Detroit Lions Monday Morning Quarterback: Preseason Week Two

The Game

The Detroit Lions beat the Denver Broncos 25-20 in a surprisingly entertaining preseason game.

The starters played longer than expected with both offenses playing the entire first half. 

For the second week in a row the Detroit starters won the portion of the game when both starting units were playing.

The Good

Matthew Stafford

For the second week in a row the brightest star was in Detroit’s backfield.  Stafford was decisive.  He went quickly went through his progressions and delivered a strong ball. 

Although his quarterback rating was an impressive 110.9, it would have been significantly higher had it not been for two drops by his TEs.  Both of those passes would have gone for touchdowns had they not been dropped. 

The offense scored on all four possessions with Stafford at the helm.

Once again Stafford did not have any glaring mistakes.  In two games he did not have any interceptions that were his fault.  His only interception so far was a dropped pass by Jahvid Best against Pittsburgh. 

Jahvid Best

This is starting to look a lot like last week’s MMQB, but once again Jahvid best was great. 

With 49 yards on just eight carries, he is proving to be the answer at running back the Lions have been searching for since a certain number 20 retired.

Tony Scheffler

His dropped TD pass aside, he did a nice job overall.  He caught two passes for 22 yards.  We already knew he can catch the ball, but what really impressed me was his blocking.

He delivered a key block that sprung Best on an 11 yard run.

The Motor City Wrecking Crew

The defensive line played well again.  The interesting thing is that they started to mix and match the players.  Ndamukong Suh took some snaps at defensive end.  I believe that was to give him a chance to go one on one as opposed to the constant double teaming he has to deal with at tackle.  

Kyle Vanden Bosch was a machine.  He took a bad personal foul penalty, but more than made up for it with his skill and hustle.

The play at the end of the game by Willie Young was impressive.  I would like to see him get playing time against better players to see what he can do.

One caveat to how impressive the D-line looked is that all pro LT Ryan Clady is rehabbing his injured knee.  The Broncos’ offensive line had two rookies starters.

The Bad

Eric King

Eric King was picked on by the Kyle Orton whenever he needed a play.  King’s problem was that he was not turning to locate the ball.  He needs to do a much better job if he wants to see anytime at corner. 

If the Lions have to turn to him to spell the starting cornerbacks, they are going to be in a heap of trouble.

Zach Follett

To put it bluntly Follett had a bad game.  Make that a really bad game.  On Orton’s first touchdown pass, Follett was in position to make the tackle on Lance Ball but got stiff armed.

On Orton’s second touchdown, Denver TE Marquez Branson broke free from Follett and caught the TD pass.

Tim Toone

Toone has cemented his spot on the team—as squarely on the practice squad

I know a lot of you are excited by Toone’s statistics but he did nothing to impress me.  His 18 yard punt return in the first half was more a case of good blocking in front of him than anything he did. 

He did do a nice job making the first man miss on his third punt return of the day which went for nine yards.  His only other punt return of the day he fell down as he caught the ball and lost two yards.

If any of you would like to bring up that he didn’t make any mistakes on a windy night, please go see Rod Marinelli and his "I don’t want any mistakes in the return game" philosophy.  The Lions need production here not just to limit the bad plays.

He was unremarkable on kickoff returns.

The Red Zone Offense

As well as the first team offense played they had three drives stall inside the 11 yard line.  Stafford in an interview said that part of the reason is that they don’t game plan for the other teams red zone defense but neither does the defense plan for the offense.

Had it not been for the two dropped passes mentioned earlier they would have scored two more touchdowns.

The Ugly

Denver Provides Blueprint for Other Teams

I put this in the ugly category because it concerned me the most.  With Denver on its third drive of the day and still getting killed by Detroit’s front four they abandoned any attempt at going deep.  They switched gears and started calling quick developing plays from the shotgun or using a three step drop. 

By doing this they took the defensive line out of the game.  It was up to the secondary to step up and that did not happen.  Orton drove the Broncos down for a relatively easy touchdown.

Other teams are going to do exactly what the Broncos did, or they'll go to max protect to buy the quarterback more time.

The only ray of light is that Detroit was missing two of it starters in the secondary, Jonathan Wade and Louis Delmas. 

Misleading Stat of the Day:

The Half Time Score

The 16-14 halftime lead the Lions had does not represent what really took place in the first half.  

The Lions dominated the Broncos for most of the half.  Denver managed seven points again Detroit’s top defensive units.  The other touchdown the Broncos scored was against a defensive unit mostly made of second team players.

Play of the Day

This one is easy.  The TD pass from Stafford to Johnson was a highlight reel play.  Johnson was well covered on the play, but the throw from Stafford was where it had to be.  With Johnson's height advantage, former Lion Andre Goodman had no chance at defending the pass.

Random Thoughts

Did anybody else realize the pass that Calvin Johnson caught on Detroit’s first drive was actually meant for Brandon Pettigrew?

WWJ once again looked amateurish in its coverage as the television screen kept flickering for parts of the first half.

Dede Dorsey looked pretty good.  This is another player I would like to see against better competition.

The Chris Houston pass interference call was a phantom call at best.

Anybody starting to get a feeling the Lions will win more than just a handful of games this year?

Overall Impression

The Lions once again gave their fans plenty to be excited about.  The fact that they are winning the battle of the first teams is really encouraging. 

The secondary remains a concern, but the defensive line has shown that it will hold its end of the bargain.

DeAndre Levy showed why they Lions are not concerned about the middle linebacker position.  It was nice to see number 54 patrolling the middle of the defense.

Just as it didn’t matter last week, the final score once again is irrelevant.   The important thing is to continue to see improvement from the first team.

Next Week

In a rematch of last year’s 38-37 thriller the Detroit Lions will host the Cleveland Browns.  There is increased importance placed on the third preseason game.  It is known as the dress rehearsal for the regular season because teams do game plan for the opposition.  Expect the starters to play into the third quarter.