This is a huge game for the Detroit Lions. It’s no doubt the biggest game of the year to this point. In week 1, the Lions went out to Lambeau, and they played their worst game of the year. Now they get a chance to right the wrongs and get themselves a playoff spot. But first, they have to get past this tough Packers defense.

The big weakness for the Lions right now is their interior offensive line. We talked with our Packers beat writer, Wendell Ferriera, about what the Packers may try to do to get to Jared Goff. Here’s what he had to say:

How the Packers will go after Jared Goff

“The Packers have done it in two different ways. The first and more natural is with disruptive interior defensive linemen in Devonte Wyatt and Karl Brooks. Wyatt had four pressures in Week 1 and generated two sacks last Sunday against the Vikings.

The other way is by moving edge defenders inside. Frequently, Micah Parsons stays right behind the 1-tech lineman to create confusion for the opposing interior. Lukas Van Ness is just returning from injury, but he has the ability to play inside as well. Jeff Hafley also likes to send his off-ball linebackers into pressure, especially second-year defender Edgerrin Cooper.”

So far this season, the Packers have been able to put up 42 pressures and five sacks between their guys in the middle. Wyatt is the stronger pass rusher there. You might worry about Parsons, but the Packers haven’t really lined him up inside a whole lot. Just 12 times this season. That doesn’t mean he won’t try to go inside, but it does mean that the Packers feel comfortable enough with their interior. The Lions are probably going to go jumbo on one side a lot and then hope they can get as many matchups with Penei Sewell as they can on the other side to stop the All-Pro.

Where the Lions can beat the Packers’ defense

Where Jared Goff might feel comfortable as a passer is that the Packers allow quarterbacks the eighth-highest time to throw in the league at 2.86. That and their time to pressure have been pretty rough in the last five weeks. They’ve allowed time to throw numbers and time to pressure numbers in the 3.2 areas. That’s a lot of slow pressure.

On top of that, the Packers’ little secret is that they haven’t really faced a strong passing attack this year:

You can see that the Packers haven’t really played a team that’s successful at throwing the ball this year. It makes you wonder what the Lions’ offense could look like this time around, especially when everyone can agree now that their Week 1 game looks like a huge outlier compared to the rest of the season. Plus, the Lions don’t have John Morton calling the offense this time. Plus, when the Packers did play a strong passing offense, they allowed 40 points and 325 passing yards against the Cowboys.

As far as the ground game goes, the Packers are a tough team to run on, much like the Lions are. They allow just 96.2 rushing yards per game. But the Lions do boast the best rushing attack the Packers have faced all year. So there is some reason to believe they might be able to get enough going on the ground to set up the pass.

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