Back in week 6 the Detroit Lions had a guy who was in the midst of an all-time season in which he could have potentially broken some records and won the Defensive Player of the Year award. 

Aidan Hutchinson was just unbelievable to watch. He had 45 pressures and a league-leading seven sacks in six games. On that seventh sack, he broke his leg and now the Lions are hoping that he can come back soon. The big question is how have the Lions been at rushing the passer since and how good will they be in the playoffs? 

The concern here comes from an article that ESPN's Bill Barnwell put out about each Super Bowl contender's Achilles heel. For the Lions, he chose blitzing the quarterback. 

Barnwell says the Lions are now blitzing more than any team in the league at a whopping 41% of their snaps. Here's what he says the problem with that is:

"The Lions have been able to sustain a league-average pressure rate, which is incredible for a unit that is now down four potential starters up front with John Cominsky and Alim McNeill also out. As you might suspect from a pass rush without the same caliber of talent, the pressure isn't quite as refined as it would be with the starters; Detroit is turning just 15.1% of its pressures into sacks, the lowest rate of any team since Week 7."

That is a problem, but I'm reminded of something that Lions' head coach Dan Campbell talked about with pressures and sacks this offseason. 

"Sacks aren't that big of a deal as long you're getting the pressures," Campbell said in late May. "As long as you're getting pressures, and those pressures show up and affect the quarterback negatively. Now would you rather have sacks? Absolutely, I would rather have sacks. The loss of yardage, all of those things, but the pressures… a pressure that affects the quarterback… We watched a couple clips this morning in front of the team, quarterback is wanting to step up, he can't step up, the throw is high. He's flipping to his right, and he can't get his hips around. Throw a pick. These things that end up in negative plays as incomplete, as turnovers, whatever, I'll take those all day long."

While the Lions aren't getting the sacks, they're still definitely bringing the pressures. Barnwell listed seven teams in that article. Here's how all of them measure out in pressures in the last four weeks: 

Team	Pressures from Weeks 13-16
Eagles	153
Lions	124
Ravens	118
Packers	113
Chiefs	111
Vikings	102
Bills	90

Pressures are definitely still happening for the Lions. Even last week's win over the Bears had the Lions pressuring Caleb Williams with 20 pressures in that game. That might not seem like a lot because it felt like Hutchinson was doing that by himself, but keep in mind that Hutchinson was a rarity here. His 45 pressures is 35th in the league right now and he hasn't played since Week 6. 

Like Campbell said you'd love to see some of these pressures turn into sacks. The Lions have managed to get 12 sacks during that time and that's the second lowest of the seven teams Barnwell wrote about in his piece. They're only one behind the Chiefs if that makes you feel better. The lowest was the Bills with nine. 

If they can't get sacks, the least they can do is keep bringing the pressure and hope they can get quarterbacks off their mark and throwing bad passes. 

3 veteran players that the Lions should add to their practice squad to help out in the playoffs, including future Hall of Famer looking for one last shot at Super Bowl

The playoffs are coming for the Detroit Lions. We don't yet know what seed they'll be in, but we know they'll be there. The team has two spots open on their practice squad and now might be a great time to add some veteran help there with guys that they can elevate in playoff games […]