Before we get into today’s Question of the Day, let’s be clear: the Detroit Lions are not fundamentally “broken.” They’ve got a defense playing like a top-five unit, a ton of skill position players who are arguably top-five at their position—including a quarterback who ranks at or near top-five in most statistical categories—and a offense that, despite its flaws, still ranks top-five in scoring, yards per play, and top-10 in DVOA.
But it’s also clear that if they play like they have in the past month or so, they probably won’t win a championship. The offense has been too inconsistent, with a run game that has been mostly ineffective. They are not playing their best ball right now, and to win a Super Bowl, you need to be trending in the right direction in December and January. So today’s Question of the Day is:
How would you “fix” the Detroit Lions?
My answer: You can go multiple directions for this question, but all of the answers should probably surround addressing some of the offensive line deficiencies. Maybe you think throwing rookie Miles Frazier into the lineup could help. Maybe moving Graham Glasgow to his more preferred position of right guard is the shakeup the line needs. Personally, I think messing with the lineup too much at this point in the season could actually be counterproductive. It’s certainly a risk—possibly one worth taking—but I’m not quite on board for that.
Y0u may also think the Lions should focus on certain players more. The offense does seem to hum better when they involve David Montgomery a little more to balance the workload Jahmyr Gibbs gets. Or maybe they focus less on a traditional run game, and replace that with more Gibbs as a receiver—who has recently shown his explosiveness there over the ground game.
Personally, I think the answer is more schematic-based. There are things this offensive line does do well together. Some gap-schemed runs seem to generally work really well for this line. Getting the offensive linemen on the move and catching the defensive line with wham or pin-pull blocks should help in getting the ground game going and keeping the defense off-kilter. Last year, the Lions were able to utilize both gap and zone concepts, and I understand if the Lions felt the need to pull back on some of that stuff and simplify with a younger group this year. But I just feel like they aren’t leaning into to the team’s strengths, and coach Dan Campbell made a vague reference to this on Monday.
“There’s a couple of things I wish yesterday maybe I do differently, and just the way that we go about attacking those guys,” Campbell said about the offensive line. “Just a little bit that I think maybe can help our guys, too. There again, I just think—there’s a lot of things I think about that are always going around in my head, man. A number of different ways, ‘Well we can do this, we can do this, we can try this.’”
Campbell has done a fair amount of tweaking since taking over play calling, and I believe he’s got the know-how to do it again moving forward. Hopefully that involves leaning into the offensive line’s strengths and finding more overall consistency on offense.
How would you “fix” the Lions? Share your thoughts in the comment section at the bottom of this page.
