The Honolulu Blueprint: 4 keys to a Lions Week 9 victory over the Packers

The Detroit Lions (6-1) are on the road in Week 9, talking on division rival Green Bay Packers (6-2), their second NFC North road battle of the season. If the Lions want to continue their hot streak, they’ll need to follow the keys to victory laid out in this week’s Honolulu Blueprint.

Packers base schemes

For a detailed look at the opposing scheme, make sure you check out our complementary breakdown piece: Lions Week 9 Preview: Breaking down Packers’ offensive and defensive schemes.

For the most part, the Lions need to do what they’ve been doing for the majority of the season. Green Bay is a high-quality opponent, but the Lions match up well against them and typically lead in the statistical areas in which the Packers have succeeded. Mistakes could decide this game, and if the Lions can make fewer of them, they should leave Lambeau Field victorious for the third consecutive year.

“Focusing on the details of everything and just living in the moment of the play,” Campbell said. “You go back and we’ve got these gameplans and they’re loaded front-to-back […] so focus on that detail, understand what you can get, know the situation, and play at the best of your ability, and then keep your composure.

“This is another one of those games, you look at the last few opponents they played, and they haven’t kept their composure, they haven’t been able to do that, and Green Bay’s been able to just wear them down and cause them to make errors. And we can’t do that. We’ve got to stay locked in and just relax.”

Key 1: Turnovers could decide this game

The Packers have been the best team in the NFL at forcing turnovers this season. Currently, they lead the NFL with an average of 2.4 forced turnovers a game, including 10 interceptions (second most)—Xavier McKinney leads the NFL with six picks—and nine fumble recoveries (most in the NFL).

“Yeah, they’re good at it,” Lions quarterback Jared Goff said. “They’re very ball-aware, they’re coached well, they know where the ball is at, they’re going after it and they’re trying to make plays and it’s our job not to let them do that. We’ve done a pretty good job of that up to this point, but this will be a big challenge for us and we’re going to do our job.”

The Lions have done a good job of not turning the ball over this season. Through seven games, Goff has only thrown four interceptions, and while the Lions have put the football on the ground, they have lost just one fumble on the season. That extrapolates out to an average of 0.7 turnovers a game, which is tied for the fourth-best mark in the NFL.

“Each week, huge emphasis on ball security and securing the football after the catch,” Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said. “(Lions assistant head coach/running backs) Scottie Montgomery’s on those guys from the moment that we get it […] It’s constant harping on it as coaches. It gets old, it gets redundant, but at some point, these guys, I think they just hear it in the back of their minds when they’re carrying the ball down the field.”

While the Lions offense vs. the Packers defense will be a strength-on-strength battle when it comes to to turnovers, the flip side heavily favors the Lions.

Like the Packers defense, the Lions are equally strong at forcing turnovers. Currently, they also have 10 interceptions—Kerby Joseph is second in the NFL with five picks and Brian Branch is third with four—and they have five forced fumbles, giving them an average of 2.1 takeaways a game, second in the NFL behind only Green Bay.

Meanwhile, the Packers offense has been less careful with the football. Jordan Love has thrown nine interceptions (including at least one in all six games he has played in) and the team has surrendered three fumbles, giving them an average of 1.5 turnovers a game, 24th in the NFL.

To summarize:

Packers Takeaways 2.4 (1st) – Giveaways 1.5 (24th) = Differential +0.9 (4th)

Lions Takeaways 2.1 (2nd) – Giveaways 0.7 (4th) = Differential +1.4 (1st)

Taking care of the football on a windy, rainy day in Wisconsin, could be the biggest deciding factor in this game.

Key 2: Attack the seams and intermediate level of the defense

“Without takeaways, this Packers defense doesn’t do much to cause fear, and that’s before the injuries that they may have in the secondary,” ESPN’s Ben Solak wrote earlier this week. “Fortunately for the Lions, Jared Goff has been excellent at protecting the football, with an interception rate below 2% on the season, and hasn’t thrown a pick in any of the last four weeks. Without [Evan] Williams on the field, I expect the Lions, who lead the league in explosive pass percentage, to actually forgo some of those downfield looks for more short and intermediate passes, taking advantage of a Packers defense that is willing to both bend and break if you play clean football all the way down the field.”

While starting safety Williams has already been ruled out, starting outside corner Jaire Alexander (knee) is also listed as questionable and did not practice at all this week. Those two injuries are potentially huge and could result in the Packers shuffling their secondary. As a result, expect more cover-3 zone coverage looks, and as Solak alluded to, more opportunities for players like Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta, who do most of their damage in the intermediate parts of the field.

“St. Brown is Goff’s preferred target when facing zone coverage,” Solak continued, “averaging a whopping 33.6% target rate against zone coverage so far this season.”

