Detroit Lions: Analyzing the Good and Bad from Week 1 Win over St. Louis Rams

The Detroit Lions’ opening-week win over the St. Louis Rams was a mixed bag of good and bad, and even though they came away with the big win, they showed us that they have a lot of things to work on moving forward.

A win is a win, so credit Detroit for leaving the weekend 1-0, but Lions fans should be a bit concerned that the game had to come down to a last-second touchdown against a St. Louis team that shouldn’t have had a shot coming into Ford Field against their playoff-worthy Lions.

Here’s the good and bad from Detroit’s Week 1 win:

Good: Stafford is Clutch

Matthew Stafford came out last year and showed us that he just may possess the coveted “clutch” gene that every quarterback hopes to have, and he confirmed it by leading the Lions on a game-winning drive yet again—punching it in with a pass to Kevin Smith in the flats with 10 seconds remaining.

Bad: Stafford is Inconsistent

Stafford erased the memory his three interceptions when he tossed that game-winner, but the fact still remains that the Lions’ quarterback threw three picks, including a pick-six.

I’ve been consistent in my belief that the one thing holding Stafford back from being a truly elite quarterback in the NFL is his inconsistency. He has the tendency to make bad reads and he can struggle with accuracy from time-to-time.

The Lions defense isn’t good enough to consistently make up for Stafford’s mistakes, so Stafford is going to have to clean up his errors if Detroit truly wants to have Super Bowl aspirations.

Good: Defensive Line Played Great

This has to be a consistent theme for the Lions if they want to make the playoffs again, and at least for Week 1, Detroit looked good up front.

Ndamukong Suh, Corey Williams and Nick Fairley all registered sacks, and the Lions did a great job of applying pressure on Rams’ quarterback Sam Bradford and forcing him into bad throws.

Bad: Lack of Secondary Depth Exposed

The Lions have a good young corner in Bill Bentley and Drayton Florence should be a veteran presence, but there’s not a whole lot else to talk about in the secondary. We saw how lack of depth can hurt the Lions when Bentley was forced out of the game due to injury, and the Rams immediately starting picking on Jonte Green. This resulted in a Rams touchdown in the fourth quarter.

Good: The Lions are 1-0 and picked up a pretty big comeback win at home.

Bad: They had to fight back for a last-second win at home against the Rams. It’s only going to get tougher from here on out.

 Next week is San Francisco, who just beat the Packers at Lambeau, on the road.