Windy City Gridiron
The Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions are both in a tough spot. After each team dropped their season opener to a division rival, they both find themselves at 0-1, and one of these teams will wake up Monday morning staring at a 0-2 next to their name.
To get you ready for what is a critical early-season matchup, we sat down with Ryan Mathews from Pride of Detroit (SB Nation’s Detroit Lions site) to get the scoop on the Lions. If you want to read Ryan’s questions for me, you can do so here.
1. Let’s start with Ben Johnson. After watching Johnson work over the last three years, what are your expectations for him as a head coach? Do you feel his offense will translate with new personnel? Do you think Johnson has what it takes to do all the other aspects of leading a team that head coaches must do?
Without being in the locker room, it’s hard to say with any conviction whether or not I believe in Johnson’s ability to command and lead a group of men. From an X’s and O’s standpoint, Johnson is clearly a creative guy who does a lot of what it takes to be successful in today’s NFL. He employs both zone and gap concepts in the run game, uses a ton of pre-snap motion, and knows how to take advantage of weaknesses in a defense. Resurrecting and rehabilitating Jared Goff’s career is–and forever will be–at the tippy-top of his list of accomplishments in his career.
Personally, I’m most interested to see how he builds an offense around the unique skillset of a guy like Williams–and by “unique,” I mean a guy who is the athletic antithesis of Goff.
2. Let’s look at the Detroit side of the Ben Johnson loss and get your thoughts on the new offensive coordinator, John Morton. After a poor showing in week one, Lions fans (at least online) were livid with Morton’s game plan and play calling. What were your thoughts on Morton’s week one performance, and how do you think he will perform moving forward?
It wasn’t a great start to the Morton era in Week 1, but more than anything else, the missed assignments are what stood out to me. Those mistakes were the first thing Dan Campbell pointed out after the game, and he was quick to label them as “so correctable.” Those missed assignments could boil down to a number of things, and there’s room for blame to be passed around to players for failing to execute and the coaches not having players prepared for the moment. But with the sheer talent the Lions have on the offensive side of the ball, it’s a lot less concerning than the loud people on social media are making it out to be.
Ultimately, the offense was held back by a failure to communicate. Some of it was admittedly on Goff, some of it was the offensive line not all being on the...