St. Brown is tremendously successful against zone because of his precise routes, intelligence to find soft spots, and his relationship with Goff. Over the Lions’ five-game winning streak, St. Brown has been incredibly efficient, catching 27 of his 28 targets and scoring a touchdown in each game. While he is coming off a low production performance against the Titans (which you can probably throw out due to the unusualness of the game itself), this game should play out closer to what we saw in Minnesota, when St. Brown caught eight receptions for 112 receiving yards and a score.

LaPorta also figures to benefit from these circumstances, and over the last five games he has caught 16 of 17 targets, averaged 42.8 receiving yards per game, and scored twice. It’s also worth noting that the Packers have struggled vs. tight ends this season, giving up 48 receptions (fourth most in the NFL), 479 receiving yards (fifth most), and three touchdowns (T-eighth most).

Key 3: Red zone efficiency

One of the biggest advantages the Lions will have in this game is in the red zone.

When the Packers are on offense and get into the red zone, they’re only scoring a touchdown on 50% of their trips, which ranks 25th in the NFL. Meanwhile, the Lions defense has only allowed opponents to score touchdowns on 47.3% of their attempts, which lands them at ninth-best in the NFL.

“We get pretty heavy (formations) because we don’t want you to run it and that means you’re putting the stress on the coverage,” Campbell said of the Lions red zone defense philosophy. “Yet, there’s not a lot of grass back there—there’s only 10 yards—so, we put a lot on those coverage guys too, so we’ve been able to do that. We’re pretty stout in the middle there, we’ve been able to set edges, and then [Brian Branch] BB and Carlton [Davis] and those guys have done a good job in coverage, and so, it just makes it hard (for teams to score).”

Flipping things around, the Packers have had a difficult time keeping opponents out of the paint, allowing a touchdown on 60% of opponents’ trips into the red zone (20th best). While the Lions offense is scoring touchdowns at a noteworthy 65.5% clip, which is seventh-best in the league.

“Yeah, I like to think that we’ve been pretty good over the last two and a half years down there, being able to punch it in,” Johnson said. “We have a philosophy that once we get it down there that we try to adhere to, and our guys did a heck of a job executing the plan last week.”

Indeed, last week, the Lions scored five touchdowns on all five of their red zone trips, but Johnson may have been selling his offense a bit short. Because, in their last five games (their current win streak) the Lions have scored 16 touchdowns in their 18 red zone trips, which is an insane 89% efficiency rate.

When they get into the red zone, the Lions have so many skill players to choose from and have scored in so many different ways, that opponents are having a hard time defending every blade of grass. Speed or power on the ground, multiple designed passing routes to get guys open, and a plethora of trick plays at their disposal all make the Lions a nightmare to defend when it matters.

Key 4: Stay in base defense and make your tackles

While the Lions offense has some advantages, the Packers offense is putting up some very solid numbers. They’re sixth in the NFL in offensive scoring (27 points per game), averaging 8.0 yards per pass (seventh) and 4.9 yards per rush (eighth). For reference, that’s not far off the Lions offensive numbers, as they’re scoring 33.4 points per game (first), 8.9 yards per pass (first), and 5.1 yards per rush (fifth).

For the Packers, a big part of their success has been yards after catch/contact. On the season, Green Bay has 1,028 receiving yards after the catch (eighth), 214 of which are over expectations (fourth), and are rushing 3.52 yards after contact on the ground (fourth).

Tackling will be at a premium for the Lions in this game, and if they want to prevent the Packers from generating big plays, they’ll have to make sure they’re getting their opponent to the ground as quickly and efficiently as possible.

While one of the best methods to help ensure solid tackling is to use more zone defense, don’t expect the Lions to move in this direction. The Lions deploy man coverage 46.4% of the time (most in the NFL) and Love struggles against man coverage. Heading into this game, when Love throws against man coverage, his yards per pass attempt drops to 4.3 yards, which is the second-worst in the NFL, ahead of only Will Levis.

When defending the run, the Lions will likely use a lot of base 43 formations, including stacking the box. This season, the Lions stack the box versus opponents 28.1% of the time (fifth most in the NFL), and the Packers have struggled when facing stacked boxes. Jacobs runs with a 35.9% success rate (30th) versus standard boxes, but that rate drops to 16.6% (39th) versus stacked boxes. Backup running back Emmanuel Wilson has a 41.2% success rate (20th) vs. standard boxes, but only 3.9% (52nd) against a stacked box.

In summary for the Lions’ defense, look for them to stay in their base 43 formation with man coverage behind them, prioritizing stopping the run and making their tackles, while forcing long drives that could result in turnovers or settling for field goals in the red zone.