Lions News

[DanO]

"I wasn’t too concerned,” Campbell said. “…I didn’t feel like it was some blatant, like, ‘Oh he’s out of position',’ or I need to talk to him about it. I don’t want to take away his stinger. I want him to play aggressive, and I thought he did some really good things today. Certainly, this was not too big for him. He stepped up.
------------------------I thought he looked really good actually. He does not lack confidence that's for sure and that's a definite plus.

"Asked what it meant to get that kind of feedback from one of the better receivers in the league, the ultra-confident Arnold shrugged it off.

“I mean I know I'm one of them ones,” Arnold said. “I know I'm a great player. I go out there and play with confidence and it's just a testament to my hard work, but also a testament to our pass rush. They do a really good job getting back there, affecting the quarterback.”
----------------------------------------------LOVE the swagger.

[Mainevent]

The first PI was weak as hell (though they could have called Davis for a grab on that play). Second one was legit, but as Froot pointed out, it saved 4 pts.

[froot loops]

It's worth noting that the Rams won the Super Bowl with basically with Cooper Kupp and a couple practice squad receivers by the end where everyone knew Stafford was going to Kupp. Kupp is healthy and back to being that receiver. There is sometimes little you can do when the guy is locked in to the point where he made that ridiculous grab going out of bounds. That was Arnold's first assignment and next week he doesn't get a let up.

[El Axe]

The first PI was weak as hell (though they could have called Davis for a grab on that play). Second one was legit, but as Froot pointed out, it saved 4 pts.

I'm pretty sure that Arnold lightly got the face mask on the first PI, which is why it was sort of an automatic call.

[Mainevent]

Ah, didn't see that. That would make more sense. The rest was just pure hand fighting.

Speaking of facemasks, the refs calling holding when Hutch nearly had his helmet ripped off was bizarre.

[El Axe]

Ah, didn't see that. That would make more sense. The rest was just pure hand fighting.

Speaking of facemasks, the refs calling holding when Hutch nearly had his helmet ripped off was bizarre.

I'm no rules expert, but shouldn't that have been a personal foul, hands to the face kind of call? The extra 5 yards would have been nice at that point.

[whatever_gong82]

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2024/09/09/carlton-davis-injury-detroit-lions-rams-game/75141927007/

[whatever_gong82]

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2024/09/09/lions-bucs-odds-line-week-2-nfl-2024-season/75143629007/

[whatever_gong82]

https://www.freep.com/story/sports/nfl/lions/2024/09/09/lions-rams-super-bowl-2025-espn-rex-ryan-dan-orlovsky/75144298007/

[edindetroit]

https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/41192222

[whatever_gong82]

Three-and-out: With so much meat left on the bone, expectations rise for Detroit's defense

Justin Rogers
Sep 9



Allen Park — Here are three thoughts after a second viewing and having a(n abbreviated) night’s sleep to process the Detroit Lions’ 26-20 overtime victory over the Los Angeles Rams.


Meat on the bone

Unless your expectations were unnecessarily recalibrated by some of the Rams’ injury issues, the Lions’ revamped defense had a strong showing, overall, in their premier performance.

Sure, you don’t love that Detroit coughed up a 14-point, second-half lead against a shorthanded opponent, but c’mon. You didn’t forget how good quarterback Matthew Stafford can be when playing from behind in the three years he’s been gone, did you?


A quick read of the box score will tell you this: The Lions held the Rams to 20 points, limited the opponent to two touchdowns on five red zone trips, and kept them under 100 yards rushing. That last one means a little more when you consider the stellar nose tackle signed in free agency remains inactive as he rounds the final corner on his rehab from last year’s torn quad.

Sure, the Rams racked up 387 yards, the seventh-most of the 30 NFL teams to play prior to Monday night, but focus on the points allowed. That number matters so much more.


My biggest takeaway from watching the game a second time was how many opportunities the defense missed and how much better they could be.

It starts with the retooled front, which generated significantly more pressure than we’ve been accustomed to seeing in recent years. Marcus Davenport’s bull rush is a force multiplier, Alim McNeill and Levi Onwuzurike both found edges against Rams blockers and penetrated the pocket consistently, and Aidan Hutchinson wreaked havoc as we’ve grown come to expect.


Now, it only resulted in two sacks on Stafford. That’s far from ideal, but consider there were 12 hits on the QB, several hurried throws, and a handful of situations where he barely managed to escape the grasp of his pursuers. That’s not always going to be the case. The Lions are going to get better at finishing the play once the rust gets knocked off.

Shifting to the back end, the coverage looked as good as you could have hoped after general manager Brad Holmes overhauled the cornerback position and the group had limited time to build chemistry due to a series of training camp injuries.


