Without a doubt, the biggest storyline out of the Detroit Lions’ loss to the Minnesota Vikings was their poor offensive showing. After starting the game with an impressive six-play, 72-yard touchdown drive, here’s how the following seven drives went:
- 3 plays, -2 yards, punt
- 6 plays, 14 yards, punt
- 9 plays, 35 yards, TD
- 3 plays, 6 yards, punt
- 3 plays, -1 yards, punt
- 3 plays, 8 yards, punt
- 3 plays, 8 yards, fumble
Over those seven drives, the Lions averaged 2.27 yards per play. By the time they got the ball again, there was only 6:04 left in the game and they found themselves down 24-14. While Detroit managed to work their way back into the game near the end, the game was essentially lost when five of seven drives in the middle quarters lasted just three plays.
Here’s what coach Dan Campbell and some Lions players had to say about the offensive struggles.
On not being able to handle Vikings’ pressure
Campbell: “Self-induced. Oh yeah. Very disappointing. We knew what we were going to get going into this. We knew there would be some wrinkles, but there was nothing that we hadn’t seen before. We did not—we didn’t handle it. We did not handle it well. I know we got beat on a couple of them, just physically beat on a couple that we expect not to. We expect more out of our guys. But some of it, we act like it was something exotic—it wasn’t. We just didn’t handle it well. We weren’t on the same page. We were not on the same page.”
Jared Goff: “They had a good plan on defense. They always are hard to play against defensively. They do a good job over there, and I have a ton of respect for the way they do things. Yeah, they got after us up front a little bit and gave us some pressures we hadn’t seen and did a good job on defense.”
Goff on miscommunications up front: “Yeah, a couple times. I mean, it’s inexcusable, but they make it hard, and I think caused us to have a few miscommunications.”
Goff on not getting into the right protections/play calls pre-snap: “Not enough to win. You’d like to maybe have some different things against some of the stuff they were doing, but I think even if we’d won I’d say the same thing. They did some good stuff on defense. They’re going to get you at times, that’s who they are, and you’ve got to be able to win more than you lose in those instances where they are trying to confuse you and bring pressure in. I thought today they won more than we did in those instances.”
Amon-Ra St. Brown on pressure throwing off passing game: “Any quarterback (that) doesn’t have time to throw, it’s pretty tough. We’ve got to, as receivers, get open faster, if he’s not going to have as much time. We’ve just got to be better.”
Third down struggles
Campbell: “The fact that we had 17 third-downs, that’s crazy. That’s a high, high amount of third downs. We need to be—our first and second down efficiency has got to be better. I’d start there. Then, yes, the third down is still an issue.”
Taylor Decker: “Well, we were in third-and-long a lot. We’ve got to stay on schedule, that’s going to be the biggest thing. So first and second down (success) is going to make third down a lot more manageable. I’m sure it wasn’t every one, but it felt like we were in third-and-8, 9, 10 plus, a lot today. Penalties factor into that, too. There were some penalties. It’s going to be hard to hit the success rate you want on third downs if you’re in third-and-long all the time. You need more third-and-mediums.”
Run game struggles
Decker: “I think it was a combination of they executed their game plan well, and we didn’t execute ours good enough. You’ve got to give credit to them. They played really well, especially against our run game. So then they were able to get us behind the sticks, and they were kinda able to tee off with their pressures and exotic blitzes and all that.”
Campbell on the OL performance: “We did not handle some of the communication well. Not well enough. Where we all need to be on the same page. That’s the bottom line. We’re better than that, we just are.”
Goff: “We’d like to run the ball better, sure. Again, I think if we were more efficient on first and second down, some of those runs end up hitting a little bit more if we’re more efficient through the air, some of those runs end up hitting more. It all works together. It’s not exclusive to itself. I think there are plays where we can get into a better run, I could’ve killed a run or stayed in the pass, whatever it may be. So, I certainly have my hand in that as well, but something we’ll look at and get better.”
Lack of explosive plays
St. Brown: “I’m not sure. We’ve got to watch the tape. Obviously, you could play safeties over the top, eliminate deep balls and whatnot, but we’ve just got to be better.”
On John Morton
Goff on whether he’ll have more input with Morton moving forward: “I always do. I don’t think next week’s going to be any different. (He) and I work collaboratively, and I don’t believe that next week would be any different.”
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