Allen Park — When the Detroit Lions travel to New York to face the New York Jets this weekend, it won’t just be two upstart franchises fighting for their playoff lives; it will be one of the NFL’s best defenses squaring off against one of the league’s most potent scoring attacks.
When at or near full strength, the Lions have been tough to stop this season. They’ve tied a franchise record by scoring 30 or more points in a game seven times, including a combined 74 in the past two, victories over Jacksonville and Minnesota.
The Jets, on the other hand, are only giving up 18.7 points per outing, surrendering 30 in only one game, way back in Week 2, when they bested the Cleveland Browns, 31-30.
So, Sunday will be a strength-on-strength test for both clubs — and something will have to give.
“They’re aggressive and they’re very disruptive, especially that front,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “They have physical safeties, the corners will challenge, (cornerback) Sauce (Gardner)’s having a good year, so is (cornerback D.J.) Reed. He’ll fight you over there on the other side too. This is a defense that makes you earn anything you can get, so our offense, we’ve got our work cut out for us.”
That aggressive mindset is instilled by coach Robert Saleh, a Michigan native, who regularly coordinated one of the league’s best defenses in San Francisco before joining the Jets ahead of the 2021 season. And although the names on the jerseys will be different, facing the unit will be somewhat familiar for Lions quarterback Jared Goff, who battled Saleh’s 49ers teams several times as a division rival while quarterbacking the Los Angeles Rams.
“In some ways, it is (similar), and in some ways, it isn’t,” Goff said. “Again, I think the way that they’re coached and the way that their front seven play is probably pretty similar, but there are some things that are different in coverage. They’re a well-coached group and do a good job.”
A key for the Lions will be balancing taking what the defense is giving them against aggressively trying to impose their will.
“I mean, we have plays and we have concepts that we feel like are our backbone, and regardless of the opponent, we want to make sure we have them up, we make them work, they’re good and efficient for us, and when push comes to shove, we’re able to move the ball with those,” offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said. “But I think, every week, we have a nice balance between game-plan plays that are a little bit unique to the style of defense that we’re facing, and then leaning on those concepts that we’re good at, and we can do in our sleep. So, this week is no different than any other.”
Johnson also has the benefit of Goff not only playing some of the best football of his career, but making smart decisions that balance out the coordinator’s penchant for aggressiveness.
“Shoot, he’s done a number of times the past few games, where I get a little bit too aggressive and the play isn’t there down the field and he’ll just burn it at a receiver’s feet and save the play that way, not take a sack, not force something,” Johnson said. “And so, he’s doing a really good job with that and it allows me as a play-caller to call, shoot almost anything on the call sheet because I’m not worried about a negative play happening, because I trust that he’s going to be able to do something positive with it, for the most part. And that’s the biggest thing with him right now — he’s playing confident football, he’s taking care of the football, and he’s doing a nice job working within the pocket.”
One area where Detroit’s offense could use some improvement this week is the team’s run efficiency. That’s been lagging behind during the team’s recent stretch of success, averaging just 3.5 yards per carry during the past six games.
“We have to have better run efficiency on offense,” Campbell said. “That’s a definite. It doesn’t mean we have to run the ball more; it means we need to be much more efficient, and we can be those with guys we’ve got up front, our tight ends, our backs, everything. Shoot, our receivers, everybody’s got a hand in the run efficiency.
“We’ve got to be better,” Campbell continued. “We haven’t been as good. Now, Goff and those receivers and our pass (protection) has been outstanding. (If) you want to try to take the run away a little bit, we’ve been able to answer that in the pass attack, but yet you still need to be able to have efficient runs. And we’ve got to be better, we can be better.”
jdrogers@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @Justin_Rogers