.png)
By Chris Burke and Nick Baumgardner Oct 26, 2020
There’s
an old saying in baseball, reserved for check-swing singles or 400-foot
fly-ball outs: “They all look the same in the scorebook.” It applies to wins
and losses, too, across all sports. Did the Lions catch a huge break late in
Sunday’s 23-22 escape at Atlanta? Absolutely. Does it make the win count for
any less in the standings? Nope.
No matter how it happened, Detroit has clawed its way back to
.500 at 3-3, matching its win total from a season ago. Ten observations off a
wild Week 7 game:
1. The past two opponents have been far from dynamic rushers,
but the Lions’ adjustments after the bye week continue to help. Moreover,
the Lions are starting to get more consistent physicality at the line of
scrimmage from their rotations up front. John Penisini has been able to help
set more of a tone early, as he did Sunday in a package with Danny Shelton and
Nick Williams. This might have been Da’Shawn Hand’s best game from a
run-defense perspective.
Detroit is no longer asking its middle linebacker to two-gap the
center as much, and while the Lions went with more odd fronts again vs. Atlanta
after sprinkling in some last week against Jacksonville, the fight at the point
of attack felt better. Atlanta has rushed for more yards this season than New
Orleans, for whatever it’s worth. The Lions allowed just 66 yards on 26
carries. It wasn’t perfect. It got worse as the game wore on. The tackling
still comes and goes.
But most important: The Lions are forcing teams to earn what
they get. Just do that. Against Green Bay and New Orleans, Detroit’s schemes
and disorganization resulted in far too many free yards. The last two weeks
have been better. — Nick Baumgardner
2. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said last
week that the next steps for T.J. Hockenson — how the second-year tight end
could earn a bigger share of the passing attack — were “to continue to gain
some separation and kind of come through with some big plays for us.”
Check and check on those notes.
Obviously, Hockenson had the game’s biggest catch on the final play
from scrimmage. All told, though, he finished with five grabs for 59 yards and
that TD, which put him back in line with his Weeks 1-3 performances
(4.3 receptions, 57 yards on average). Better yet, ahead of the Monday night game, here are the
players who created more separation on their targets in Week 7, per Next Gen
Stats
- Deebo
Samuel, 49ers (7.0 yards)
- Evan
Engram, Giants (5.2 yards)
- Christian
Kirk, Cardinals (5.1 yards)
That’s it. That’s the whole list. Hockenson checked in at 5.0, matching
Seattle’s D.K. Metcalf, Carolina’s Curtis Samuel and Atlanta tight end Hayden
Hurst. It marked a big jump from performances like he had in, for example, Week
6 (3.5 average yards of separation) or Week 3 (2.3).
Those numbers can be juiced
a bit — Hockenson’s final grab, on Detroit’s final drive, featured a sizable
cushion as Atlanta tried to prevent anything deep. They also can look more
impressive when a defense plays a lot of zone, as the Falcons appeared to do
Sunday. Still, pass catchers have to find the space within those zones.
Bevell’s critique of
Hockenson was a bit of self-scouting, too. The Lions have to keep working to
help get Hockenson open, be it via alignment or motion.
His catches Sunday spread the field, sideline to sideline. That’s a
good sign. — Chris Burke
3. The injuries to Desmond
Trufant and Justin Coleman have heaped so much work on Amani Oruwariye and Jeff
Okudah. There have been some hair-pulling moments of frustration on the
back end, but you can already see what extra time is doing for Oruwariye’s
growth. And while it doesn’t seem like it as much on the surface right now,
this should help Okudah so much as he goes forward.
Okudah’s far from a finished
product and is still struggling in certain spots. But he’s improved each week.
He does need to trust himself more, though. He got flagged for defensive pass
interference Sunday on a route that he covered perfectly. He shoved a receiver
at the last second and didn’t have to. If he trusts his technique there and
doesn’t panic, it’s a pass breakup or an incompletion.
