The Detroit Lions are still a good team and may very well beat the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving, but last year, they were a true juggernaut, and now they’re not. They’re 7-4, and their Pythagorean
record is also 7-4, and so this is exactly how good they really are.
So, what happened? The various injuries and suspensions to their various dirty safeties are certainly a factor on defense. The loss of Ben Johnson to the Bears has been a negative as well, though the Lions’ offense still leads the NFC in points. But I think the big factor is the severe decline of the offensive line, which has become a true, exploitable weak spot for defensive coordinators to attack. The Lions’ line has been elite for the duration of Jared Goff’s tenure as quarterback, which is good because few quarterbacks decline as much under pressure as Goff. This past offseason, the Lions suffered some attrition. Taylor Decker is a year older, and things are worse. Every week, football analyst Ben Baldwin runs a chart of offensive line PFF grades versus ESPN’s Pass Block Win Rate. Being in the upper right is good, and in the lower left is bad, and well, take a look:
Also note the Bears way up top there. Penei Sewell is still outstanding overall (more on this later), and it’s not a BAD line, but it’s quite a bit worse than usual, and that weakness is all about the middle, and the running backs. According to Pro Football Focus, the top four interior linemen for the Lions in terms of snap count (Tate Ratledge, Graham Glasgow, Christian Mahogany, and Kayode Awosika) have cumulative pass blocking grades of 46.8, 59.8, 46.9, and 46.9, respectively. Even Decker and Sewell have only graded in the 70s (77 for Sewell and 70.1 for Decker), which is fine, but hardly elite. Sewell is still a 95.9 overall, but that comes almost entirely from a near 100 in run blocking.
Still, Detroit’s line was holding up mostly fine until a surprise upset loss to the JJ McCarthy Vikings after their Week 8 bye. As we just saw, the Vikings are in a world of hurt, but defensive coordinator Brian Flores is the best in the league at deploying creative blitz packages to target opposing weaknesses. With the Lions’ offensive line struggling, Flores understood that running backs David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs would be essential in blitz pickup, and that Gibbs, in particular, while a fantastic runner, was a weak point.
Flores pushed Gibbs into a pass-blocking role on seven occasions, and Gibbs allowed pressure on all seven reps, including at least one devastating sack. The Vikings sacked Goff five times and generally made his life miserable. Gibbs received a pass blocking grade for 22.3 (that’s out of 100) in true pass blocking sets. Montgomery somehow received a worse grade (19.6), and while I did not think he was good during a rewatch, he wasn’t the disaster that Gibbs was, in my opinion.
The Lions are still a good team overall, and of course, every team, including Green Bay, has exploitable weaknesses, but the Lions are weaker than they have been in years, and a smart defensive game plan can really get them out of rhythm. If you can avoid Gibbs running all over you (as he did to the Giants last week), you have a good chance of winning on Thanksgiving.