Carlton Davis III played tight and had a fourth-down pass breakup that a Lions corner doesn’t make in 2023. And I thought Terrion Arnold raised the bar on individual expectations, despite some predictable rookie struggles against a damn fine receiver in Cooper Kupp.

But if we’re focusing on the meat left on the bone, how about Brian Branch uncharacteristically missing some tackles, bad footing on the playing surface unnecessarily taking guys out of position, and a pair of dropped picks where Branch and Davis had outstanding position to make the plays, even if they couldn't hang on?


If there was a glaring need for improvement with the defense, it was the defensive backs needing to do a better job getting off perimeter blocks.

Like their counterparts in Detroit, the Rams receivers are ferocious blockers. Still, the Lions' corners and safeties aren’t going to like what they see when they review that aspect of the film on Monday. Adding Reader to the mix will help up the gut, but can’t fix that. The good news is want-to isn't going to be an issue with that collective.



One hell of a changeup

It didn’t take a genius to understand the vision after the Lions signed David Montgomery in free agency last year and selected Jahmyr Gibbs in the first round of the draft a few weeks later. It wasn’t just a commitment to the run, but to maintaining a balance in the backfield similar to the tandems that fueled the New Orleans Saints during coach Dan Campbell’s time with that franchise.


Montgomery is Detroit’s version Mark Ingram, while Gibbs plays the role of Alvin Kamara. They’re both going to play a lot and one won't regularly dominate the timeshare. They offer overlapping dual-threat abilities, but with different strengths. And Detroit’s ability to switch back and forth between the pairing keeps defenses off balance like a baseball pitcher who has a high-90s fastball and a knee-buckling curve.

I'd argue the tandem is symbolic of Detroit’s overall schematic flexibility, which is an increasingly huge part of their overall identity on offense.


Take the team’s second and third offensive series, for example. On the second drive, Montgomery was heavily featured on the methodical 15-play possession that ended with a Jake Bates field goal.

The team then turns around and hits the Rams with a bunch of speed-and-space plays with Gibbs and fleetfooted receiver Jameson Williams, eating up chunks of the field with crossing patterns, screen passes and end-around, before Gibbs reminded us he is also capable of lowering his shoulder and running between his tackles with four carries in five snaps to cap a series that ended with him reaching the ball across the goal line for a touchdown.


It’s always amusing to see real-time reactions to the rotation. People wondered where Gibbs was early in the game and why Montgomery disappeared for a stretch in the second half, but this is the nature of their roles.

The Lions don’t have the duo sharing the field all that often, so it’s typically going to be one or the other for a series or two. It’s how this thing is built, and the team reaped the benefits of fresh legs in overtime, when Montgomery ran through the Rams to seal the victory.


Surprising rotation

Every season things reset. Roles from last year aren’t necessarily roles this year, and the ways things are expected to develop don’t always come to fruition. Still, based on practice rotations, I was a little surprised to see how the Lions deployed their linebackers in the opener.


First, let me be clear, nothing was surprising about Alex Anzalone playing every snap. He remains the trusted leader at the heart of Detroit’s defense and he delivered in a big way in the opener, racking up 13 tackles, including three for a loss. For context, he had seven TFLs each of the past two seasons.

Beyond Anzalone, I strongly anticipated Jack Campbell to be closer to an every-down player, but the second-year player barely topped 50% of the defensive snaps. The counter to expecting Campbell’s role to grow was a correlating decrease in playing time for Derrick Barnes, but nope, he drew an 82% workload, a rate he topped just three times in 2023.


Clearly, the Lions have grown increasingly enamored with Barnes the past couple of seasons. Looking for ways to keep him on the field, the team spent a lot of time working him on the edge during the offseason program. That showed up in a significant way against the Rams, with 23 snaps at the line of scrimmage.

But more than Barnes maintaining a playing time edge over last year’s first-round pick was the reintroduction of Malcolm Rodriguez to the rotation. A starter as a rookie in 2022, “Rodrigo” was largely phased out of defensive playing time after Week 3 last year.


After a camp injury limited him for a few weeks, it would have been difficult to project 14 snaps coming against the Rams. Still, he managed to tally four stops in those reps and graded out reasonably well by Pro Football Focus.

Obviously, Rodriguez has physical limitations beyond his control, but his instincts and tackling have always been top-notch. He’s continued to add value to the roster as a high-level special teams performer, but it’s nice to see the fan-favorite work his way back into a defensive role.


Email: jrogers@detroitfootball.net

X: Justin_Rogers

[Mainevent]

Yeah not a great start to the year for Jack Campbell. Hope to see him step it up more, particularly in the passing game.

