Larry Borom experiment fails miserably for Lions' inconsistent offensive line

The Detroit Lions made only one notable signing this offseason at offensive tackle, and it was bringing veteran Larry Borom in to compete with rookie Blake Miller to replace Taylor Decker.

Miller ended up winning the starting job out of camp, and his Week 1 debut was fairly flawless. Unfortunately, he suffered a knee injury which kept him off the field in a short turnaround situation against the Buffalo Bills in Week 2. That forced Borom into duty as capable depth option with plenty of starts under his belt.

To say Borom's experience was less than positive would be an understatement. The Lions were hoping for him to be a steady presence up front, but instead, his side of the field brought chaos, especially early in the game with Detroit needing to score in bunches to forge a comeback.

The Bills dominated Borom, specifically Greg Rousseau. He was a menace to Jared Goff most of the evening, putting up a sack and eight pressures. Essentially, he lived in Detroit's backfield, and that was due to the play of Borom, who couldn't handle him up front.

As a whole, Borom would give up two sacks on the night while also collecting three penalties. It was a putrid display at the worst possible time for a player the Lions badly needed to be steady. In the past, Detroit could count on a player like Dan Skipper coming in and giving them consistency when a tackle was hurt. This performance was the exact opposite of that.

Dan Campbell understands that his offense has been far too inconsistent early in the season, and realizes that there is an opportunity to improve, specifically with the run game and controlling the line of scrimmage.

"I think we have to be able to run the ball better than we are right now. We have to be much more efficient doing it. Our back's too good. We came into this game, we needed to be able to run it. I think there's a lot of meat on the bone there, and I do think we can get better. I feel really good about us being able to improve from here to continue to grow offensively."

The main way the Lions will improve is to get their offensive line back to health. The hope is that Miller is ready to go for Week 3, and that Christian Mahogany heals up as well. When Cade Mays comes back in a few weeks, perhaps some of those offensive opportunities can be realized due to improved protection.

Borom looking forward to finding improvements he can make on tape

Even though it was a poor debut for Borom, he wasn't planning on hanging his head afterward. As expected, the reaction to the poor start involved a commitment to watch the tape, find some fixes and take everything that happened with the proper grain of salt.

"We got the weekend, so (I'll) take time to look at it and dissect it. But that's the league. You got to move on. Good, better (or) even if I had an outstanding game, you still got to move on. You can't hang your hat on one game. You got to be able to look in the mirror, take your licks like a man and whatever happened happened and just be able to move on from it."

READ MORE: Jared Goff's noble 4 TD effort not enough to catch up to the Bills in loss

While Borom wants to see what he can do better, the reality says he has been an inconsistent player in the league during his career. If he can marginally improve upon what was a disaster, that would be the best possible outcome for the Lions when he is needed.

Safe to say this wasn't the kind of start the Lions imagined for Borom when they signed him last spring. It's clear the franchise will need Miller to be healthy and durable in 2026 most of all in order to feel good about their protection up front.

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