Everyone breathing? Good.
Let's talk about the Detroit Lions' big overtime win over the New Orleans Saints, which doesn't necessarily feel like a great win right now. Their secondary completely collapsed following two interceptions picked up on Tyler Shough, and they had to rely on a botched, attempted goal-line fade for a two-point conversion to actually walk away with a dub.
That's not ideal, or anything to celebrate, but there were still some good things to pick apart from this contest ahead of Detroit's road game in Buffalo on Thursday night...oh right, the Lions are headed to faceoff with the Bills on a shortened week after an overtime game! Fantastic.
6 takeaways from Lions' "win" in Week 1 against Saints
1. The secondary is not good
Detroit might've fooled me in the first half, not going to lie. The two interceptions they got off Shough in this contest, which helped lead the Lions to a 21-0 lead at one point, made me think that perhaps the teams' front office and coaching staff knew something that we didn't. Maybe their piecemeal secondary would actually perform in Kelvin Sheppard's scheme!
Well, that quickly turned sour. They gave up 400 passing yards to Shough, in addition to multiple deep shots from the second-year QB that helped New Orleans get back into the game and push things into overtime. They nearly won the game because the secondary couldn't stop anything in the air. It was sad to watch.
Could this be the precursor to a move from the Lions ahead of their Bills game to shore up their depth here? Probably not - this feels like an issue that'll persist until their bye week, at which time the team might decide to make a move.
2. The workload for Jahmyr Gibbs is far too much
Gibbs posted two touchdowns, 156 rushing yards, and 30 receiving yards on 29 carries and five receptions. His RB2 in this game, Sione Vaki, had two carries.
For context, last season, David Montgomery had 158 carries to Gibbs' 243, which meant they had an OK balance but with an obvious skew towards Gibbs. This season, it seems like Gibbs is going to be hovering over 250 carries this season with no relief in the backfield, barring a bounce back from Isiah Pacheco once he's healthy.
The lack of optionality from offensive coordinator Drew Petzing in this first game was concerning, to be sure. It might've had something to do with the offensive line being banged up (what's new?), so he wanted to go with as much Gibbs offense as possible to set up a handful of bigger plays from Goff.
The Lions should try to get some more involvement from Jacob Saylors, if only to ease up the work on Gibbs early in the year.
3. Jameson Williams' drops stand out again
Williams wanted to work on his drops this season after leading the league with 12 in 2025.
He had three drops on the day for the Lions, with another pass that was just deflected out of his hands by a Saints defender. He did have a timely catch from Goff in overtime which helped to set up an Amon-Ra St. Brown touchdown, but the team might not have even had to be in overtime fighting for their lives had he completed a few of those Goff targets.
No play in preseason could be a factor here.
4. Detroit's defensive line looks spry
Aidan Hutchinson had two sacks on the day, while the team had five overall. They also held the Saints to just 91 rushing yards compared to Detroit's 165. The hype around their improved and healthy D-line from preseason seems to have had some merit with the way they attempted to hold things down on defense today.
Unfortunately for them, the Lions' secondary just couldn't bail them out.
5. Special teams looks much-improved
Eric O'Neill and Tay Martin had multiple huge tackles on punts and kickoffs that helped to land the Saints deep in their own territory. Again, the teams' secondary couldn't support their efforts much in the second half, but they still deserve a ton of praise for how well they did in their respective first games for the Lions.
They combined for six tackles on the day.
Tom Kennedy also looked decent in his first start at returner for the Lions this season - he finished up with 59 yards on two kick returns, and 35 yards on three punt returns.
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