Allen Park — Here are six thoughts to end the week as the Detroit Lions prepare to play their home opener against the Chicago Bears.
A second look
It’s incredible how much doubling a sample size can revise our perceptions.
For all the post-mortem dissection performed on Detroit’s offensive performance last Sunday, clearly not enough credit was given to the Green Bay Packers defense.
Four days after shutting down Detroit's potent attack — sparking a post-Ben Johnson hysteria on social media and talk radio — the Packers showcased a repeatable defensive formula on Thursday Night Football, neutralizing a Commanders team that averaged 28.5 points in 2024, while forcing ultra-talented quarterback Jayden Daniels into the checkdown machine, much like Jared Goff over the weekend.
The final stats for Detroit and Washington are strikingly similar. Detroit put up 245 yards, achieved 16 first downs and scored 13 points. Washington finished with 230 yards, 15 first downs and 18 points. The Commanders also averaged fewer yards on the ground, despite having one of the game’s premier run threats under center.
Yes, Washington scored more than the Lions, but that would be a disingenuous takeaway. Most of Thursday’s production came in the fourth quarter, including 58% of the team’s yardage and 15 of the 18 points. The seven possessions before the final frame? They gained an average of 12 yards and maxxed out with a nine-play, 37-yard drive that ended in their only other points.
Contrast that against the Lions, who had drives of 78, 55 and 59 yards on three of their first five possessions. Doesn’t change the fact that the Lions didn’t capitalize on those opportunities, but at least they had them.
Green Bay’s defensive domination in these two games is six of one, half-dozen of another. They executed their game plan to near perfection. Admittedly, a two-game sample size isn’t all that much better for evaluation than one. However, it’s quickly becoming clear that the addition of Micah Parsons is game-changing, elevating a good scheme to great.
It was reasonable to reject the Packers as NFC North favorites in the immediate aftermath of the Parsons trade. However, with an immediate 1.5-game lead on the Lions, plus the tie-breaker, they’ve earned their pole position.
Shifting focus
Part of the week’s autopsy was the relentless search for what was different between offensive coordinator John Morton’s game-planning and play-calling debut, compared to Johnson’s approach over the past few seasons.
The most obvious change is that the retooled offensive line didn’t perform to the standard we’ve come to expect. And if that doesn’t get corrected quickly, nothing else is going to matter all that much.
Another big takeaway, even though the metrics are all over the map depending on the service being referenced, is that the Lions used fewer pre-snap shifts and motions.
Watching the film of the game, I didn’t have that initial reaction. And there are numbers to back my perceptions, coming via NFL Pro, the league’s official stat tracking. According to their data, the Lions used motion on 41 of 67 offensive snaps (61.2%). That ranked in the top half of the league.
What’s interesting is that the Lions used motion more last Sunday than they used in Green Bay last season. Additionally, the Lions used it more than the Chicago Bears did in their first game under Johnson, according to the same data provider.
Also, and maybe I’m oversimplifying things here, but I've always viewed the primary purpose of motion as identifying whether your opponent is in man or zone. And while every team mixes it up, it’s pretty well established that the Packers heavily favor zone. Rewatch the game and you’ll see minimal defensive movement to match Detroit’s motions.
Now, there’s also the concept of during-snap motion, where an offensive player is moving as the ball is snapped. That’s become increasingly popular in recent years, thanks in large part to Mike McDaniel's early success in Miami. (Maybe don't look at what the Dolphins are doing now.)
While NFL Pro doesn’t track during-snap motion data, other services show a sharp decline in Detroit’s usage of the strategy in Week 1.
It’s certainly an interesting observation, but there are too many variables at play to react. How much of this is being on the road, as coach Dan Campbell suggested? Was it opponent-based? Or was it stripping a layer of complexity to start the season?
At least some of the
data provided by Yahoo’s Matt Harmon point to this being a potential Morton trend, trickling down from mentors Jon Gruden and Sean Payton. That doesn’t make it inherently bad, just different.
