While the Detroit Lions looked pretty darn good for the majority of their 52-21 victory over the Chicago Bears, it wasn’t all clean in the film room. And in order to continually get better, the Lions are going to take a longer look at their issues than the things they did well.
And that should start with the Detroit Lions’ run defense on Sunday. Despite holding Caleb Williams’ mobility in check (5 rushes, 27 yards), the Lions defense still allowed a total of 134 rushing yards, 5.0 yards per attempt, and a touchdown. That is clearly not up to Detroit’s standard of a typically very stout run defense. Last year, they allowed an average of just 98.0 rushing yards per game at 4.5 a carry. The year before, it was 88.8 rushing yards allowed and 3.7 yards per carry.
With the Baltimore Ravens’ offense on deck, the Lions will need to figure out the issues they had against the Bears and fix them quickly. They were able to do that with the offensive line last week, now it’s the defense’s turn to diagnose and fix.
After recording the Midweek Mailbag, Erik Schlitt and I went to the tape—courtesy of NFL Pro—to find out what went wrong on some of the Bears’ biggest rushing plays. One common mistake kept showing up: linebackers failing to set the edge. In the video below, if you jump to the play at 6:10, you can see Derrick Barnes giving up the edge. And at 9:38, it appears Alex Anzalone is the one guilty of giving up outside leverage.
(Note: If the video above stops embedding, you can go to the original YouTube page to watch, or watch over on Twitch, as well.)
There are also instances—much like last week—of failed communication. The very first play we break down, there appears to be some sort of breakdown between Jack Campbell, Alex Anzalone, and Brian Branch. Whatever the play call was, Anzalone and Branch find themselves in the same gap, leaving D’Andre Swift a massive hole up the middle, which he bursts through for a 20-yard gain.
In our video, we break down about a dozen or so plays, including some of the good ones. For as many explosive plays as the Lions gave up in the running game, they also held 12 of Chicago’s 27 rushing attempts to 3 yards or fewer (not including Swift’s 3-yard touchdown), giving some hope that Detroit’s run defense will return to form once the mental errors are fixed.
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