Pride of Detroit
The Detroit Lions had a wonderful defensive game plan against the Philadelphia Eagles in week 11, but unfortunately, their offensive decision-making and execution were ineffective, leading to Detroit’s fourth loss of the season.
Let’s take a look at how the Lions utilized their personnel and explore why their defense was so good against the defending Super Bowl Champions.
It was a night to forget for Goff, who entered the game with a league-leading 74% completion percentage, but only managed to complete 37.8% of his passes against the Eagles.
The Lions got creative with their 2RB sets in the first half, including running Montgomery out of the Wildcat, but the snaps ended up heavily favoring Gibbs, as he was one of the only effective skill players in the second half for the Lions.
One of the primary reasons for Goff’s disappointing night was his inability to get on the same page as St. Brown. Goff targeted his All-Pro receiver 12 times in this game, but the pair only connected on two passes. Williams continues to produce, but he only managed to haul in four of his seven targets. Even more disappointing was the fact that beyond St. Brown and Williams, only one other receiver was targeted in this game: a contested pass to TeSlaa.
With no Sam LaPorta, the Lions dramatically shifted their tight end usage. Entering this game, the Lions ran 12 personnel on nearly 33% of their offensive snaps, but only used that package once in this game. Not only was the Lions’ TE2 role heavily reduced, but its TE3 role was nearly nonexistent. Meeks, a rookie WR-X, gave the Lions one inline snap in this game, which could qualify as a rep at tight end.
The offensive line continues to work through injuries. For the third week in a row, Sewell suffered a different injury; this time, he appeared to have injured his ankle. But in typical Sewell fashion,...
