The thing Cardinals fans hated so much about Drew Petzing illustrates exactly why the Lions hired him
The Lions are built to run the ball the way Petzing likes. They’ve been doing it for years.
Has anyone noticed a lot of Arizona Cardinals fans in their comments after the Detroit Lions hired Drew Petzing to be their offensive coordinator? That is a pretty upset fan base, and they have reason to be upset. The Cardinals have not been to the playoffs since 2021, and many of the big draft picks they’ve had in recent years have not materialized.
The big thing Cardinals fans have been harping on is Petzing drawing up run plays on third-and-long. To be clear, we’re talking about 21 run attempts between third-and-4-6 and third-and-10.
Call me crazy, but there might be a real misunderstanding of what these run attempts were supposed to be, and this misunderstanding has really driven home why this hire fits the Lions so well.
Petzing’s run game theory looks a lot like Ben Johnson’s under Dan Campbell
There’s a bit of a philosophy change happening in the NFL right now, and maybe Campbell has a lot to do with it. The idea is essentially that four downs are always on the table. You have to treat first and second down as if they’re both your first down attempt, and third down is your second down attempt.
So when you see a run play drawn up on third-and-long, you might think it is insane or the team turtling. In reality, it’s all about setting up a manageable fourth down in the areas you can get it. Johnson did a good job of explaining this last year.
“Each week was its own entity, though, and so it wasn’t like you went into the season saying, ‘hey, every fourth-and-2, we’re always going to go for it.’ That was not the case. It just depended on the week, the opponent, how aggressive they were, the weather. There’s all kinds of factors that come into play. And so going into the game, yeah, he would have shared that information with me, of man, once we hit midfield, if you can make it fourth-and-3 or less, then, then you’re going to have a green light.
“And then over the course of the game, once we hit that range, he would be in my headset and telling me, ‘Hey, you got four downs here,’ which would tell me why you just got to make this fourth-and-3 or less, right? And so what that allowed me to do as a play caller was we ran the ball a shit ton on third down where you know to make it into those manageable situations, and a lot of those runs we ended up converting anyways because that’s that’s actually the best time to run the ball, so it was I think that was his whole grand scheme. You know there’s a lot of science behind it.”
Just go back to 2024 when the Cardinals had one of the best run games in the league, and you’ll see it clear as day. They had 15 third-and-long attempts and then 10 combined passing and rushing attempts from fourth-and-short. They converted on six. That’s success right there.
The Lions are built to run this kind of offense and run the ball like this. It’s everything they’ve been doing for five years now. That’s why Petzing makes even more sense with stuff like this. The good news is that the Lions have the talent to pull this stuff off for the most part. But they need to do everything they can to nail the offensive line before the 2026 season.
Detroit Lions News
What’s true and what’s untrue about the Detroit Lions’ hiring of Drew Petzing
Let’s just go ahead clear up some of the confusion leading to rumors
