Lions likely coming away from win over Bengals with questions about Taylor Decker’s immediate future, nine other takeaways

This is why you don’t look past your opponents for any reason. The Bengals are bad, and they showed that, but the Lions also had something of an off day in their 37-24 win against Cincinnati. Here’s our 10 biggest takeaways: Goff Report Outside of the fumble that probably could have gone the other way, […]

Mike Payton — Detroit Lions Beat Writer
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This is why you don’t look past your opponents for any reason. The Bengals are bad, and they showed that, but the Lions also had something of an off day in their 37-24 win against Cincinnati.

Here’s our 10 biggest takeaways:

Goff Report

Outside of the fumble that probably could have gone the other way, Goff had a nice game in this one, completing 82.6% of his passes for 258 yards and three touchdowns.

He’d probably like not to get sacked as much in the future after going down four times on Sunday.

Do the Lions now have to consider things with Taylor Decker after Manu balled out?

If you’re not coming away from this game feeling pretty good about the future of the Lions’ offensive line, then you are not a human person who bleeds human blood. You’re some kind of alien from the planet Skepton, and you’re wrong.

Manu did allow two sacks in this game, one in the first quarter that led to a Goff fumble. The other late in the fourth quarter, but that was it. Manu allowed two pressures, and those pressures were on the sacks. He otherwise held his own against Trey Hendrickson all day.

It wasn’t perfect, and this is still Decker’s job for sure, but Manu proved that he may be ahead of where we thought he was. Because of that, and the Decker injury, you have to wonder if the Lions consider rolling with Manu for a bit, while Decker takes the time he needs to get healthy.

Terrion Arnold continues to get penalties at the worst possible time

It’s likely to be one of those frequency illusion things, where everyone will focus on Arnold’s holding call that took an Aidan Hutchinson safety off the board and equate that with him having a bad day.

I get it. It’s hard to ignore that he has a problem with being called for these flags at the worst possible times. But some attention should be focused on what happened right after that.

Terrion Arnold immediately made up for that mistake

The next play, he had a pass breakup on a pass to Tee Higgins, and the play right after that saw him almost pick off a pass to Ja’Marr Chase. I know the safety would have been nice, but those two plays were big, and the Bengals had to punt.

Beyond that, he allowed just two catches for 13 yards on five targets. Unfortunately, he left in the fourth quarter with a shoulder injury.

Let’s be honest, Kerby stole this one from more than just Jake Browning

Oh, Terrion, this was going to be his first career interception, and everyone in the stadium knew it, but then Kerby Joseph came out of nowhere and grabbed his 20th career interception. This is not a knock, but it is funny that every time Arnold is about to have a pick, something happens.

By the way, with this pick, Joseph becomes just the sixth player in NFL history to have 20 interceptions in his first four seasons.

Hutchinson had a much bigger day than the box score will tell you

Hutchinson had some bad luck in this one. In the first half, he had two sacks called back. On the first one, he was a smidge offside, and then on the second, he had the would-be safety that got called back because of the Arnold holding call. He did get a sack later and walked out with nine pressures.

Montgomery has been struggling since Baltimore

In Baltimore, Montgomery had 151 yards and two touchdowns. Then, against the Browns, he had nine carries for just 12 yards. His game against the Bengals was pretty similar. Up until his eight-yard touchdown in the third quarter and the 19-yard run before it, Montgomery had nine carries for just 12 yards all day. Before that, the biggest thing he had done was throw a touchdown pass in the first quarter.

I get the idea that, hey, he put some scores on the board, but the Lions have to be wanting more. The Browns game made sense because they have a good defense, but the Bengals don’t. This is not a cause for concern, but it is noticeable.

What is this sick joke where I keep getting robbed of seeing a Dominic Lovett punt return?

This summer, I swear to you that I saw a kid with tremendous speed do some things in the punt return realm. However, he never seemed to get one in an actual game.

It was fair catches or punts out of the end zone. Lovett got a chance to play in this game, and the first two punts his way were out of the end zone. It’s like this joke is being played on just me. Why do this to me, football gods?

Have a day, Nowaske

I love shouting out good special teams play, and Trevor Nowaske had a good day. There were multiple Bengals returns when Nowaske was right where the ball was, and he made some big tackles as well. Just felt he needed to be called out in a good way for that.

Sam LaPorta continues to be Mr. Reliable

LaPorta has felt like a nice, comfy safety blanket for Jared Goff all year, and Sunday against the Bengals was no different. He had five catches for 92 yards and a touchdown, and seemingly bailed out the Lions’ offense on multiple plays. He’s starting to look more like the rookie version of himself than the guy we saw last year.

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