The Young Detroit Lions Coaching Staff Needs to Grow Up Fast
After a crushing loss to the Patriots, the Lions need more maturity from its coaches.
Like many Lions fans, I sat down to watch the Detroit Lions, who had been scrappy up to this point, face a team in the New England Patriots that they should have matched up well against. At least on paper. What actually happened was an embarrassing 0–29 defeat over seasoned with failed 4th down attempts, sloppy execution and injuries.
It’s fair to surmise that the Lions came into this game a little overrated. Or that a sub-100% Amon-Ra St. Brown on a short snap count and a missing D’Andre Swift may have been too much adversity to overcome. But when you get down to it, Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell and his relatively young coaching staff were simply outcoached by arguably the greatest NFL head coach to ever don a headset. A Lions team that Dan Campbell said would “tread water just long enough to bury you” was drug out into the deep waters by an apex predator and flailed about until they could no longer put up a fight.
Coach Belichick has built his legacy on stout, well-disciplined defenses that take away the opponents strengths. For the Lions so far this season that had been protecting Jared Goff and opening lanes for Swift and Jamaal Williams to operate. As such, it makes total sense for a Belichick coached team to prioritize making the offensive line of the Lions look uncomfortable; and that’s exactly what they did. The chaos that Matt Judon and company caused along the offensive front had Goff, who has been relatively cool in the pocket this season, looking skittish. On one particular play he was so preoccupied with the collapsing pocket that he missed a wide open St. Brown streaking across the middle of the field. The result of the Patriots strategy was an abysmal performance by an offense that came into the game leading the league in both points scored and yards per game through the first four weeks.
This is where the youth and aggression of the Detroit coaching staff became a liability. Coach Campbell went from a man who occasionally likes to “let it ride” on fourth down to a man with a legitimate gambling problem. The Lions attempted, and failed to convert six fourth down plays. The second of which resulted in a sack/fumble returned for the game’s first touchdown. Every failed attempt to dig themselves out of a hole of desperation and find a glimmer of success against the Patriots defense only exacerbated the wounds. One would think that at some point you would seek the small psychological victory and take a field goal just to see some points go up on the board. But when you’ve had a hot hand on fourth downs for the last month you’ve got to believe that the next roll will put you back on top. Unfortunately, the house came to collect this Sunday.
To make matters worse, there seemed to be a player from the Lions secondary limping off the field after every play for a stretch of the 3rd quarter. It was in this moment that the savvy Belichick loosened the reigns on his young quarterback, allowing Bailey Zappe to connect with Jakobi Meyers for the game’s only offensive touchdown.
In five games this season, the Lions have shown some flashes of great play. They’ve also shown an inability or unwillingness to adapt to the environment in which they find themselves. This showed up against the Seahawks in week four when the defense continued to blitz heavy despite being gashed repeatedly in 3rd and long situations. Week five was the offense’s turn and on the surface, it looks like this young coaching staff that runs out of plans if plan A isn’t working. This is not atypical for a young coaching staff and they should have more answers as they gain more experience. The question is: how long will Sheila Ford Hamp wait to see if this coaching staff matures?
