NextGenStats credited him with 10 missed tackles forced against the Cardinals,<\/a> and it honestly felt like more. No one was getting him down on the first attempt. His 93 yards after contract was second most of any running back in Week 5, and his +2.0 rushing yards over expected per rush was sixth-best of the week.<\/p>\nPerhaps most impressively, Gibbs (and Sione Vaki) were excellent in pass protection, which helped the Lions hit on some big plays.<\/p>\n
When the Lions offense looked like they were stuck in a rut, it was Sam LaPorta who pulled them out with an impressive fourth-down catch that kept their first touchdown drive alive. Then, when Detroit was behind the sticks on a third-and-11 on the next drive, his individual effort to turn it into a fourth-and-1 was impressive. And, of course, on the very next play he did this.<\/p>\n
LaPorta finished the game by catching all five of his targets for 88 yards and a score.<\/p>\n
I thought this was also quietly one of Brock Wright\u2019s best games as a blocker, and the PFF grades seems to back that up (79.5 pass blocking, 57.1 run blocking).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s odd to see that on such a dominant day on offense, the Lions\u2019 receivers caught just eight collective passes for 116 yards and two touchdowns. Jameson Williams was obviously hugely impactful with his two touchdown catches (on two total catches), but it was a down game from Amon-Ra St. Brown. He had at least one drop, fumbled the ball twice, and just wasn\u2019t that impactful until later in the game. That said, screen passes to St. Brown were highly effective because he\u2019s such a smart, patient player who knows how to follow his blocks.<\/p>\n
The Lions\u2019 offensive line still has some problems clocking blitzes and adjusting properly\u2014which gives me quite a bit of concern for the upcoming Vikings game\u2014but they settled into this game very nicely. After allowing a sack on each of the first three drives of the game, Goff was spotless the rest of the way.<\/p>\n
The run game was a bit inconsistent, and I feel like Gibbs bailed them out quite a bit, but against a very good Cardinals run defense, they battled and wore them down. There was definitely more good than bad with the offensive line, but there is still clearly room for improvement, as well.<\/p>\n
Oddly, this felt like a bit of a down game for the defensive front, despite Detroit tallying five sacks against Jacoby Brissett. Detroit produced their lowest pressure rate of the season (27.8%) and second-fewest amount of pressures overall (15). Considering they faced 53 passing plays, they need to be better than that.<\/p>\n
However, Detroit\u2019s run defense was phenomenal on the day. They stuffed a career-high 27.8% of rushes in this game, and produced the best EPA\/rush mark of the season (-0.24). Or, in more traditional stats, 56 rushing yards and 3.1 yards per carry are stellar numbers that are actually inflated by a very late Brissett scramble for 18 yards. Without that run, Arizona managed just 38 yards on 17 carries (2.2 YPC).<\/p>\n
The linebackers deserve a lot of the credit for that improved run defense, including a much more familiar-looking Jack Campbell. The Lions\u2019 All-Pro linebacker tallied 11 tackles, including four defensive stops.<\/p>\n
Most impressive, though, was this unit\u2019s coverage against the Cardinals. It certainly wasn\u2019t perfect, but when lined up in man-coverage against a pair of very talented Cardinals tight ends, Detroit held their own. Both Campbell and Malcolm Rodriguez were forcing Trey McBride and Elijah Higgins to make seriously contested catches, which was a relieving sight after how much Detroit has struggled against tight ends this year.<\/p>\n
Well, well, well. It seems the Lions\u2019 cornerbacks can actually cover. Roger McCreary posted a franchise-best six pass breakups against the Cardinals on a whopping 18 targets. D.J. Reed may have even been better. Although he managed just one pass breakup, he also allowed just 30 yards in seven targets. Both players were absolute forces in the run game, as well. Reed produced three tackles for loss, and both players ranked in the top 15 in run defense grades for cornerbacks this week (Reed: 74.7, 14th; McCreary: 79.6, fifth).<\/p>\n
Keith Abney seemed to provide some stability at safety, even if he didn\u2019t make too many plays (was only targeted three times). But there are still too many blown coverages by this unit.<\/p>\n
It was a step in the right direction, but Detroit\u2019s defensive backs need to continue to improve if they want to compete against better offenses.<\/p>\n
Just a stellar day from Dave Fipp\u2019s crew. Detroit\u2019s punt return game averaged 17.3 yards per return, with three of their four plays going for at least 10 yards. Kick return was solid with a 27.3 average on four Jacob Saylors attempts. And the coverage teams were outstanding, as well.<\/p>\n
Throw in another perfect day from Jake Bates, a late pinning by Jack Fox, and it\u2019s hard to complain about literally anything from this group outside of St. Brown\u2019s fumble.<\/p>\n
It sure sounds like Dan Campbell and company really lit into the Lions player this week at practice<\/a>, and it was nice to see them respond to it on the field\u2014albeit about a quarter late. The slow starts are certainly concerning, but hard to pinpoint on what exactly is going wrong.<\/p>\nBut Detroit made some very logical coaching decision throughout the week that made sense. The move to more man coverage was something that I was calling for given the front-four\u2019s success at generating pressure on their own.<\/p>\n
They also deserve credit for putting Abney\u2019s rangy athleticism at the safety position, and benching Christian Izien\u2019s too-inconsistent play.<\/p>\n
Throw in some great passing design plays, and Dan Campbell\u2019s invaluable aggression (three fourth-down touchdowns), and I thought this was a much-needed, well-coached game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Lions got back on track on Sunday afternoon with their most complete win of the season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1026306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[449,1262,7,6],"class_list":["post-1026305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-analysis","tag-detroit-lions-opinion","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117432940227792314","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1026306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}