DETROIT — Matthews Stafford’s first attempt to throw a pass Friday night looked a little worse than it probably was. Blocks by tackles Rick Wagner and Taylor Decker (especially Wagner) might have been acceptable had there been room for Stafford to step up into the pocket.
Of course, there wasn’t, so by the time Stafford was hit, three of his own offensive linemen were in his lap, and a fourth, center Graham Glasgow, was picking himself up off the ground.
Until a late, meaningless fourth-quarter burst, this is how the night went to the Lions’ offense in a 30-17 preseason loss to the Giants. Built to be a potent group pacing a newfound commitment to the run game, the offensive line was downright repugnant Friday. I mean, what in the world …
If it was one or two guys struggling, fine, it’s preseason, you’d move on. It wasn’t. Just about every Lions lineman had a troublesome breakdown somewhere along the way, and several of them had multiple miscues.
Kenny Wiggins was victimized on that initial sack, missed a block while pulling on a fourth-and-short LeGarrette Blount run and got blown up on a toss that Blount somehow managed to turn into a 7-yard gain. Corey Robinson absolutely whiffed on a Romeo Okwara rush, leaving quarterback Matt Cassel wide open to a hit. Decker played maybe his worst game as a Lion, despite calling it a night before halftime. Joe Dahl was bull rushed back into Cassel on one play as if he was on wheels.
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The list goes on and on.
“We can do a lot of things better,” Wiggins said. “Obviously, it wasn’t good enough out there, and there’s not just one thing. It’s a bunch of different things — the penalties, not getting the ball moving on first and second down, getting in those second- and third-and-long situations. We need to do better.”
Ideally, soon. The Lions’ O-line has had to deal with some moving pieces, such as T.J. Lang’s absence and Glasgow exiting Wednesday’s joint practice against the Giants, but there have been more downs than ups over the past two weeks. Oakland’s defensive front took it to Detroit on the first day of practices together in Napa, and the Lions haven’t stabilized since.
“It’s still early,” Wiggins said, which is true but only barely. Next week’s preseason trip to Tampa Bay figures to be the last time the Lions’ starters see extended action before the regular-season opener on Sept. 10 vs. the Jets, so now’s the time to get all those wrinkles ironed out. Another brutal showing against the Bucs likely would send Detroit into Week 1 without any tangible evidence that its line can be effective.
And as if the pass protection wasn’t bad enough, the Lions’ backs also averaged just 3.0 yards on 18 carries. Eleven of those carries, for 32 yards, came from Blount.
Stafford has thrived without the benefit of a stellar line before (see: last year and … basically all the other years). The situation was supposed to be better this season, though, and the offense more balanced between run and pass. Friday’s performance was discouraging, to say the least.
There are many more negatives to discuss, so let’s detour onto Lollipop Lane for a brief respite.
The Lions’ longest play of the night was a 42-yard completion from Stafford to Theo Riddick. On it, offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter employed an empty backfield and aligned Theo Riddick in the slot to Stafford’s left. Marvin Jones joined him on the side; Kenny Golladay split wide right, with Luke Willson in the slot and Levine Toilolo inline.
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All five eligible receivers released into routes, and the jailbreak left Riddick one-on-one with linebacker Alec Ogletree. Riddick broke off a little shimmy-shake in route, caught Stafford’s pass on the run and exploded into the secondary.
“It was a good matchup, and Matt found me,” Riddick told The Athletic.
This is something the Lions have been toying with more and more this season: relocating their backs out of the backfield and into a receiver alignment. In theory, Riddick should be deadly from the slot, but per SportRadar, just four of his 53 receptions a year ago came on plays where he started from there. By contrast, 47 occurred after Riddick released from the backfield.
However, the versatility of Detroit’s running back depth chart could encourage Cooter to be more creative this season. Riddick, Ameer Abdullah and Kerryon Johnson all have seen work either from the slot or out wide over the past two weeks.
Riddick was quick to point out that he has seen work from the slot before, but he conceded that it hasn’t happened often. “It gives teams a better [opportunity] to double me if I’m in the slot,” he said, “so it’s pretty difficult sometimes.”
If the Lions do end up keeping four backs (or five total, counting fullback Nick Bellore), toying with formations is one way for Cooter to utilize everyone at his disposal. Ogletree is a coverage liability in general, but there aren’t many linebackers sticking with Riddick if they’re forced to defend him one-on-one in space.
A little more than halfway through the first quarter, the Giants — with Davis Webb in as the starting quarterback for Eli Manning — faced a third-and-17 from deep in their own territory. The Lions rushed four: Ziggy Ansah, Kerry Hyder, Anthony Zettel and Devon Kennard. That’s a pass rush-specific package, and Detroit has used that Hyder-Zettel combination in each of its first two preseason games in hopes of generating a little interior pressure.
By the time Webb took a seven-step drop from the shotgun, patted the ball and stepped up, this is what his pocket looked like:
Eventually, Hyder looped around the outside of human bowling pin Ereck Flowers and forced Webb to move his feet, but the Giants QB never felt any true heat. Webb stepped a little to his left and lofted a strike to Sterling Shepard for 27 yards. New York would go on to craft a 17-play, nine-minute touchdown drive.
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“I’m not sure what it was,” said Kennard, “but we’ve just got to do better in our pass rush, better in coverage and figure out what the problem was. There was definitely some third downs that I felt we should have got off the field and we didn’t.”
