Drew Petzing spent three seasons calling plays for the Arizona Cardinals, but the Detroit Lions’ first-year offensive coordinator said he won’t have to suppress any extra emotion when the Lions play the Cardinals on Sunday, Oct. 11, in Glendale, Arizona.
“Honestly, it’s something I think very little about,” Petzing said. “To me, it's the next game that we need to win and that's really where my mind stops. I did have a great time there. I loved it there, personally and professionally. Just got to, we got to go out and beat them.”
The Cardinals went 15-36 in Petzing’s three seasons as offensive coordinator, but Petzing said his experience in Arizona was
transformational.
Petzing spent a decade as an offensive assistant with the Cleveland Browns and Minnesota Vikings before getting a chance to call plays for the first time in his coaching career. He oversaw a top-10 rushing offense in 2023-24, and last year, Cardinals tight end Trey McBride set NFL records for most receptions (126) and receiving yards (1,239) by a tight end.
“A huge part of my career,” Petzing said. “First time play calling, worked with [former Cardinals coach] Jonathan Gannon, [current Cardinals defensive coordinator] Nick Rallis, a number of guys on that staff for a number of years in my career. So had a chance to take the next step with them and grow as a coach and grow as a person and grow as a leader. So, invaluable what those guys taught me, what I learned from them, what hopefully I was able to impart on them. But it was, it was an amazing three years.”
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Petzing on running game
The Lions have one of the best running backs in the NFL in Jahmyr Gibbs, but they’ve struggled to run the football for much of this season.
Through four weeks, the Lions rank 20th in the NFL in rushing at 102 yards per game and are one of only 11 teams with one or fewer rush of 20-plus yards.
Petzing said he’s identified two areas of improvement that will help the rushing attack.
“The run game needs to be better,” he said. “It's a big part of our offense, it needs to be a big part of this team. I think the explosiveness, we need to find some big ones. We haven't hit the big one and that really – those can change games and they also change your rankings and statistics real fast. And then we need to find consistency. We need to make sure that the run game’s there every week regardless of opponent, regardless of all those things. And I think those are the two areas to me that we need to focus on the most as coaches and players.”
Last year, the Lions led the NFL with seven rushes of 40-plus yards and tied for sixth with 14 gains of at least 20 yards.
“I think it starts with us as coaches from a scheme standpoint of how we're designing the run game, where we're putting our blocking schemes, what angles we're creating, what personnel matchups we're trying to create,” Petzing said. “And then a lot of explosive runs are second- and third-level effort. Like, are we getting everything we can on the back side of a run so that when it does cut back or when it does spit out, that we can create not just an 8-yard run, but the 20- or 25-yard run and give him just the post safety or give him just the back-side corner rather than, 'Oh, he got through the hole, but there's two guys there when there should have only been one.' I think that's one of the big parts of it.”
Sheppard on blitzes: ‘Right calls’
Carolina Panthers quarterback Bryce Young had his way with the Lions’ blitz last week, completing seven of eight passes on 12 dropbacks against the blitz, according to Bleacher Report.
Despite Young’s success, Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard said he has no regrets about the timing of his blitz calls.
“Those calls were the right calls,” Sheppard said. “Those calls were the right calls, and I’ll leave it at that.”
The Lions have blitzed on 30.5% of their defensive snaps this season, 11th most in the league according to Pro Football Reference, but rank 17th in hurry percentage (7.9%). According to ESPN, the Lions are allowing 109.3 passing yards per game when getting pressure, far and away the NFL's worst number and more than 40 yards worse than the No. 31 team, the Atlanta Falcons (65.3).
Asked what was working that allowed Young to be so effective against the blitz, Sheppard said, “Those are private conversations that we have that I’m going to keep in-house. Those calls were the right calls.”
Take 5 (yards)
The Lions narrowly missed their first punt block since 2020 against the Panthers, and special teams coordinator Dave Fipp said he has “the best rush group that we've had since I've been here” on punts.
“We have more speed probably on the field, more sudden speed, good get-off, powerful guys,” Fipp said. “The [Sione] Vakis, Tay Martin, [Jacob] Saylors. [Trevor] Nowaske on the inside does a good job of that. So just more of those explosive body types that can get off the ball with some power behind them.”
Nowaske was called for a 5-yard running into the kicker penalty against the Panthers, which Fipp acknowledged probably should have been a 15-yard roughing penalty.
“I will say that the league is very lenient with that,” Fipp said. “Over the years, it's always bothered me. I'm like, 'Man, if you hit the guy like that, it should be 15.' But I would say that it rarely is 15. Most of the time it's 5. If you hit the leg that's punting the ball, that's a 5-yard penalty. It really takes to get to 15, you better kill the guy where you go through his plant leg, the down foot. And we didn't do that, so that was good. But yeah, we're not looking to get a penalty.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions OC Drew Petzing on return to Arizona: 'Got to go out and beat them'
