What is the story about?
Detroit
Lions coach Dan Campbell started his Monday press conference with a lengthy self-scouting report after the team’s 1-1 start. Coming off a hugely disappointing loss to the Buffalo Bills, Campbell had no shortage of things he felt the team needed to improve upon.
So here, in order, are the things Campbell listed that the team needs to improve, along with statistics to back his case and his specific comments.
- Third- and fourth-down conversion rates
- Lions offense: 9-of-24 on third down (37.5%, 17th), 2-of-2 on fourth down (100%, t-first)
- Lions defense: 17-of-29 on third down (58.6%, 30th), 2-of-2 on fourth down (100%, t-last)
- Campbell made the interesting note that Detroit’s defense is actually first in second-and-7+s forced, but they are failing on other downs
- “We’re putting them in tough positions right now. That’s the whole point of why we do what we do, but we’re losing them because we still, they’re converting 66% of the time. So, all of this that we’ve gained on first down, we are losing on second and third down. ”
- Run game on both sides of the ball is “inconsistent”
- Lions run offense: 13th in EPA, 10th in success rate
- Lions run defense: 31st in EPA, 26th in success rate
- Campbell was happy with how both looked against the Saints, but both took a step back vs. the Bills
- “We get into this game and we don’t run it well enough on offense. And then defensively obviously gave up a lot of yards, gave up 80 to that quarterback, 40 in the first drive, loss contained three times. That’s discipline.”
- Losing explosive play battle
- Lions offense: Seven plays of 20+ yards (t-10th)
- Lions defense: 13 plays of 20+ yards allowed (32nd)
- “We’re not explosive enough on offense right now, and we’re bleeding them out on defense. Same thing, man. Be where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there. Do it with urgency.”
- Red zone offense/defense
- Lions offense: 7-of-9 TDs, 77.8% (seventh)
- Lions defense: 9-of-10 TDs, 90% (30th)
- Campbell noted the offense percentage is good, but points to their first-and-goal situation vs. the Saints that turned into a field goal after a goal-line holding penalty as another conversion that should’ve happened.
- “We should be 90% at worse right now after two games.”
- Penalties:
- 18 penalties (sixth most)
- “Right now we have 18 penalties. 14 of those to me are, they’re not okay, man. They’re not okay. Four false starts. We have got three offensive holdings from poor fundamentals, three defensive holdings, poor fundamentals, one defensive offsides, a blatant face mask, delay a game that was off of seeing if they get them to jump and they jumped and we don’t react. . And then the landing zone infraction, we missed the landing zone and it wasn’t even close. So, those are unacceptable. The other four, hey, it’s cost of doing business. And those are all correctable. Every one of them is correctable.”
- Punt coverage
- 8.1 yards per punt return allowed (eighth best)
- “We’ve got to get out of there. Our interior, our core, we’re getting hung up too much. We’re tripping on each other. We’re not shooting our way out.”
- Kick return
- 24.1 yards per return (24th)
- “We’re leaving a lot of meat on the bone and kickoff return right now.”
