Pride of Detroit
After a tough loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night, the Detroit Lions will look to turn the page against a strong Tampa Bay Buccaneers game next Monday night.
But before we get there, let’s look back the Lions’ performance in their 30-17 loss and had out some positional grades.
Jared Goff had a pretty darn efficient day, completing 23-of-29 passes for 203 yards, two touchdowns, and a 118.8 passer rating. Though he didn’t have many difficult passes on the night (outside of his outstanding touchdown pass to Jameson Williams), he was still accurate and safe with the football. Perhaps he needed to get a little more risky in the second half, but, overall, it’s hard to complain much about his performance.
Despite the final statline of 17 carries for 65 yards, Jahmyr Gibbs was pretty productive in the run game. David Montgomery had only four rushes on the day, but turned that into 24 yards and also caught a pair of passes for an additional 37 yards. The duo wasn’t quite as explosive as the Lions were hoping, but that likely had to do with game situation. Detroit ran the ball just four times in the second half for 6 measly yards.
Sam LaPorta continues to rise as one of Goff’s favorite targets. In the past two weeks, LaPort has 10 catches for 147 and two touchdowns. His touchdown grab on Sunday night was outstanding and made it a three-point game in the fourth quarter.
However, the blocking was subpar against the Chiefs. Brock Wright, in particular, seemed to struggle with his assignments and it proved costly at times.
I don’t want to put too much on Amon-Ra St. Brown’s drop, but it did happen in an absolutely critical moment. At the time, Detroit was in control of the game, holding a 10-6 lead with the ball at the Chiefs’ 44-yard line. A conversion there likely extends Detroit’s lead to at least seven points, and likely bleeds the clock under two minutes. Instead, the Chiefs got the ball at midfield, scored quickly, and took a 13-10 lead into halftime with the ball coming their way to start the second half. In a blink of the eye, it was 20-10.
Elsewhere, Jameson Williams had a strong game, which included a big 22-yard touchdown catch over the middle where he bounced off tackle attempts for the score. It was a very quiet day for rookie Isaac TeSlaa, though. He didn’t receive a single target on the night and had some issues blocking on the perimeter.
For the first half of this game, it looked like the Lions were going to take firm control of the matchup in the trenches. Through two quarters, Detroit had 92 rushing yards on 19 carries (4.8 YPC) and Goff had not taken a sack and only had two quarterback hits on 13 dropbacks.
But as...
