Detroit Lions Monday Morning Quarterback: Preseason Game One

The Game

The Detroit Lions lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers 23-7 in a game delayed over an hour by rain and lightning.

The starters for each team played about a quarter. 

Both teams struggled to move the ball against the other teams’ starting defense.  This is normal this early in the preseason as defenses are usually ahead of the offenses.

The Good

Matthew Stafford looked sharp. There are three things Detroit fans are not used to having—a dominating starting pitcher in baseball, a topflight goalie in hockey and a franchise quarterback in football.  Well Detroit, scratch one off the list because you’ve got a franchise quarterback. 

Stafford is still a young quarterback and he is going to make mistakes, but look for him to make plenty of plays, setting himself up for a pro bowl appearance following the 2011 season. 

Jahvid Best is worthy of his draft status and showed that he can be a game changer.  He has the ability to change directions or outrun an opponent when he needs to. 

Two plays during the game showed exactly why the Lions drafted him.

The first came on a 1st and 10 for the Lions.  Best was handed the ball and simply outran everybody to the edge for 15 yards.  When was the last time a Lions running back was able to turn the corner for a big gainer?

The second one came on a 2nd and 1 during the same drive.   Best was handed the ball on a play designed to go the right side.  The Pittsburgh defense had gotten through and met Best in the backfield.  Instead of simply running into that wall, Best quickly spun back towards the middle for a four yard gain and a first down.

The D-Line

The defensive line dominated  The staring defensive line, or as I like to refer to them, the "motor city wrecking crew", spent most of their time on the Pittsburgh side of the ball. 

The constant double teaming of Ndamukong Suh allowed the other defensive linemen to wreak havoc.  Kyle Vanden Bosch showed that he has plenty left in the tank as he was constantly getting pressure.  Cliff Avril got a sack on a play where he looked so fast he could have been mistaken for a linebacker. 

Dan Gronkowski

With Brendan Pettigrew out of the lineup, Gronkowski was able to get a lot of playing time, and he responded with two catches for 31 yards.

The Starting Cornerbacks

At least for one day the Lions looked like they have NFL caliber starting cornerbacks.  Their most impressive play came on a 1st and 10 at the Pittsburgh 46 yard line.  Byron Leftwich tried to go deep to Mike Wallace who was single covered by Chris Houston.  Wallace who is known for his 4.3 speed in the forty was unable to gain separation from Houston. 

More important than being step for step with Wallace, Houston turned and located the ball as it was coming down.  There was contact between the two players at the end of the play, but because Houston had turned his head and looked for the ball, that contact was correctly deemed incidental by the referee. 

The Bad

Points Scored 

For all the yardage and good plays, the only Detroit points came when the Lions starting offense was playing mostly against Pittsburgh’s second team defense.

Interceptions

Jahvid best looked good, but he dropped a pass from Stafford that ended up in the hands of the Pittsburgh defense.  That interception led to the only points scored by the Steelers starting offensive unit.

Cliff Avril

Cliff Avril once again showed that he really needs to shore up his run defense.  He has the mindset that he must get to the quarterback on every play.  He was bailed out by C.C. Brown when Brown stripped the ball from Rashard Mendenhall after Avril failed to hold the edge and allowed Mendenhall to run around him for a big gain.

The Second String

A sign of a good veteran team is depth.  This is the worry when it comes to the 2010 Lions.  The backups were outscored 20-0.  This is not surprising as the Lions are only two years removed from 0-16.  If the Lions can’t avoid long term injuries, and who can in the NFL, they will have trouble winning a lot of games.

The Ugly

Jordon Dizon

The injury suffered by Dizon was a result of friendly fire.  Jason Hunter rolled on Dizon’s leg, injuring his knee.   The Lions were already thin at linebacker with the injury to DeAndre Levy and now must look outside the organization for a back up middle linebacker.  The injury to Dizon is especially disheartening because he had a good off season.  He had bulked up nicely while getting ready.  Although still a bit undersized, he looked primed to have a breakout year.

Misleading Stat of the Day

Third Down Conversions

At first glance, third down conversions look like this—22 percent for the Lions and 50 percent for the Steelers.  That is concerning, however, the Pittsburgh starting offense did not convert a single third down.  They managed only one first down on the second play of the game. 

The Lions’ starting offense was 1-3 in third down conversions.  One of those was the dropped pass by Jahvid Best.  Had Best made that catch, he only had to make one player miss—which he can do—and that play would have gone the distance. 

Overall Impression

This was the first preseason game and teams do not scheme for each other.  Offensive and defensive coordinators during the regular season will look for a weakness in the opposition and attack it relentlessly.  So the point is that while the top units looked good on both sides of the ball, Lions fans should be cautiously optimistic about what they saw. 

We still don’t know how well the Lions defense will play.  Pittsburgh was without starting quarterback Ben Roethlisberger and while Leftwich is a good quarterback, he is not the top flight quarterback that Roethlisberger is. A better idea of what is in store for this year will come in the third preseason game when teams game plan for the opposition and the starters play at least the first half.

The Lions showed what they are, a talented team that is still rebuilding.  The Lions will be fun to watch this year and they will win their fair share of games, but their lack of depth is still a concern. 

Next Week

The Tim Tebow show rolls into town next Saturday as the Denver Broncos take on the Lions in Denver.