ALLEN PARK -- After last week’s showing in Green Bay, there are plenty of questions that need answers for the Detroit Lions.
We’ll focus on three of those questions ahead of their Week 2 game against the Chicago Bears below:
Will a return home help Detroit’s communication issues on OL?
For the team’s sake, they’d better hope so. It’s been a week full of talking about communication lapses in Allen Park after a sloppy showing in Week 1. The offensive line was out of sorts, missing assignments, with a couple of instances of one side of the line running the wrong play out of the huddle.
Green Bay’s defense smelled blood in the water, shifting the defensive line right before the snap, adding to the mass confusion in the trenches.
Now, with two young guards entering the starting lineup and Graham Glasgow returning to center, paired with the noise at Lambeau Field, it was quite the task. But the showing was unacceptable for an offensive line that has served as the foundation for this franchise’s rise over the last couple of years.
Dan Campbell has said everyone needs to make sure they’re being loud at the line and getting on the same page. Jared Goff said he needs to make sure everyone knows what the call is coming out of the huddle. Taylor Decker said they simply need to practice their communication and get used to some of the new faces, what they do best and how they best receive the information.
Decker is officially listed as questionable heading into the weekend. If it’s Giovanni Manu at left tackle, the Lions will be challenged with another new face joining the starting lineup after a tough week getting on the same page.
Manu is the great unknown. He’s the massive developmental prospect out of the University of British Columbia by way of Tonga. The 24-year-old played three snaps on special teams last week for his first taste of regular-season action. On the bright side, he’s practiced from the starting left tackle hole while the Lions made fixing their communication a priority.
“Yeah, I’m not going to go into all of that. But, it’s being addressed, it’s being fixed,” Lions offensive coordinator John Morton said. “Again, taking some of these plays out where there’s not a lot of communication, going on the road we know we didn’t do a lot of shifting and things like that, so it’s going to be fixed.
“ ... It wasn’t youth because there were some veteran guys that weren’t making the right calls and everything. It’s addressed, it’s going to be fixed.”
With Aidan Hutchinson facing countless double teams, where does the pass rush come from?
As Kelvin Sheppard said, when Aidan Hutchinson is getting attention from two or three players, there are 10 other defenders on the field for the Lions.
The Lions have preached that it’s all about winning those one-on-one situations. But when Hutchinson gets only two or three of those, like he did last week, what’s the solution?
Could Derrick Barnes blitz more and act as a pressure-creating piece from the SAM? Might we see more chances for the heat-seeking missile that is Brian Branch? We’ll see, because the Lions are going to be forced to figure that out with a true lack of depth at edge rusher, with Hutchinson once again rolling out there as the team’s best hope.
Even with all of the attention, Hutchinson was still the only Lions defender with multiple pressures (two). Hutchinson had no tackles, those two pressures, and one quarterback hit. The pressure wasn’t coming from anywhere else. With no reinforcements on the way, it’s hard to sit here and spew any optimistic thoughts about the situation unless Sheppard gets creative and finds ways to manufacture it with new looks and blitzes.
The Minnesota Vikings blitzed and blitzed against the Bears on Monday Night Football last week, creating 30 quarterback pressures in the process, per Pro Football Focus. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores sent the heat on more than 50% of snaps in the second half, and it worked.
Perhaps that’s something the Lions should take note of, because Minnesota was effective in creating pressure and it impacted Bears quarterback Caleb Williams’ play once they started making noise.
Flores is on another planet when it comes to blitzing. But to prove a point, the Vikings (38.9%) were first in blitz rate last season and the Lions (34.6%) were right behind them in second.
“I’m not going to sit here and give you guys my game plan. But, Hutch is the caliber player that he is, and everybody in the league knows it,” Sheppard said. “Turn on San Fran tape and tell me who’s one-on-one blocking Nick Bosa. Turn on Green Bay tape when you get an eight-game sample size, who’s one-on-one blocking Micah Parsons?
“When you’re the elite of the elite, people are going to plan for you, and that’s why he’s the caliber player that he is. We will counter that, and Hutch will counter that. He’s an ultra-aware player; he knows how to manipulate things and move himself around - we’re working off a one-game sample size, people, in 47 plays at that. That’s not a huge sample size at all. There will be things that change, but I’m not going to overreact, ‘Oh, the pressures.’”
Who has the upper hand between Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson?
Dan Campbell and Ben Johnson have spent a lot of time coaching together. From their time in Miami to the past four years in Detroit. But who has the upper hand entering this week’s first meeting between the two as head coaches?
Campbell thinks they are on even footing due to the fact that he knows what Johnson is about, and the Bears coach knows what he is about.
“I think we’re on equal playing ground, really,” Campbell said. “I think it’s the same thing. He knows what we’re about, we know what he’s about, and because of that, you’re going to play that game a little bit. But the game doesn’t matter if you don’t master the basics inside the game, and so that’s what we have to get back to.
“We’ve got to worry about ourselves right now and just hone in on the little things.”
It’s going to be quite the chess match, with each trying to find ways to surprise the other side. As Campbell has said all week, though, he’s not worried about the threat of trick plays, remaining focused on mastering the team’s “bread and butter” after such a sloppy showing in the opener.
And with both teams entering the game at 0-1 on the season and in the division, the stakes are as high as possible for a Week 2 game. At the end of the day, Johnson and Campbell remain friends, with the addition of an NFC North rivalry to the situation.
On top of that, Campbell goes way back with Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen from their time in New Orleans and at Texas A&M. Everybody knows everybody in this game. Give me the edge to Campbell in this matchup in terms of upper hand. He knows Johnson’s defensive coordinator very well. And Campbell was in the big chair overseeing the operation when Johnson was calling his offense in Detroit, meaning he should have a great feel for how Johnson likes to set things up and take his shots.
However, Johnson is well aware of that, too. The Bears coach was a master of setting things up and surprising opponents when calling plays for the Lions. Campbell knows he can’t worry about the trick plays, because that’s when you get caught.
Campbell hasn’t lost back-to-back regular-season games since 2022 for a reason. He has mastered fixing issues, preparing for the next opponent and making the right adjustments week to week.
“You’ll practice one or two things; you do it for every opponent. But, I don’t really care about trick plays,” Campbell said. “Let’s just handle the meat and potatoes of an offense, a defense, what we think they’re going to hang their hat on, and let’s stop that first. Let’s worry about that, let’s make sure we’re all on point, and we’ll handle the other stuff with our rules.
“You have to have proper eyes, man, we give you those rules for a reason. And look, they may hit us on one, that’s all right. That happens, you get back in the huddle and let’s go to the next play.”
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