A 24-point road win is a good day, and I’ll happily take 3-2. But the week of chatter about Kelvin Sheppard’s defense “answering the critics” doesn’t hold up when you look at who they played.
Some context first. Going into Sunday, the Lions were giving up 31.8 points and nearly 424 yards a game, among the worst numbers in the league. Sheppard spent the week saying talk was cheap and he needed to see real change on the field, and called the outside criticism poison. So when the defense held Arizona to 21, the takes wrote themselves.
Here’s my problem with that. Arizona came into this game averaging just under 22 points a game (26, 7, 30 and 24 in their first four). They scored 21. And one of those touchdowns came with 2:17 left in a game that was long over.
The yardage looks like progress until you check it against the right number. The 327 yards Arizona put up is about 100 fewer than Detroit had been allowing, but that 424 average came against New Orleans, Buffalo, the Jets and Carolina. Arizona’s own offense had been averaging about 295 yards a game (393, 151, 365 and 270). Against the Lions it gained more than that. A middle-of-the-pack offense with Jacoby Brissett at quarterback had a slightly better than normal day against a defense that had been getting carved up for a month. That’s what you’d expect.
The pass rush did its thing: five sacks, 12 QB hits, and a fourth-and-one sack from Hutchinson and Malcolm Rodriguez late. There was also an interception to end the first half. But the front has been the one part of this defense that’s worked all year. Detroit came in second in the league in pressures, with Hutchinson second among individual players. Hutchinson and company are very good. The problem has never been talent up front; it’s a unit that doesn’t play coordinated, where pressure up front doesn’t connect to anything behind it. Sheppard more or less said the same thing about the back end last week. Brissett still threw 48 times for three touchdowns, and plenty of that was Arizona playing from way behind.
The offense is the real story again. After going down 7-0, Detroit scored 24 in the second quarter and never looked back. Goff was 19-of-30 with three touchdowns and no picks, Jameson Williams caught two of them including a 39-yarder, LaPorta took one 38 yards, and the run game put up 163 yards and three scores. That’s the formula: score enough that the defense only has to be average.
Average won’t cut it for what’s next, though. After the bye it’s Green Bay at home and then a Minnesota team that’s 5-0. Detroit is 3-2 and sitting last in the division on tiebreakers. Holding a 1-4 team to its usual output is fine. Doing it against the Packers and Vikings would actually mean something.
So, good win, good offensive day, and a defense that was fine. I’ll be more convinced when “fine” shows up against someone in the NFC North.
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