The Chicago Bears and Detroit Lions are both in a tough spot. After each team dropped their season opener to a division rival, they both find themselves at 0-1, and one of these teams will wake up Monday morning staring at a 0-2 next to their name.
To get you ready for what is a critical early-season matchup, we sat down with Ryan Mathews from Pride of Detroit (SB Nation’s Detroit Lions site) to get the scoop on the Lions. If you want to read Ryan’s questions for me, you can do so here.
1. Let’s start
with Ben Johnson. After watching Johnson work over the last three years, what are your expectations for him as a head coach? Do you feel his offense will translate with new personnel? Do you think Johnson has what it takes to do all the other aspects of leading a team that head coaches must do?
Without being in the locker room, it’s hard to say with any conviction whether or not I believe in Johnson’s ability to command and lead a group of men. From an X’s and O’s standpoint, Johnson is clearly a creative guy who does a lot of what it takes to be successful in today’s NFL. He employs both zone and gap concepts in the run game, uses a ton of pre-snap motion, and knows how to take advantage of weaknesses in a defense. Resurrecting and rehabilitating Jared Goff’s career is–and forever will be–at the tippy-top of his list of accomplishments in his career.
Personally, I’m most interested to see how he builds an offense around the unique skillset of a guy like Williams–and by “unique,” I mean a guy who is the athletic antithesis of Goff.
2. Let’s look at the Detroit side of the Ben Johnson loss and get your thoughts on the new offensive coordinator, John Morton. After a poor showing in week one, Lions fans (at least online) were livid with Morton’s game plan and play calling. What were your thoughts on Morton’s week one performance, and how do you think he will perform moving forward?
It wasn’t a great start to the Morton era in Week 1, but more than anything else, the missed assignments are what stood out to me. Those mistakes were the first thing Dan Campbell pointed out after the game, and he was quick to label them as “so correctable.” Those missed assignments could boil down to a number of things, and there’s room for blame to be passed around to players for failing to execute and the coaches not having players prepared for the moment. But with the sheer talent the Lions have on the offensive side of the ball, it’s a lot less concerning than the loud people on social media are making it out to be.
Ultimately, the offense was held back by a failure to communicate. Some of it was admittedly on Goff, some of it was the offensive line not all being on the same page, but it didn’t seem like it was some terribly bad schematic design from Morton. As a whole, I think the offense can and will improve, especially given this is early in the season–a place where the Lions have struggled in general the past couple of seasons–and there seems to be a lot of accountability from the coaching staff and the players alike.
It’s not going to happen overnight, and it’s not going to be perfect from a week’s worth of practice, but it’s reasonable to expect it will look a whole lot better in the friendly confines of Ford Field this Sunday.
3. While we are talking about coaches, let’s look at the man in the big chair, Dan Campbell. There were plenty of people who said that Campbell is a great head coach and that he’s the engine behind the Lions, and because of that, the Lions will manage losing what I believe was 8 coaches off their staff to new jobs. Others said that Johnson and Aaron Glenn were the keys to that staff, and Campbell was a culture builder who was more of a figurehead. How do you think Campbell will manage this season with so many losses on his staff?
Campbell isn’t a figurehead whatsoever; that’s a load of malarkey, and I say that as respectfully as I can. Campbell has a brilliant football mind that doesn’t get as much exposure and attention as the sound bytes do, and he isn’t going to go out of his way to prove to anyone how much he knows about the sport of football. His actions speak louder than words, and there’s been plenty of things he’s done to prove he knows what he’s doing.
He relieved Anthony Lynn of his play-calling duties as the team’s offensive coordinator in 2021 when the team got off to a 0-8 start. Campbell took over those play-calling duties in his first season as a full-time head coach and proceeded to go 3-5-1 over the final nine games of the season–and in two of those games, the roster was severely impacted by COVID and missing Jared Goff. He’s the one who retained Ben Johnson, a holdover from the Matt Patricia regime, and promoted him. But those who consider him to be a figurehead will chalk that up to being a dumb stroke of luck, I suppose.
It’s a tired trope, but time will reveal that Campbell is as much a ball-knower as he is a former football player who commands the respect of the locker room through empathy and experience.
4. Let’s look at the players on the field. Can you highlight three players that you think will be the key to a Lions victory on Sunday? They can be key players or role players, whoever you think could have a big impact on the outcome.
It always starts up front, and it’s going to be important for the interior of Detroit’s offensive line to be much better than they were a week ago. It’d be real easy to simply say that those three players are Christian Mahogany, a second-year player out of Boston College who has three career starts–rookie Tate Ratledge, and Graham Glasgow, but let’s count those guys as one of the keys to victory for Detroit. They’ll all need to be playing as one, and that communication and understanding of the responsibilities will be of the utmost importance in the Lions getting back to a successful ground game. Last week, Detroit had its worst rushing performance since Week 6 of 2023, when Jahmyr Gibbs was an injured inactive and David Montgomery was hurt and shelved before halftime.
On defense, it’s going to be important to see Aidan Hutchinson be the game wrecker he was a year ago. He didn’t look to be a step slow or show any signs of wear from the serious injury he suffered last October, but much like John Morton, new defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard needs to stick to the basics and let the talent win out. Against the Packers last week, Sheppard got a bit too far out ahead of his skis by dropping Hutchinson into coverage on multiple third downs, as he did with some of the other talented pass rushers in Marcus Davenport and Derrick Barnes.
And lastly, second-year cornerback Terrion Arnold is going to be a very important piece to slowing down the talented group of wideouts the Bears have at their disposal. He tweaked his groin last week against the Packers, got picked on for a couple of plays after the injury, and then was ruled out. He’s healthy and on the practice field this week, and the Lions will need him to help solve their losing record this Sunday.
5. The Ben Johnson Bowl should be an intriguing game on Sunday, no doubt. Both these teams had rough showings in week one and want to avoid starting 0-2. For a Lions team that’s been a playoff team the last couple of years, I looked and saw Detroit is at Baltimore in week three. Because of that looming game, would you consider this game a must-win game for the Lions? How do you see this one playing out?
In good conscience, I can’t say a game in Week 2 of a 17-game schedule is a “must-win” game. The season’s too long, and Dan Campbell’s teams have proven to string together wins as their confidence grows. Would starting 0-2 in the division with a trip to Baltimore be ideal? Obviously not, and the Lions’ schedule is historically difficult in the Super Bowl era, but the talent and leadership on this team won’t let me label this game as anything other than important.
If the Lions can get back to basics and clean up their correctable mistakes, improve the lines of communication, and get the players on the same page, it’s going to be a tough environment for Ben Johnson and Co. to pull this one out. But if the Bears can script together a successful opening drive like they did against the Minnesota Vikings, that would go a long way toward making the Ford Field faithful uncomfortable in their seats.
