Packers-Lions: Three Reasons to Worry on Thanksgiving
DETROIT – When the Green Bay Packers hosted the Detroit Lions in Week 4, the score was 27-3 at halftime. The Lions held a 284-23 edge in yards. The Packers only scoring “drive” gained 0 yards.
The Lions won 34-20. Could the Packers get steamrolled again? Yes. Here are this week’s three reasons to worry. (The companion piece will post on Wednesday night.)
1. Play-Action Success
Here’s why the Lions are a bad matchup for the Packers: Green Bay’s run defense has been a problem for years. In Week 4, the Lions knew that and acted accordingly. They ran the ball 43 times for 211 yards. Rocket-fast receiver Kalif Raymond’s 40-yarder skewed the numbers. On the other 42 rushes, Green Bay held Detroit to 4.1 yards per carry. David Montgomery needed 32 carries for 121 yards, a 3.8-average.
In theory, that’s really not that bad of run defense. However, Detroit is physical and plays with that mindset. It just keeps pounding away and pounding away. In the fourth quarter, the Lions controlled the ball for 12 minutes, 17 seconds.
All of that leads into the explosive phase of Detroit’s offense. Quarterback Jared Goff is one of the best play-action passers in the game. Of 32 qualifying quarterbacks, Goff ranks second in passer rating, fourth in completion percentage and ninth in yards per attempt in the action game, according to Pro Football Focus. He’s thrown six touchdowns vs. zero interceptions. Of the nine quarterbacks with zero play-action interceptions, Goff has the most touchdowns.
“I refer to it as sister plays,” defensive coordinator Joe Barry said. “No matter what the personnel is or what the formation is or what the motion is, but they have a run play and then off that run play, they make it look like run and then they have play-action pass. I think they do as good a job as anybody in the league having plays that are in the same family that look exactly the same.
“Initially, the first 2 seconds of when the ball’s snapped, it could be a run, it could be a play-action pass or they even build in screens off of it. I think they do a really good job of that and Jared, he’s very good at the mechanics of those play-action passes, making it all look the same.”
2. Too One-Dimensional
Balance has been a big part of Green Bay’s offensive improvement. The last three games, it’s run the ball 44.1 percent of the time. That’s right in the middle of the pack, but much closer to even than the 39.4 percent for the first seven games. In Week 4, the Packers had 41 passes and sacks vs. 12 runs.
Can the Packers play with anything resembling balance without Aaron Jones and Emanuel Wilson? AJ Dillon will be joined in the backfield by Patrick Taylor, who was re-signed this week, and either Ellis Merriweather or James Robinson, who are on the practice squad.
The Lions have one of the best run defenses in the NFL, ranking sixth with 3.76 yards allowed per carry.
“I think overall it all starts up front,” Dillon said. “We need to try to control that line of scrimmage, not just in the sense of the offensive line, but in the running unit, in the pass game, as running backs getting extra yards and stuff like that.
“I think any game you win up front, but you’ve got to give credit where credit is due. They’ve got a great pass rush over there. They’ve got a really good front seven. Anytime you’re going up against one of those teams in this league, you’ve got to have a plan for it and got to try to stay ahead of the chains.”
If Green Bay has to throw it play after play, it’s going to be tough sledding to stay out of third-and-long. It will have to contend with the crowd noise and Aidan Hutchinson while playing without tight end Luke Musgrave and, perhaps, Dontayvion Wicks due to injuries.
In the play-action game, Jordan Love has completed 67.1 percent of his passes, averaged 8.7 yards per attempt and put together a 99.7 rating. In the standard-dropback game, those numbers fall to 57.5 percent, 6.3 yards per attempt and a 79.0 rating.
If the Packers can’t run the ball, the play-action game largely goes out the window. If that’s the case, it might be mission impossible.
3. Special Teams
Packers special teams coordinator Rich Bisaccia was asked about the danger of the Lions’ return game. Raymond is averaging 10.5 yards per punt return this season, which is quite good but not as explosive as 2022 (13.2 average, one touchdown) and 2021 (11.2 average).
Bisaccia, however, pinpointed something else.
“I think the challenge for us, to be perfectly blunt, is they’ve kind of gotten after us in the last three games we’ve played Detroit. Since we’ve come to Green Bay, they’ve been more physical than us, they’ve made more plays than us and I think they’re really well coached by (Dave) Fipp.
“They play extremely fast, they’re physical, they have some really good players on their team. I think they tackled us three times inside the 20 the last time we played them here, and so I think the challenge is, can we step and compete physically with this group? And run with this group? So, we’ll see what happens in the game, but I feel like they’ve gotten the best of us kicking-game-wise the last three times we’ve played.”
Meanwhile, kicker Anders Carlson has hit one of those rookie bumps in the road. If not for getting a mulligan against Minnesota, he’d have one missed kick in five consecutive games. Punter Daniel Carlson has a poor ratio of 10 inside-the-20 punts vs. five touchbacks. And the great indoors of Ford Field probably will rob Keisean Nixon of opportunities on kickoff returns.
“We miss tackles, we miss blocks. You’re going to miss kicks,” Bisaccia said of Carlson. “I think early he made a bunch in a row and he thought he was going to be the next perfect kicker that’s never been. I think we’re moving ourselves in the right direction; we’ll see what turns out this week.”
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