We’ve seen this a few times
from Okudah, but he has to continue to find ways to build his confidence. Oruwariye,
meantime, was a bit more up-and-down Sunday. But he’s still growing, too.
Getting one of Trufant or Coleman back should help at corner. But Oruwariye and
Okudah still need more reps, as there’s plenty of growth potential with each.
— Baumgardner
4. Matthew Stafford had been
fine through the Lions’ five games, but the passing attack as a whole was
struggling to attack two key areas: downfield and between the hash marks. Then,
Sunday, this:
The Falcons gave Stafford a
handful of those throws, on Detroit’s drives at the end of the first half and
end of the game. But the Lions’ QB also looked a lot more like his old self in
his willingness to attack tight windows. That was especially true with Kenny
Golladay, at all levels, and with Marvin Jones, across the middle.
“It felt like everybody had
50 yards at least,” Stafford said. “Everybody was involved. Still some plays
out there I wish we could have back, but from a pass-game standpoint, it felt
good.”
With just Monday night’s
game left, Stafford sits atop the Week 7 leaderboard in average completed air
yards (per Next Gen Stats) — how far downfield his throws traveled before
reaching their receivers. He clocked in at 9.8 yards Sunday, at least a full
yard out in front of every other quarterback, save for Carson Wentz (9.3).
It’s a massive uptick from
Stafford’s first five games: 7.1, 5.5, 5.1, 7.5 and 6.1. The Lions’ late-game
desperation offers some of the explanation, of course, but not all of it.
According to that chart above, Stafford hit on 13 of 15 throws beyond 10 yards,
and on all seven of his attempts of 10-plus yards between the hash marks.
— Burke
5. Halapoulivaati Vaitai can
be really impressive in the ground game, when he’s fresh. He’s
big, powerful and bends pretty well for someone with that frame. A lot of power
both in his base and upper body. Vaitai still has the occasional swing and miss
in the run game. But when he engages, it can be impressive.
Health has been an issue up
front all year. As this game got longer, Vaitai’s effectiveness at the point of
attack seemed to wear off. He wasn’t alone there either, but it felt far less
dominant. He’s had a foot injury to work through. He was dehydrated last week
in Jacksonville. It’s hard to say where his health is at right now, but it’s
probably not 100 percent.
So, now, the question.
If/when Joe Dahl is ready to come back, do the Lions push Vaitai out to tackle
and essentially replace Tyrell Crosby with Dahl? Tough call. Crosby has been
up-and-down, too. Both he and Vaitai allowed a pair of pressures last week. The
Lions’ offensive line is fighting through injuries right now, but it’s still
fighting. — Baumgardner
6. Where would this Lions
pass rush be without Romeo Okwara? He had both of his
team’s sacks in Atlanta, including the forced fumble that helped Detroit to a
16-14, fourth-quarter lead. He also accounted for half of the Lions’ six QB
hits, he’s leading them in QB pressures for 2020 (10) and he’s already halfway
to his career high of 7.5 sacks for the season.
“I think Romeo has been
unbelievable,” Matt Patricia said. “Really, he and Trey Flowers are two guys
that come to work every single day and they make each other better.”
Flowers, by the way, is
playing at an extremely high level right now, across the board — see: the
fourth-down pass break-up he had while dropping into zone coverage Sunday. But
Patricia trusts both in all situations, which is more of a revelatory statement
on Okwara, whose exact role this season was uncertain headed into training
camp. He’s only logged one official start (New Orleans), but he’s playing
upward of 60 percent of the defensive snaps.
Under-the-radar example of Okwara’s impact: On multiple
occasions Sunday, Atlanta QB Matt Ryan ran a play-action and bootlegged to his
right … only to find Okwara waiting for him, having read the misdirection. Ryan
threw at least two incompletions off those setups. — Burke
7. It feels like this has to
stay as close to situational as possible. But
when Jarrad Davis comes in as a third-down bull-rusher — preferably up the
middle against a running back — the Lions’ pass rush basically doubles in
effectiveness. Davis had two quarterback hits in this game, both at critical
times.