Following up on his strong week of joint practices, Kennard was the Lions’ best pass rusher Friday — that he’s been matched up against Flowers for four days is worth keeping in mind. Aside from him, the Lions again failed to crank up much pressure on the opposing quarterbacks. Ricky Jean Francois did have an apparent strip-sack of Webb overturned via replay.
The Lions finished Friday with two QB hits (Jean Francois and Anthony Zettel), but zero sacks. They still have yet to record a sack this preseason.
“I would say overall … wide receivers, DBs, defensive line, offensive line, I don’t think we played particularly well at all in any position,” said head coach Matt Patricia, when asked if his defensive line had a bad night. “It’s easy to kind of just pinpoint those guys, but I would say look at the perimeter and look at what’s going on in some of the other positions, and I would say that the whole thing needs to be improved.”
Some of this can be chalked up to the vanilla preseason schemes. The Lions only blitzed a handful of times in passing situations, and one of their best attacking pieces from the secondary — Quandre Diggs — definitely didn’t take on a full workload. Still, what looked like a hole on the Lions’ roster remains problematic.
Who is the Lions’ coverage linebacker? What do they do if there’s not one? This is a very real issue for Patricia to solve in the coming days.
Jarrad Davis opened the game with two great plays against the run, and Christian Jones made a terrific gap-split down near the goal line later. The Lions know those guys can get revved up downhill, especially as the new scheme asks defensive lineman to occupy multiple gaps.
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But in those passing situations, there’s just no one Detroit can trust on a consistent basis yet. New York’s first TD, at the tail end of that 17-play march, came when Webb dumped a pass over the middle to running back Wayne Gallman, who released out of the backfield on an angle route. Gallman caught Davis leaning outside, then broke back inside unencumbered. Davis was left to clap his hands in frustration as Gallman crossed the goal line.
Same point from above with Riddick: those individual LB-vs.-RB matchups are very difficult on the linebackers, but the Lions are still looking for someone to at least put up a fight. Jalen Reeves-Maybin might be the best bet right now.
Davis’ headaches in coverage and upfield skill, plus Detroit’s overall mediocrity in the pass rush, points toward a lot of blitzing if the second-year linebacker is on the field.
Did Jake Rudock’s two fourth-quarter scoring drives alter the backup quarterback race? They came with the game already decided, and against the Giants’ third-stringers, but they were positive steps forward nonetheless. Until Rudock poked and prodded his way down the field in 5-yard increments, the Lions’ offense barely had been able to string together first downs, let alone score.
“I mean, it was just good to get us down the field,” Rudock said. “It’s unfortunate that we were short on that — obviously, we didn’t have enough points to go out there and win, so we’ve just got to try and not get in that position.”
Rudock attempted 30 passes Friday (with 23 completions) to just nine from Cassel, one of which was an unfortunate interception caused by an inexcusable TJ Jones drop. This, after Cassel saw more work during the Lions’ trip to Oakland.
The conclusion: Same as it ever was. Rudock may have scored some points Friday, but the backup race is still on, and it’s still kind of an underwhelming mess.
Good news: Rookie Da’Shawn Hand earned a start on Friday, joining a line including Francois, Ansah and Sylvester Williams. The promotion was a reward for Hand’s excellent work, both in practices and in last week’s game at Oakland.
Bad news: A’Shawn Robinson has drifted well down the depth chart, to the point that he was out there in the fourth quarter. He was one of myriad Lions to get sealed off on Wayne Gallman’s cutback, 11-yard TD in the fourth quarter. (The Giants’ Robert Morris scored on a carbon-copy effort later; on both TDs, safety Rolan Milligan got caught inside.)
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As I mentioned on The Athletic’s postgame podcast with Ty Schalter, there was a little chatter among the Detroit media about Robinson possibly being expendable — via cut or trade — when the Lions have to trim their roster to 53 on Sept. 1. I still think general manager Bob Quinn will give his 2016 second-rounder more slack, but it’s rather obvious that Robinson has fallen a bit out of favor.
Last note, because I feel like we have to talk about the running backs. For an 11-carry, 32-yard night, Blount was very good with the ball in his hands. It was a little surprising to see him in the game into the second half — Dwayne Washington didn’t play for the second straight week, and Zach Zenner was held out until late — but he ran very hard anyway.
Johnson failed to build off last week’s momentum, finishing with 9 yards on four carries (plus a kickoff return, for some reason). He had a play called back by a penalty for the second straight week, this time a 12-yard run negated by Wesley Johnson’s hold.
Ameer Abdullah put the ball on the deck twice — once when he booted a handoff, a fumble that was officially (and unfairly) credit to Stafford; another on a kick return. Abdullah started, so if this was to be his showcase game, consider his three touches from scrimmage for 5 total yards a bust.
Riddick did have one carry for 6 yards; he added three receptions for 50 yards, the bulk on that catch-and-run vs. Ogletree.
The Riddick highlight aside, the Lions want and need more from their backs if the offense is to work as anticipated this season. The lack of yardage circles back to the offensive line’s miserable showing. The Lions didn’t give their backs many chances, and they didn’t produce much when they did.
(Top photo of Matthew Stafford by: Tim Fuller/USA TODAY Sports)
