Pride of Detroit
When the lights shine big, you want your best players to come alive, and that’s exactly what happened on Thursday night. With playoff chances on the line, Jared Goff, Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jahmyr Gibbs, David Montogmery, and Jameson Williams led the Detroit Lions to a statement win over the Dallas Cowboys.
Let’s dig into the performance with our Week 14 Detroit Lions report card.
The Detroit Lions leaned into their passing game against the Cowboys, and Jared Goff made sure that was the right strategic move. Goff was electric against the Cowboys, averaging +0.40 EPA/dropback (third best of the season), +6.5% completion percentage over expected (sixth), all while taking just a single sack. He was accurate, decisive, and avoided any negative plays.
While Jahmyr Gibbs couldn’t produce much in the running game (12 rushes, 43 yards… well, and three touchdowns), he was unstoppable with the ball in his hands as a receiver. And according to NextGenStats, he produced NINE missed tackles—tying his high for the season despite only having 19 touches.
David Montgomery, on the other hand, was very productive on the ground, takings his six carries for 60 yards and a score. This was a throwback Sonic and Knuckles performance, and it had been too long.
Anthony Firkser and Ross Dwelley each hauled in a catch, but only for a combined 11 yards. It was the second straight week this unit was called for illegal formation, and while I can’t guarantee it was their fault, those are two players who are new to the offense.
Still, I didn’t notice many issues from this group on live viewing when it came to blocking, so I’ll give them an average grade this week.
This should go down as one of Amon-Ra St. Brown’s most iconic performances, despite a relatively pedestrian statline (six catches, 92 yards). For him to even play in this game feels miraculous given the initial predictions of him missing at least 1-2 games. Instead, he looked like himself all night and had a couple of huge catches, including a 37-yard crossing route that essentially clinched the game.
This was also one of Jameson Williams’ best games in his career. He showed off the complete route tree against the Cowboys and made a couple of nice grabs on contested catches near the sidelines. While he lacked his signature explosive play (long of 29 yards), he converted a
Getting them out of behind-the-sticks situations proved to be huge on Thursday to extend drives and turn field goal opportunities into touchdowns.
And all Isaac TeSlaa does is catch tuddies. Eight catches, four touchdowns in his rookie season.
It was a rough start for the offensive line, as they gave up five quarterback hits and one sack in the first quarter alone. But for the rest of the game, Detroit only allowed three quarterback hits and zero...
