3 winners (and four obvious losers) for Lions in Week 2 loss to Buccaneers

Loser: Ben Johnson

The Lions' offense being so out of sync through the first two games can easily be chalked up to starters not playing in the preseason. With that in mind, Jared Goff has not been sharp and he was particularly off against the Buccaneers.

The Lions going 1-for-7 in the red zone on Sunday is easy to pin on Johnson's play-calling. Overall, the run-pass balance and overall design was as suspect as Goff's performance and was not helpful to mitigating that. With his quarterback's lackluster performance in mind, and clear to see early, Johnson had him drop back 58 times against the Buccaneers. The idea of exploiting an injury-thinned Tampa Bay secondary was sound, but there has to be adjustments made to better do so, or to run the ball more.

It was easy to dismiss it in the moment, but what an anonymous NFL executive told Mike Sando of The Athletic rings true right now.

"The exec predicting a fall for the Lions thought the league would catch up to Detroit this season. He thought no team’s offense had been studied as closely over the past two seasons as the Lions’, and that defenses would be better prepared."

“They treat third down like second down, and that was something that became very public as they went deeper,” this exec said. “Teams are going to pick up on that, and they play a tougher schedule, and there’s more (pressure) on them and we’ll see what it looks like.”

Two games is not enough to declare it outright, but maybe Johnson has been figured out. He's got some work to do.

Winner: Derrick Barnes

Barnes has been a key piece in how good the Lions' defense has been over the first two games of the season, lining up across the formation for Aaron Glenn. His role shifted against the Buccaneers, to mostly an edge defender/SAM linebacker role as he played all but three defensive snaps (45 out of 48).

We called on Barnes as someone who needed to shine against the Buccaneers. His 58.0 PFF grade may not say so, but we'll make him a winner here anyway and his role stands to become even more important as Alex Anzalone deals with a concussion.