From the worst offensive performance in years, to some DVOA/PFF hate, here are the 7 top quotes from Detroit Lions coordinators this week.
Time to recap the Detroit Lions coordinator press conferences again this week as the team prepares for the Jacksonville Jaguars. This week’s topics vary from offensive struggles vs. the Texans, to a big, long rant about PFF grades and the DVOA metric.
Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson
On the Lions defense:
“It’s year 13, I say this all the time, best defense I’ve ever been around. It is a comforting thought knowing that we are putting them in some tough spots at times and they’re just powering through. They don’t blink an eye. Turnover, poor field position, a three-and-out by us, they go out there they just get us the ball right back right away. It’s a very comforting thought and the challenge for us as an offense right now is to pull our weight because we feel like those two other units are doing it on their side of the ball right now.”
It’s become a running gag over the last three weeks that Johnson has opened his press conference with, “How about that…” filling in the blank with either the defense, special teams, or in the case this week, both. But Johnson went above and beyond talking about the Lions defense this week, which makes sense considering their excellent performance last week—and, really, all season.
On offense’s performance vs. Texans:
“The first half was some of the poorest football we’ve probably played in the last two-and-a-half years and fortunately at halftime we got our act together. I know we still had a couple of turnovers there in the second half, but our guys are playing harder and certainly, in the fourth quarter we did what we needed to do to win that football game. That was good to see, it was a different type of game. We hadn’t seen that from the 2024 Detroit Lions yet—that much adversity, particularly early in a game, and to be able to overcome that was pretty promising for what could unfold down the road here.”
Johnson didn’t pull any punches about how bad the Lions came out of the game against the Texans. He gave credit to Houston later, noting that they came out, as anticipated, with passion and aggression, but he wasn’t happy with how they initially responded. That said, his overall takeaway is notable—that if Detroit can withstand that, they may be capable of anything.
Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn
On why Jared Goff impressed him vs. Texans
“The one guy that stood out more to me than anybody, and this is going to sound a little funny with me saying this, is our quarterback. For him to go through what he did and to be able to take this team under his wing and drive the ball and score the touchdown that we needed and make the critical plays that we needed to give us a chance to win that game was outstanding. He didn’t blink and that’s the one thing that showed up more than anything is the leadership, the toughness, the ability to take a team on his back and go win a game was outstanding to see.”
It’s interesting to see how much praise Goff is getting after his five interception performance against the Texans. Coach Dan Campbell absolved him of most the blame for each interception, and there is likely some significant truth to that. There is undeniable truth in what Glenn says here, as Goff has been long praised for his ability to stay level and calm in the face of adversity, and the Texans game was a perfect example of that.
On Josh Paschal’s growth:
“What he’s done, he’s starting to understand, ‘This is who I am. I’m not Aidan (Hutchinson), I’m not (Marcus) Davenport, I’m Paschal and here’s what my strong points are.’ And that’s a beautiful thing to see when a player starts to recognize, ‘Here’s who I am and here’s what I’m good at and I’m going to do that the best I can be and I’m continuing to learn the other things that I want to continue to improve on.’ He’s starting to do that.”
Unprompted, Glenn said that Paschal’s performance was “outstanding.” The above quote is what Glenn said when asked to dive more into his overall development now that he’s getting on the field more. Detroit will lean heavily on Paschal down the stretch, so to hear of his progress is very encouraging.
On James Houston vs. the Texans:
“I don’t want to say turned the corner, but I will say that you saw the improvement and I think he got the message of what the expectations of him needs to be and that has to be on a week-to-week basis. And again, like I said, the pass rush, I knew that was going to be there. The way he played the run in this game, that’s what I was excited about for that player because now it’s just going to give him the confidence to go out and do all the things that we know he can do at a better rate.”
Glenn is often reserved in his praise of his own players, hoping they don’t get complacent. That is certainly the case with Houston here, as he was clearly happy with how Houston played, but he needs to see it on a more consistent basis.
Special teams coordinator Dave Fipp
On Jake Bates:
“I mean the performance was obviously big time, it was incredible, it was fun to watch. I feel the exact same way about him as I have, really, from the beginning. I mean, he’s still a developing player and he’s going to continue to get better and he’s still got things to work on. We wanted those balls right down the middle, not on the edge of the uprights.”
“He’s going to have some ups and downs , it’s obviously been a lot of ups for us so far, but at that position that’s how it goes and you can’t really get caught up in the outcome, you’ve just got to stay focused on your process and what you’re doing and how you’re preparing and how you’re hitting the ball, trying to improve your contact and placement every rep and go from there.”
After Bates’ game-tying and game-winning kicks in the waning moments of the Texans game, you may expect higher praise of the Lions kicker. It’s not so much that his performance doesn’t deserve praise, but that Fipp is always pushing for more and knows that it’s not likely to always be this positive for Bates. He wants him prepared for adversity.
On ranking first in DVOA statistic:
It’s proprietary, so they can’t really tell you how they’re getting what they get. That’s not great. Number two, then you start reading on special teams, like how’s your score influence or whatever, but on the return game it’s by return yards. Well, return yards mean very little to me, I’ve shared that with you guys in the past. If they punt the ball 30 yards and we return it for none, well, they’ve got a 30-yard net, if they punt the ball 60 and then we return it 10, they’ve got a 50-yard net, but my return yards are better on this DVOA statistic or whatever, which really doesn’t make our team better.
On PFF grades:
“We play a game at the Giants and the special teams coach at the time or assistant there at the time was a good friend of mine, and he came up to me before the game and he said, ‘Hey man, just so you know, this player’—I can’t say his name, he’s actually in the media nowadays, but he said, ‘This player, he’s the best rated front-line blocker on kickoff return in the National Football League.’ And I was like, ‘Who said that?’ And he was like, ‘PFF.’ And then I was like, ‘PFF?’ I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I’m like, ‘Number one, this guy’s like the worst blocker on our team.’ But number two, we put him on these matchups on the backside of the return every week where he’s blocking basically a guy that doesn’t need to be blocked, but we kind of have to block him just in case. So, he wins the matchup, so he got a good PFF grade, and he’s really the worst player on our team at his job description, but he’s really the best with PFF.”
On a question completely unrelated to statistics, Fipp went on a lengthy rant about his dislike of both DVOA, a metric that attempts to measure team efficiency, and PFF grades. It’s over 1,100 words, so this is only a fraction of his diatribe.
He dove into both after some people inside the Lions facility pointed to Detroit’s high rankings in each metric. The Lions currently have the NFL’s highest special teams DVOA and several players have high special teams PFF grades. For example, Sione Vaki has a 90.0 PFF grade, placing him in the top 10 league-wide.
Now, for what it’s worth—and this is coming from an admitted DVOA stan—his understanding of how that statistic works is not entirely accurate. He says special teams DVOA takes into account return yardage and doesn’t factor in where the ball is being kicked from, kick length, etc. And while the exact method of DVOA calculations are not public, they do specifically outline what factors are taken into account in the return game:
“For the return team, the rating is based on how many points the return is worth compared to average, based on the location of the catch and the distance the ball traveled in the air.”
I will not come to such a defense of PFF grades, though.
