Lions Film Study: Terrion Arnold concerns might be pretty overblown
A deeper look at Arnold’s perfromance against the Bears
When I started covering the Detroit Lions 11 years ago, one of the things I wanted to ensure was honesty. You’re not always going to like the things I write, and that’s cool, but you can never say what I wrote wasn’t something I felt or believed at the time. But I can be wrong. A perfect example of that was on Monday when I wrote about what looked like a concerning trend for Terrion Arnold.
Arnold’s been targeted a lot this season. Fifteen times to be exact, and he’s allowed 10 catches. At the time, it felt like cause for concern, and to a degree, it definitely still is. On Tuesday, I sat down and went over the film, and my thoughts coming away from it were, “Mike, you might have been a bit overblown with your concerns.” Let’s go over some clips together and talk about them.
Clip 1: The worst of it
This was the only clip I could find where Arnold got flat-out beaten by his man. Moore hit that change of direction fast and shed Arnold off of him. It resulted in an 18-yard catch.
This was on the Bears’ first drive, which they’ve shown to be good on since they’re heavily scripted. Most other targets Arnold saw, he was right on top of his man and made the stop immediately.
Clip 2: An example of how he’s right on his guys
Right here, you see Arnold get a little shook on the short pass and then closes right in on Moore to make the stop. You saw a few more examples of this in the game.
Yeah, the catch is made, but I don’t know if any cornerback in the world is stopping this catch. The point is that he closed in and stopped the play in its tracks.
Clip 3: Should have been a pick six
You have to give a little credit to Caleb Williams on this one because he made a good throw and put it where only his man could get it. But if he underthrows this just a little bit, Arnold is likely taking it back for a pick-six. He’s in a great position here.
That doesn’t mean he couldn’t have been in a better position. He’s a tiny bit late to the party on this one, but still, an underthrow, and he’s headed the other way.
Clip 4: Another one that should have been an interception
Oh man, you can tell from Arnold’s response that he wants that one back. He played this perfectly by changing direction and placing himself on the inside of Zacchaeus. He even gets his hands on the ball.
That’s a tough one to miss out on. Just in case you’re not keeping track, that’s three interceptions that Arnold could have walked out of this game with. There are these two, and then the one he actually had that got called back because of Brian Branch’s super weak roughing the passer penalty.
Clip 5: Super weak DPI
Speaking of super weak penalties, I gave Arnold some grief for turning this Bears third-and-15 into a first down in the Lions’ territory. Seeing it from here instead of up in the press box shows that this one was pretty weak. Look, I get that you can’t impede the receiver before the ball gets to him, but Arnold touches him for less than a second and doesn’t impede anything. The catch is still made, and I don’t know why this got called.
At the end of the day, the takeaway from this experience was that Arnold played pretty well, and the concerns about the number of targets he’s seeing and the number of catches he’s allowing might have been a little overblown, with some nuance attached. There’s still some work to be done and growth to be had, though.
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