Of course, if Detroit's offense does fall off significantly from a year ago, we can expect it to be a parroted talking point as a key reason for the slippage.
Former coordinator advantage
Heading into Sunday’s game with Chicago, there’s a debate about which coaching staff holds an edge based on familiarity. In his Monday press conference, Campbell mused that the sides were on even ground.
However, I’d give the edge to Johnson, and I’m going to repeat an uncomfortable parallel I drew in this week’s podcast.
In Matt Patricia’s first season in Detroit, the Lions welcomed the coach’s former team, New England, to Ford Field for a Week 3 match.
The Patriots were coming off a Super Bowl appearance. They would also go on to win the Super Bowl that season. Still, in a rare bright spot from the Patricia era, the coach dialed up a game plan that frustrated legendary quarterback Tom Brady. He finished with 133 yards and an interception in the 26-10 loss.
Obviously, the situations have differences, but I think the biggest advantage Chicago has coming into this game is Johnson’s intimate knowledge of Jared Goff’s strengths and weaknesses. And while he’ll be passing that information along to coordinator Dennis Allen as opposed to crafting the defensive game plan himself, like Patricia likely did ahead of that New England matchup, it’ll still be something to monitor.
Johnson has spent the past three years seeing the game through Goff’s eyes. How the coach uses that against his former pupil will be the game inside the game to watch on Sunday.
Waiting on that next step
Brace yourself for another sample size conversation, and one potentially influenced by an ankle injury. Regardless, I’m getting impatient waiting for linebacker Jack Campbell to take the next step.
Let me start by acknowledging what Campbell does well. He’s exceptional coming downhill, processing his keys and destroying ball carriers in the ground game, paired with the range to seek and destroy screens and throws to the flat. Plus, he offers top-notch reliability as a tackler.
Without question, there’s tremendous value in that skill set combination.
That said, Campbell was selected in the first round of the draft because he has the size and athleticism to be one of the game’s elite all-around players at his position. Well, he hasn’t taken the steps forward in the other aspects of his role to merit entry into that conversation.
First, Campbell’s coverage continues to lag behind his impact in the run game. While he posted elite speed, explosion and change-of-direction metrics during the pre-draft process, he lacks fluidity when flipping his hips in man-to-man coverage, making him susceptible to vertical patterns. That showed up multiple times against the Packers, including getting beaten on a wheel route where the ball was overthrown. There was also the game’s opening touchdown, where Campbell was out of position, desperately grabbing at tight end Tucker Kraft as he ran by on a skinny post into the end zone.
Then there’s Campbell’s inability to affect the pocket as a pass rusher, whether off the line of scrimmage or blitzing off the ball. To the Lions’ credit, they abandoned a lot of his edge alignments after it wasn’t working during his rookie campaign. Regardless, Campbell was sent after the quarterback 125 times last season and generated just 1.5 sacks and 13 total pressures.
Against the Packers on Sunday, it was more of the same, with five blitzes and zero pressures. Campbell looked hesitant as he reached the line, potentially being hyper-vigilant against allowing Jordan Love a scramble lane. Still, if you’re not going to sacrifice affecting the pocket, while taking away a body from coverage, what’s the point?
Based on the way he plays the run, you expect blitzing to come naturally to Campbell. It hasn’t. And, really, that goes to all of Detroit’s linebackers. Outside of career-best production from Anzalone in 2022, which can be classified as an anomaly, the group hasn’t been effective with the assignments, something defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard acknowledged needs to be better this week.
It’s something to stay on top of as the season progresses. With Anzalone’s contract set to expire, and Detroit showing no urgency to extend the 30-year-old captain, targeting a linebacker with blitz ability might be a worthwhile conversation ahead of next year’s draft. It’s not like Sheppard is going to be dialing his aggressive tendencies back any time soon.
