Dan Campbell invites bold idea to help recapture creativity in Lions' offense

The departure of Ben Johnson as offensive coordinator notably impacted the Detroit Lions' offense last season. While the surface numbers were still mostly good, the creativity Johnson brought to the table was largely absent.

Maybe new offensive coordinator Drew Petzing can bring some of that creative element back to the Detroit offense this year.

In terms of trick plays, there was very little Johnson was unwilling to try as he dug deeper and deeper into his bag of ideas. A lot of times it worked and of course, sometimes, it didn't. But opposing defenses learned to expect just about anything at any time, which had a domino effect on the effectiveness of simpler plays.

When NFL Network made a recent visit to Lions' training camp, head coach Dan Campbell was asked if there are any plays being drawn up for offensive tackle Penei Sewell.

"Not yet, but we will,” Campbell said. “We will. Look, he’s a versatile—I’ve said this all along—he’s a weapon. He’s a weapon. He plays on the o-line, but there’s so much he can do.”

Before he risked saying too much about any unique plans for Sewell, Campbell quickly changed the topic to the Lions' offensive line as a whole.

Lions may bring back some Penei Sewell trick plays this season

During the 2024 season in a game against the Chicago Bears, Sewell took an end-around with the clear intention of the play being for him to throw the ball. It was surely a "one-read" type of thing, to keep it simple, and when it wasn't there he kept the ball as Bears' defenders closed in.

Sewell delivered a stiff-arm that went viral on the play, which lost yardage and was counted as a sack (as if anyone cared about the lackluster end result after the stiff-arm).

Late in the 2022 season against the Minnesota Vikings, on a critical third down late in the fourth quarter no less, Sewell lined up on the left side of the formation in standing position, which should've been the first indicator to the Vikings' defense something was going on.

Then, Sewell went in motion.

READ MORE: 3 burning roster questions as Lions head towards second week of training camp

That alignment and motion may or may not have led to some people saying, "they're gonna (expletive) throw it to him!"

Sewell's situational awareness to go down in-bounds and keep the clock running, with an in-huddle reminder from Jared Goff if he needed it, was also top-notch. But the highlight was clearly having the athleticism to catch the ball and do a little something with it after.

As Sewell makes a notable move to left tackle this season, Campbell has let the cat a little bit out of the bag regarding some potential plans to re-expand the Lions' catalogue of trick plays. Time will tell what that looks like with specific regard to Sewell, if it happens, but plenty of options are on the table and we have a little bit of history for reference.

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