The Detroit Lions wasted a defensive performance for the ages on Sunday night in Philadelphia.
They allowed just one touchdown the whole night, forced seven punts, held the Eagles to 3.7 yards per carry, and kept a lid on Philly’s star wideout duo of A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith.
But for as good of an effort as it was, it was ultimately all for naught.
That’s because Detroit’s offense, by quite the contrary, was anemic all night. Jared Goff was inaccurate and uncomfortable. The Lions rushed for just 74 yards on 21 carries. Amon-Ra St. Brown caught two of 12 targets.
And maybe the most damning stats of all? Detroit was 3-of-13 on third down and a dreadful 0-for-5 on fourth downs.
This Lions team under Dan Campbell has made aggressiveness on fourth downs a key part of its identity. He’s earned a reputation as one of the NFL’s boldest decision-makers, a coach who believes in his offense to get the job done and is often rewarded for that faith.
But on a windy, nippy night in Philadelphia, the Lions’ offense failed its defense time after time.
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In a low-scoring affair where field position was paramount, Detroit kept putting the defense in bad positions. The Eagles started their first drive in the red zone after an interception. They had two more possessions begin in Detroit territory following turnovers on downs. And the defense didn’t allow a touchdown on any of those drives.
“That’s just our mentality right there,” defensive tackle Alim McNeill said. “I don’t care if you put the ball at the 1-yard line, let’s stop it. Let’s put this fire out.”
The Lions defense had their fire hats on all night. They denied the infamous tush-push multiple times and held Philadelphia to just one red-zone touchdown on three trips.
“I thought they showed up, played championship-style defense,” Campbell said. “They had to put out a number of fires there between the takeaways and the fourth-down stops.”
This game was something of a flipped script from Detroit’s situation last year. That team, with its defense ravaged by injuries, had to rely increasingly on its offense to win them games as the list of inactives on the other side piled up.
The Lions did much of the same in 2022, when their defense allowed the most yards in the NFL. But these days, Detroit is third-best in the NFL in that category.
So it begs the question— is this kind of aggressiveness still even warranted?
“That’s just kind of who we are,” Jared Goff said. “When it doesn’t work, it’s going to get questioned by you guys and when it works, it’s going to get praised by you guys and it didn’t work today. I understand the question, but part of me says once you commit to it, you have to keep doing it.”
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Do they have to keep doing it this much?
The Lions pride themselves on their penchant for taking matters into their own hands as an offense. They’ve got plenty of talent and have been an elite unit for years now. The confidence is understandable. But when your defense is playing this kind of lights-out football, it should lower the pressure on the offense to take big chances on fourth downs— not keep it the same.
“Where you’re playing that kind of defense [Philadelphia], that kind of team, the margin for error is so small, man,” Campbell said. “We get in the red zone, we have to score touchdowns, man. We can’t come away not scoring seven there. We have to convert at least two or three of those fourth downs. You have to, and we were a little off.”
Those are words that would’ve definitely rung true this time last year, with Detroit having to sign people off the street just to field a starting defense. But when you’ve held the defending Super Bowl champs to 16 points at home? Not so much. You can afford to be a bit more conservative.
Last year, the Lions had a top-flight offense and a dream season that was ultimately derailed by an ineffective, albeit injury-laden defense. But this year, if Campbell can’t get the offense rolling and his trademark aggressiveness continues to hurt the team instead of taking it to new heights, we could be looking at the inverse.
Things are getting smoky in Detroit. This next stretch of the regular season will go a long way in determining if they can keep the season from going up in flames.