What We Learned About the Lions vs. the Bills: Call Pittsburgh, stop blitzing guys who are good against the blitz, and 3 more things the Lions learned the hard way in Buffalo
Detroit fought its way back after an awful start, but Buffalo exposed problems in the secondary, run defense and offensive line that aren’t going away on their own.
The Lions got absolutely embarrassed and outclassed by the Buffalo Bills on Thursday Night Football. It was so bad that I’m writing this opening paragraph in the first quarter. The Lions lost 41-31. They fought back, but the hole was too deep. Here’s what we learned:
If you’re not calling the Pittsburgh Steelers on Friday, I don’t know what you’re doing
Two games in, what more do you need to see? The Lions may have liked the guys they had a few weeks ago; now it’s looking like a liability. The Bills never really had an issue throwing the ball in this game, and they attacked Rock Ya-Sin with impunity. The Lions can’t survive like this. They just can’t. If there were ever a time to make a move, and if you ever had the franchise set up in such a way to be able to handle it, it’s now. Call the Steelers and offer the first-round pick for Joey Porter. Get this done or get ready for a long year.
Look, it’s easy to talk about stopping the mobile QB
But it’s not easy to do, and we’ve gone over this before. There isn’t a defense in the league that isn’t affected by the mobile quarterback. But with that said, you can’t allow a quarterback to run for 40 yards and a touchdown on one drive. It’s even worse that it wasn’t just one 40-yard run. That would actually be less embarrassing than letting a guy get loose for 10 yards at a time. You have to figure out how to stop that at some point. At least stop it a little bit.
“The Little S*** is killing us right now”
That was Dan Campbell at the end of the first half. The Lions played all the hits in this one. That included getting an interception in the red zone, but wiping it out with a defensive holding call. Then getting a sack on the next play and wiping it out with a defensive holding call. Then Jahmyr Gibbs gets a nice 19-yard run for a first down, and then it gets called back for offensive holding. The Lions will never lead the league in penalties, but they might lead it in penalties at the worst possible times. In the second half, they cleaned things up outside of a facemask on Devin White, but the damage was done by then, so it didn’t really matter.
The offensive line depth is great, just not as starters
Jared Goff was getting beat up all night, and it showed on the first two drives, where he took multiple sacks and fumbled twice. Of course, the second fumble was an aborted snap by backup center Juice Scruggs. This team is only going to go as far as their offensive line will let them. Goff was sacked four times on Thursday.
When they say “Don’t blitz this guy,” don’t blitz that guy
Josh Allen went 7-10 for 93 yards when blitzed in the first half. Completed 70% of his passes. He went 5-for-9 for 66 yards when not blitzed. 56% completion percentage. It’s pretty clear where you can defend this guy better and not leave your secondary, which was playing rough, on an island. You have to make sure that you’re supporting your guys. If there’s one thing Lions fans complained to me about the most after the Saints game, it was the blitz. They were right in the middle of the league doing it Week 1. I’m not saying don’t ever do it, but when you have a guy like Allen who can just scramble out and just sling that thing in the face of pressure, the plan should no longer be to take him down. It has to be to take his pieces off the board and make him beat you on short passes.
The Lions seemed to have fixed their pass rush, but not much else
Run defense was supposed to be this team’s bread and butter. But then the Bills ran all over them. James Cook was over 100 yards before halftime. They couldn’t stop the run; they got passed all over. At this point, I’m not sure what this defense is good at outside of the one thing everyone swore they were the worst at last year. The Bills finished the night with 000 yards on the ground. I know fans are going to be like, “What are you talking about?” on the pass rush thing, but they actually did get pressure. I mean, there’s a reason Allen kept leaving the pocket.
Some good stuff
We have to write about some good stuff, right? Let’s see, I thought Jared Goff played well in this game. Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown looked good too. Tate Ratledge played a very good game. Maybe one of the best of his career.
Still a lot of football left
Don’t jump! Come back off the ledge. Yes, this was bad, and Week 1 didn’t add the most optimism, but this was Week 2 on a short week. We’re way too early in the season to start talking about things being over and all that. If things are still like this in Week 5, and even worse in Week 10, then we can start talking about where exactly the sky is.
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