Pride of Detroit
In Week 9, the Detroit Lions (5-3) lost 27-24 to the Minnesota Vikings (4-4), a disappointing showing after coming off their bye week. Let’s take a look at this week’s snap counts to see how the Lions adjusted their personnel for the Vikings game.
This is one of those games where the box score can be misleading, as Goff’s statistical performance was solid, but his on-field performance looked rushed and full of poor decisions.
The Lions leaned on Gibbs in this game, and it was arguably the worst of his NFL career. Statistically, it was his third-worst career rushing performance, but with his increased role and responsibilities, both he and the Lions are surely disappointed. Montgomery and Gibbs were on the field at the same time twice in this game, but neither play worked out well for the Lions’ offense.
This snap distribution did not change during the bye, with the Lions heavily favoring their top two options and rookie TeSlaa still not quite ready to challenge Raymond for WR3 duties.
For the first time this season, LaPorta played every offensive snap. He’s been slowly increasing his usage over the last month and a half, seeing his snap count percentage rise each week from 83.8% in Week 3 to 100% in Week 9. Wright’s snaps are right around where he’s been over the last month of football, while Dwelley failed to see the field on offense for the first time since his signing.
What a mess. Four of the Lions’ starting offensive linemen were injured in this game, with center Graham Glasgow being the only OL to go unscathed. Sewell also played 100% of offensive snaps, but he exited to the locker room between offensive series and managed not to miss a rep.
Decker missed 10 snaps and was replaced by Skipper, who also saw an additional four snaps as a sixth offensive lineman in big sets. Ratledge missed five snaps and was replaced by Awosika, but...
