Hogs Haven
It’s week 10 of the NFL season, and the 3-6 Washington Commanders will be facing a 5-3 Detroit Lions team at home in Northwest Stadium in Landover, MD this Sunday at 4:25 pm ET. After rebounding from a very poor week 1 matchup against the Packers, the Lions have blown out most opponents this season, though they have hit a bit of a recent slump, having lost two of their most recent three games to the Chiefs and the Vikings.
On offense, the Lions are coached by HC Dan Campbell and OC John Morton. Morton served as Senior Offensive Assistant under Campbell in 2022, then served a couple of years in Denver as Passing Game Coordinator, before returning to Detroit as OC. As a result, it’s fair to guess how much of the current Lions offense is the brainchild of Dan Campbell vs John Morton. The most notable difference between the Lions offense of last year and this year is that it has become much more boom-or-bust and dependent on long explosive plays to gain points. At the same time, it has struggled to achieve consistent first downs, a problem acknowledged by the Lions own pass-game coordinator. Overall though, it has produced an offense that is 14th in passing yards and 14th in rushing yards so far.
On defense, the Lions are coached by DC Kelvin Sheppard, an internal promotion and disciple of former DC Aaron Glenn. Much like Glenn, Sheppard has favored multiple defensive line fronts with a heavy emphasis on twists and stunts. Also similar to last year, the Lions secondary has been shredded with injury, playing without their entire starting secondary recently vs the Bucs. Despite the injuries, the Lions have allowed the 9th fewest yards passing and 8th fewest yards rushing in the NFL so far this season.
I asked Ryan Mathews of Pride of Detroit five questions to better understand the state of the Lions and what to look for in this game.
1) The Lions have been blowing out most teams, but got beat last week by a Vikings team that were 8.5 point underdogs. How’d the Vikings manage to pull off that upset?
Brian Flores turned the trick last week against Jared Goff and a Lions offensive line that just wasn’t up to the challenge. Goff was pressured on a whopping 47.6% of his dropbacks according to NFL Pro–20 of his 42 dropbacks! When Goff was kept clean, he was on point, completing 19 of his 22 passes for 213 yards and two touchdowns. The problem that plagued the Lions the most, however, was how quickly those pressures were getting to Goff: 15 of those 20 pressures got home to the quarterback in 2.5 seconds or less. Considering Goff’s athletic profile, those quick pressures are a death sentence for any play because there’s virtually no shot for him to evade a defender and make a play.
In the end, Flores did a great job devising a gameplan where simulated pressure had both...