[El Axe]

The Ringer publishes a winners and losers each week. #1 this week was the Lions

https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2024/9/9/24239432/nfl-winners-losers-week-1-dak-prescott-joe-burrow-tom-brady

Winner: The Detroit Lions’ Identity

If the Rams had any lingering hope of knocking off the Lions and avenging their loss in last year’s wild-card round, it was snuffed out by Detroit’s still-dominant offensive line in overtime. The Lions marched 70 yards in eight plays, starting with three gut-punching runs that went for 42 yards. David Montgomery’s 1-yard plunge into the end zone finished off the Rams—but their spirit had been broken much earlier in the drive.

Detroit has been winning games like this since Dan Campbell and offensive coordinator Ben Johnson got the offense up and running over the back half of the 2022 season. The Lions offense has evolved over that time, but the formula for success remains the same: use the offensive line to grind down the opposing front seven and gash an overstretched secondary with passes over the middle of the field. Defenses are forced to dedicate numbers to the box or else get mauled by the league’s most physically dominant offensive line. The Rams took the second option, and the Lions averaged 5.3 yards per rush with a league-leading 66.7 percent success rate, per TruMedia.

While it was your typical Lions win, the vertical option presented by third-year receiver Jameson Williams, who went for 121 yards and a score on five receptions, was new for this offense. The Lions already had one of the league’s best offenses, but it was missing this downfield element. Teams that could pack the middle of the field and survive in the run have given Detroit problems over the past few years, leading to some ugly results, including a 29-0 loss to New England in 2022 and a 38-6 loss to Baltimore last season. If Williams is a consistent source of explosive plays on the perimeter, the Lions will be better equipped to exploit those tactics. In the third quarter, the Rams decided to load the box and leave Tre’Davious White on an island against Williams, and this happened:

--twitter clip of Jamo's double move here--

It was a good night for the Lions offense; it was not so much for the defense. While Detroit’s pass rush had a big night against a makeshift Rams offensive line, the revamped secondary did not pass its first major test. Throughout the offseason, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has expressed his desire to play more effective man coverage. The Lions secondary played man on over 40 percent of its snaps, a big number compared to the league average. And on those snaps, Matthew Stafford, who was under siege all night, completed 12 of 19 passes for 140 yards and a score. That was good for a passer rating of 103. Considering how the pass rush was dominating, along with Puka Nacua’s game departure due to a knee injury in the second quarter, those are disappointing results for a team that invested first-, second-, and third-round picks on cornerbacks during the offseason.

It’s one game, and Stafford was quarterbacking his ass off, so we can wait a few weeks before passing any judgments on the new secondary. And if Williams is the deep playmaker this team has been missing, the offense might be good enough to overcome another mediocre season from the defense.

[CGVT]

Damn. These guys are easy to like.

[whatever_gong82]

Lions refuse to break in prime-time overtime battle against Rams

Paywall article from The Athletic.

By Colton Pouncy
Sep 9, 2024


David Montgomery celebrating win vs Rams_9-8-2024_A.jpg

DETROIT — One of the biggest compliments you can give this Detroit Lions organization is that it’s no longer graded on a curve.

Moral victories? A thing of the past. The coddling after crushing, closely contested defeats? That’s dead, too. Winning breeds expectations, pressure, new standards and a level of play you’re accustomed to and held to. It’s everything that comes with being the contender these Lions believe they are.

But one thing that’ll never go away? The feeling after a hard-fought win. Much like Sunday’s against the Los Angeles Rams in overtime.

“A win is a win,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell told his team after Detroit’s 26-20 win over Los Angeles. “That team gave us everything they had, man. They did. They threw it at us, man. And give them some credit. … But the bottom line is, man, it’s hard to break us now. As a matter of fact, you ain’t gonna do it.”


Sequels are rarely better than the original. Considering what happened just eight months ago on this very field, you couldn’t expect a game like this to reach those levels — even ahead of arguably the most anticipated season in the history of this franchise.

That 24-23 playoff win over the Rams exorcized demons. It caused tears to stream down the faces of folks across the state of Michigan and beyond. It had people in this town wishing their departed loved ones were here to witness it with them. And most importantly, it breathed new life into this organization — putting the league on notice that the Lions had arrived.


What we saw on Sunday night was a continuation of January’s run, in different ways. The Lions were hosting a nationally televised prime-time game to start the season. A pregame segment on the broadcast featured Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson, narrating the year that was and the year ahead. It all feeds into what the Lions have become — a team with expectations of a contender. They’re not sneaking up on anybody anymore.

As such, there will be more scrutiny. More eyeballs. You’re going to get everyone’s best, week in and week out. And if you aren’t ready, people will question if you’re built for this or not.


The Lions got that from the Rams on Sunday. Detroit’s vaunted rushing attack was held in check early. An offensive line viewed as one of the best in football was shaky at times. Detroit’s two star pass-catchers — Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta — were held to a combined seven receptions for 58 yards. Jared Goff threw one interception and had another one dropped.