The Lions have started to
carve out more of a specialty rush role for him the past few weeks and when
he’s been able to focus on that and little else, Davis has been effective. Same
time, Detroit also had him on the field for non-rush reps last week and things
were — as they have been the last few years — inconsistent. He can’t be trusted
much in coverage and his dependability as a tackler against the run is just too
hit-or-miss right now.
If he can pick up the rest of his game as he focuses on pinning
his ears back and causing havoc in the backfield, the Lions can absolutely use
Davis as a complementary piece the rest of the season. — Baumgardner
8. OK, it can’t all be fun
and games. The Lions were at the absolute brink against a 1-5 team
under an interim coach, so a few things went wrong before the Stafford-led,
late-game miracle.
Atop the list: Detroit’s
continued insistence on force-feeding Adrian Peterson, especially in
short-yardage spots. Were it not for the offense’s heroics on the final drive,
it would’ve been easy to point way back to a fourth-and-1 attempt from the
Atlanta 3 — Stafford under center, Jones motioning across, Peterson as the
single back for a telegraphed run. The Falcons stuffed Peterson in a similar
situation (third-and-1) in the fourth quarter, only for a
too-many-men-on-the-field-penalty to save Detroit.
Plain and simple, the
offense is more predictable with Peterson on the field, especially in those
likely run situations.
That’s certainly not all on
Peterson, either. The Lions left Dante Fowler unblocked on the fourth-down try,
expecting Jones’ motion to hold him — it didn’t. Multiple Falcons came crashing
through the B-gap on third down, as Jonah Jackson lost his balance. But when
the Lions have between 1 and 3 yards to go, Peterson is converting about 54.5
percent of his carries; Swift is at 62.5 percent. The rookie has a much smaller
sample, but he’s shown he can be effective in those spots.
And his presence alone
forces opposing defenses into different looks and personnel, because they have
to account for him as a receiving threat. The Lions still need to be
able to run in short yardage. There’s no rule, though, that says they have to go
with heavy looks and a bigger back when they do. — Burke
9. The coverage mixing felt
pretty darn close to even in terms of man vs. zone. The
Lions really had Ryan crossed up early in this game. Atlanta was clearly
expecting man in a few situations where the Lions surprised them with zone
looks.
The Lions are also mixing up
some of their standard man-free looks as well. On one third down early in the
game, Detroit showed two deep safeties only to roll into man coverage with a
robber in the hole just before the snap. Ryan was late to adjust and there was
nowhere to go with the ball. Eventually, though, adjustments were made. The
Falcons started to find underneath stuff in the middle of the field, yards the
Lions were going to give them so long as they weren’t allowing deep shots.
And while the overall
discipline with regard to technique in coverage is still, at times, suspect —
again, defensive coordinator Cory Undlin has done a better job of giving the
team a chance the last two weeks. They’re not as predictable. Sometimes the
call gets beat, but that’s football. When the same call gets beat over and over
again and it keeps coming back — that’s problematic. Undlin and Patricia have
started to settle in with what this group can and can’t do, and they’re finding
ways to keep the team alive. — Baumgardner
10. Big-time bounce back
performance by Jones, who caught five passes for 80 yards. Four
of those receptions moved the chains. This was much more reminiscent of the
Jones we’ve come to expect, and the Jones who was on display during training
camp: a still-exceptional physical specimen with the body control and
positioning to make difficult catches.
What did look different
Sunday was how he made those grabs — as mentioned before, several came over the
middle of the field. Too often in previous outings, the Lions allowed opposing
defenses to take Jones out of the mix simply by draping deep safety coverage
over top of him. Against the Falcons, Bevell utilized his veteran receiver
instead as a zone-busting weapon between the second and third levels. (The
Falcons employed a similar tactic with Julio Jones as the game progressed.)
The resulting 80-yard
performance was Jones’ best since Week 9 in Oakland last year, Stafford’s final
game of 2019. — Burke
(Photo:
Dale Zanine / USA Today)
