While we haven’t gotten that many opportunities to do so this year, this week we’ve gotten the chance to gather some intel on the Minnesota Vikings’ opponent for this week from the folks who run the SB Nation site that covers them throughout the season.
I got the opportunity to exchange Five Good Questions with Ryan Mathews from Pride of Detroit, SB Nation’s home for everything about the Detroit Lions. You can see my answers to the questions that he sent me over at POD (or on the front page here).
Here are the questions that I sent over to him, along with his responses.
1) It seems like every time we talk about the Vikings and the Lions, the subject of Dan Campbell’s aggressiveness on fourth down comes up. This past Sunday, he chose to go for it on a 4th-and-1 from his own 24-yard line in a 17-17 game with five minutes left in regulation, and the Lions didn’t convert. They dodged a bullet when the Packers missed the go-ahead field goal, and ultimately won the game. Are Lions’ fans still fans of Campbell’s aggressiveness or do they feel he veers into recklessness too frequently in these situations now that he’s been the head coach for a while?
In the moment, it felt incredibly reckless, even by Dan Campbell’s standards. It was a long yard to gain, and with the way the offensive line was having trouble keeping Packers defenders out of the backfield, the play call felt uninspired at best. But after hearing Campbell’s explanation, it’s hard to argue with his rationale: Detroit didn’t want to punt and run the risk of letting Green Bay eat the clock and score without having a chance at rebuttal. Considering the Lions’ offense was moving the ball all day long, it makes a lot of sense to put the onus on that side of the ball to keep them in the game.
However, the issue I took with that particular drive was the sequence of play calls prior to going for it on fourth down. Jahmyr Gibbs arguably reached the line to gain on first down, but Campbell decided not to challenge the play–and in his defense, overturning the spot of the ball doesn’t happen all too often. But after going to Gibbs again on second and third down, the latter being a short pass, it felt like poor play-calling choices if the plan all along was going for it on fourth down that drive. In fact, I took a bigger issue with a different fourth down Detroit went for earlier in the game. At the tail end of the third quarter and from the Packers’ 6-yard line, Detroit was up by three points and decided to go for it on fourth-and-5. Going up six at that point in the game, and forcing Green Bay to find the end zone to take the lead with only a quarter to go felt like a better decision.
2) The Lions’ defense has had significant issues this year, particularly against the pass, where they’re 32nd in the league in both yards allowed and touchdown passes allowed. Do you think this is more of a function of the personnel they have in the back end of the defense or are there other reasons that they’ve had problems stopping teams through the air so far?
With the secondary, it’s been a mix; a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Injuries completely ravaged the safety position at the start of the season. Detroit were already without Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph, but not long after, both Avonte Maddox and Thomas Harper were sidelined with injuries. Detroit essentially ran out of contingencies after Week 4, and after both injuries and disappointing play took their toll, the Lions were desperate enough to turn to rookie fifth-round nickel cornerback Keith Abney II–he played nearly 60 snaps at deep safety against the Cardinals and did a pretty good job. Good enough he played 34 snaps, this time in more of a box safety role, against the Packers last week despite the return of Brian Branch.
Branch’s return last week was a seismic shot in the arm for their defense as a whole. He picked up an interception and was his usual self in run defense, recording three run stops according to Next Gen Stats–tied for second among Lions’ defenders in Week 7. Kerby Joseph did return to practice on Wednesday, but don’t expect him to play in this one. Detroit usually gets their players at least a week before they return them to the field.
In short, much of Detroit’s shortcomings on defense stemmed from miscommunications, misunderstanding of personnel, and missed opportunities from the secondary. Cornerback play could have been better, and the Lions were forced to shake things up at CB2 after Rock Ya-Sin’s injury, but much like the safety room, it’s healing and performing much better in recent weeks–even if that means going from 31st in EPA/play on defense in the first four weeks to ranking 18th in EPA/play over their last two games. Throw in some positive turnover differentials and Lions fans couldn’t have imagined seeing this kind of improvement more than a month ago.
3) The Vikings come into this one sporting the best defense in the league by most measures, but the Lions have been able to have a measure of success against them in recent years. How do you think Drew Petzig and company are going to go about trying to attack Brian Flores’ group and trying to solve them this time around?
Earlier in the week, Flores had some incredibly complimentary words to share about Jared Goff: “Command of the offense, cadence, his ability to just extract information from the defense with shifts, motions, cadence, and his ability to gather that information and then make the correct reads and throws, is high level.”
“Statistically, he’s been one of the best quarterbacks, not even statistically, period. He’s been one of the best quarterbacks in the National Football League over, you know, a good amount of time. And so, yes, he’s grown quite a bit. That’s what you expect, as guys get more time under their belt. I think he’s one of the best in the league and they’ve got a great skill group and he knows how to, you know, distribute the ball to all of them.”
It hasn’t all been perfect with Goff and Petzing despite the numbers, and that might sound privileged considering they rank third in EPA/play and second in success rate on offense, but there’s still real room for this offense to work through some of their kinks. It isn’t all perfect along the offensive line as Detroit reintroduces Cade Mays at center, and the ground game is still missing some of those home-run plays from Jahmyr Gibbs. But there is something that Detroit found a lot of success in doing last week: crossing routes and working the middle of the field to open up the shots outside the numbers. Those kinds of long-developing routes require the offensive line holding up in pass protection, and they helped hold the Packers to the 24th-lowest pressure rate in Week 7.
The key matchup here, in my opinion, is Goff & Mays vs. Flores. Against the best coach in football, it’s a fair handicap match. Mays got a full load of snaps, hopefully knocked off some of the rust in the process, and is up to the challenge of sorting through the eye candy Flores puts in front of him.
4) Give us one player on each side of the ball for the Lions that fans of the Vikings might not be familiar with that you think will be a big contributor to any success that the Lions are going to have on Sunday.
Detroit’s offense is full of household names, so it’s a little more difficult to give you an under-the-radar sort of player who’s expected to be a big contributor on that side of the ball. Here’s the name of a player who will certainly play some snaps on offense as the team’s RB2 and serve as a four-core special teamer: Sione Vaki. He comes on in a lot of third down situations as a pass blocker, but he is liable to get a touch or two just to keep the defenses honest and not completely keying in on what Detroit’s called.
For the defensive side of the ball, the aforementioned Keith Abney II has been intriguing over the past couple of weeks. His safety play has been mostly sound, he’s a willing tackler in run defense, and he was so close to his second interception of the season last week, nearly bringing in a pick in the back of the end zone.
5) Despite the Vikings being the NFL’s last undefeated team, the Lions are favored in this week’s matchup according to our friends at the FanDuel Sportsbook. Do you think that the Lions are going to give the ’72 Dolphins the chance to pop the champagne this Sunday? If so, what do you think will be the difference in this one?
Either the Lions get it done and the Dolphins’ alumni pop the cork, or they don’t and the Vikings finally get their first marquee win of the season–it’s easy to see either happening. It’s essentially great on great when the Lions offense and Vikings defense meet, and an unimpressive Minnesota offense against a maybe not historically-bad defense for Detroit.
Flores is legit, Detroit is encouraged by the improvements of their own defense, but it’s about as perfect a matchup as either of these teams could have wanted at this point in the season. A true measuring-stick game that should be highly competitive.
Thanks to Ryan for taking the time to sit down and answer our questions for this week!