Over on defense, missed tackles, sloppy angles to the ball, dropped interceptions, costly penalties and a failure to rattle old friend Matthew Stafford nearly ruined the party that was Ford Field. Factor in the Rams playing without a starting cornerback, their top three offensive tackles, a starting guard and star wide receiver Puka Nacua for much of the game, and it’s fair to have criticisms about how this game was trending for the Lions.


“All right, start here,” Campbell said after the game. “Man, I give that team a ton of credit, what Sean (McVay) did with that team, getting them in here. I thought they had a heck of a plan, they adjusted to some things we threw at them well, and they just kept coming, they fought and they fought. I respect it, I do. That quarterback, Stafford, I thought played lights out and played tough and hit after hit just kept getting up and making unbelievable throws. I just give them a lot of credit.

“… But we’re hard to break. We did what we had to do.”

Indeed, Campbell’s Lions are. And what made this one all the more fascinating is that Detroit’s stars weren’t the ones leading the charge for much of this one. This team received major contributions from new faces and new contributors.


Marcus Davenport, a forgotten man in this league as injuries have taken a toll on his body, signed here to revive his career and be the missing piece. Lions DC Aaron Glenn coached Davenport in New Orleans and knows the type of player he can be when healthy. In many ways, he’s the blueprint for what the Lions want opposite of Aidan Hutchinson — a strong, powerful edge-setter with a bull rush that would make a matador tremble in fear. His fingerprints were all over this one, finishing with a half-sack, four QB hits and pressure throughout the night.

Former No. 12 overall pick Jameson Williams, still working to live up to the pedigree three years in, certainly looked like one tonight. With the offense stagnant for much of the night, it was Williams who kept them afloat. How many times could you say that throughout his young career? His 52-yard touchdown showed all the tools the Lions fell in love with two years ago — the speed, the separation, the swagger. He finished the night with a career-high 121 yards on five receptions, totaling 134 yards of offense. He received his first-ever game ball after the night. And he doesn’t plan on letting go of it anytime soon.



“It means a lot, you know?” Williams said. “I put in a lot of work, not just this year. It’s been continuous work ever since I got in the League, and it’s just time to show. It’s first game, it’s just the start though. We got 16 more in the regular season, playoffs, we got a lot more ball to play. It’s just a start.”

Jake Bates, the UFL-turned-NFL kicker, made his regular-season debut. A rocky training camp led some to wonder how effective Bates would be on the sport’s biggest stage, playing a position that’s just as much mental as it is physical. But Bates is no stranger to this field. He made a name for himself making clutch kicks for the Michigan Panthers. He did the same for his new franchise, going 2-for-2 on extra points and 2-for-2 on field goals — including a 32-yarder that tied the game with 17 seconds left in regulation.

When the lights came on and it mattered most, you saw the real identity of this football team. An ice-cold Detroit offense that was held to just seven second-half points until the final minutes put together the drive it needed — setting up Bates to tie it at 20 apiece. On the ensuing Rams possession, with 17 seconds to go and all three timeouts in their arsenal, it was Hutchinson’s turn to make a play. He ended regulation with a sack, preventing a red-hot Stafford from piercing the hearts of Lions fans everywhere and playing spoiler in a building he knows all too well.

That set up what proved to be a thrilling finish. When the Lions won the coin toss in overtime and elected to receive, they went back to their roots and ran the damn ball.


A gain of 12. A rush for 21. A pickup of nine. The Rams could only watch as the Lions played bully ball, inching closer and closer to ending it.

Before the final play of the evening, with the ball on the LA 1-yard line, Goff turned to running back David Montgomery with a message.


“This is scoring,” Goff told Montgomery.

Let’s check the tape.

Montgomery’s 1-yard run gave the Lions a 26-20 walk-off win and a 1-0 start to the season. This one was sloppy, no question about it. Campbell chalked some of it up to rust. The film won’t be kind to many upon further review, and there’s much to clean up ahead of next Sunday’s meeting between another team the Lions faced in last year’s playoff run — the 1-0 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.


If that win didn’t feel good to you, as a Lions fan, your expectations for this team have changed. In many ways, that means the Lions are right where they’re supposed to be. The fact that we can sit here and discuss a victory that looked like a loss, and probably would be a loss for so many Lions teams of the past, highlights the bottom line.

This team remains hard to break. Don’t underestimate the power of that in the long run.


(Photo of David Montgomery celebrating after scoring the game-winning touchdown: Nic Antaya/Getty Images)




Colton Pouncy is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Detroit Lions. He previously covered Michigan State football and basketball for the company, and covered sports for The Tennessean in Nashville prior to joining The Athletic. Follow Colton on Twitter @colton_pouncy