After head coach Dan Campbell said he wanted it during the offseason, the Detroit Lions indeed had a fast paced offense.
More often than not last season, the Detroit Lions’ offense was bad, slow-paced or both. During the offseason, head coach Dan Campbell was open in his desire for an offense that operated with more urgency and efficiency, if not at a much faster pace.
According to Football Outsiders, the Lions had the fourth-slowest offense in the NFL in neutral siutuations, getting a play off every 32.64 seconds. Neutral situations removes hurry-up offense and traiing by more than 14 points in the second half from the equation. So there was really nowhere to go but up in pace as offensive coordinator Ben Johnson took over play calling in Week 1.
There were certainly ups and downs for Johnson in his first game as an NFL play caller, but in a broad sense (35 points, etc.) it will down as a good day. And the Lions offense did move faster.
Detroit Lions offense moved a much faster pace in Week 1.
Via Justin Rogers of the Detroit News (subscription required):
In neutral situations-removing the influenced of hurry-up offense at the end of both halves and trailing by more than 14 points in the final two quarters-the Lions snapped the ball more rapidly than any NFL team last week, averaging 25.56 seconds per snap…That’s a reduction of more than 20%.
Via Rogers, Campbell talked about the faster pace of the Lions’ offense against the Eagles.
Listen, it’s a good starting point. We’re always going to want it to be bettter. It started pretty good, and then at times, it didn’t. We just needed a little bit crisper, but for the first time out of the gate, I wouldn’t say it was something we’re disappointed in.
As Johnson gets more comfortable as a play caller and the 11 guys on the field sharpen their work as a collective unit, the Lions’ offense will become a “crisper” operation, to use Campbell’s word. But the desire for a shorter time between snaps happened in Week 1,however adjusted for game neutrality, which is a good thing.