Player Spotlight: Jon Kitna (1 Viewer)

[Maurile Tremblay]

Assuming he stays healthy:319 completions, 537 attempts, 3489 yards, 20 TDs, 20 INTs / 43 rushes, 126 yards, 1.7 TDs

Why so low on pass attempts? Even when Kevin Jones was healthy the Lions did not run the ball very much.Will Duckett and Bell cause the Lions offense to be more balanced than last year?

I don't think 537 attempts is that low. The average NFL team last year had 512 pass attempts.The Lions ran the ball on a league-low 33.7% of their offensive plays last year. That is anomalous. The second-lowest team in the league was at 40.5%. The average team ran 46.8% of the time.I'm projecting the Lions to run the ball 42% of the time this year. With 927 projected offensive plays (not including sacks), that gives them 537 pass attempts.This is my first draft of projections. I could be persuaded to move the Lions' run percentage back down to about 40%, which would give them more pass attempts. It's hard for me to see myself going lower than 40%, though.

 

[hutchins929]

Assuming he stays healthy:

319 completions, 537 attempts, 3489 yards, 20 TDs, 20 INTs / 43 rushes, 126 yards, 1.7 TDs

Why so low on pass attempts? Even when Kevin Jones was healthy the Lions did not run the ball very much.Will Duckett and Bell cause the Lions offense to be more balanced than last year?

I don't think 537 attempts is low. The average NFL team last year had 512 pass attempts.The Lions ran the ball on a league-low 33.7% of their offensive plays last year. That is anomalous. The second-lowest in the league was 40.5%. The average team ran 46.8% of the time.

I'm projecting the Lions to run the ball 42% of the time this year. With 927 projected offensive plays, that gives them 537 pass attempts.

Not only that but KJ had 61 receptions last year in 12 games

 

[Biabreakable]

Last year with Martz as the offensive coordinator the Lions had 901 total offensive plays. They were 2nd in the league in pass attempts with 597 dead last in rushing attempts with 304. This is the only semi-reliable data for use in patterns for the Lions offense moving forward as there were many changes in 2006 from previous years with Martz/Marinelli coaching staff, new QB and new game plans on both sides of the ball.In 2005 the Lions had 924 total plays. The Lions have been on the low end of the spectrum of total offensive plays for quite some time now. A product of ineffective offense and poor defense. 520 pass attempts 404 rushing attempts is much more balanced but this was with Mooch as HC. Martz runs the offense much differently.The Lions total offensive plays are likely to be low again as the defense has not improved significantly enough to give the offense more opportunities. However as I stated before with my Kitna projections I see the Lions offense having more problems defending the pass than it has in defending the run.2006 Lions defense:

|---------- PASSING -----------||----- RUSHING -----| TOTAL CMP ATT YD YPA TD INT ATT YD YPA TD YD 339 510 3721 7.30 22 12 492 2010 4.09 18 5731NFL rank ---> 30 14 24 27 22 27 27 21 15 27 27

Key things to look at here is the high (low for defense) rank of completions for opposing offenses in the passing game against them and also the very high yards/attempt for opposing QBs against them. The Lions defenses give up easy completions in the passing game and a lot of big plays that helps opposing offenses score. The Lions offense will lose plays and TOP to opposing teams that get a lead. However the big plays through the passing game given up should even this out somewhat especialy if the Lions passing game is better than last year which I expect it to be. This will lead to more high scoring games and less ball control by opposing offenses.I am not done with Detroit team projections yet and I am bringing this up more for discussion rather than myself having come to any conclushion about it. However I am leaning towards the Lions offense having more total plays in 2007 than they have been averaging over the past 3 seasons due to increased effectivness of thier offense in year 2 under Martz combined with slightly more effective defense in year 2 of the cover 2 under Marinelli. I think most of the defensive improvement (which I expect to be modest) will be against the run based off of scheme and personel changes. I still see the Lions defense being weaker against the pass than the run which will lead to shorter drives by opposing offenses thus giving the Lions offense more total plays. The vast majority of the Lions offensive plays will continue to be passing plays due to Martz philosophy and the Lions personel on offense.ETA- Lions have averaged 913 total offensive plays over the last 3 years. The lowest of the past 3 years was last year with 901 and the Lions had about 100 less total rushing attempts in 2006 than they averaged in 2005 and 2004. While the run/pass distribution is somthing I expect to continue under Martz I do expect more total plays from the Lions offense than thier low point last year of 901. I have not made a determination on what thier total plays will be yet at this point. Somthing I am trying to figure out and I welcome feedback on what others expect to see on this.ETA2- NFL teams in 2006 averaged 999.96875 total plays. These total plays include sacks which are not counted as a pass attempt. So the Lions who gave up 63 sacks in 2006 actualy had 963 total offensive plays but only 900 (according to NFL.com) or 901 (according to pro-football-reference) are counted as pass attempts/rush attempts. Detroit had TOP 27:41 per game.

 

[Bob Magaw]

There will be at least 8 games, if not more, were the Lions are going to struggle to run the football. Apologies to Bell & Duckett, but I have seen that movie a few times and it is not that good.

everybody dies in the end...* BTW, in response to point made elsewhere upthread, not sure if we can infer from the fact that orlovsky didn't get a lot of reps after the team was eliminated from the playoffs that stanton won't either... orlovsky may not have been viewed as the QB of the future... stanton clearly is... that could be a big difference...

 

[David Yudkin]

Assuming he stays healthy:319 completions, 537 attempts, 3489 yards, 20 TDs, 20 INTs / 43 rushes, 126 yards, 1.7 TDs

Why so low on pass attempts? Even when Kevin Jones was healthy the Lions did not run the ball very much.Will Duckett and Bell cause the Lions offense to be more balanced than last year?

I don't think 537 attempts is that low. The average NFL team last year had 512 pass attempts.The Lions ran the ball on a league-low 33.7% of their offensive plays last year. That is anomalous. The second-lowest team in the league was at 40.5%. The average team ran 46.8% of the time.I'm projecting the Lions to run the ball 42% of the time this year. With 927 projected offensive plays (not including sacks), that gives them 537 pass attempts.This is my first draft of projections. I could be persuaded to move the Lions' run percentage back down to about 40%, which would give them more pass attempts. It's hard for me to see myself going lower than 40%, though.

Comparing a Martz-coached offense to the league average seems a little misguided to me. Martz-led offenses have regularly had extreme pass:run ratios and I don't see that changing much (if at all) this season.I've seen quotes this off season indicating that the Lions could only use about 50% of the Martz playbook last year because they did not have the right personnel to run everything. Given the people they've added, apparently they will be able to implement a lot more of the playbook.IIRC, Martz-coached teams have not had a season under 550 passing attempts and usually fell in the 575-600 range (just like last year). The one time they did not was the year they went 14-2 and lost to the Pats. I don't see the Lions suddenly being the class of the league, so I again see them passing pretty frequently. With more RB options this year they may be able to total more rushing attempts but that may not equate to fewer passing attempts as they may be able to keep the ball longer. They barely hit 900 offensive plays last season which seems really low.