit really needs above all else, is someone to step up and start delivering some impact plays (Aidan Hutchinson). This defense will not survive if it can’t get notable contributions from some young core players.
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.