Allen Park — To assert themselves among the NFL’s best, the Lions must visit an iconic stadium in primetime and topple a future Hall-of-Fame quarterback.
Sound familiar?
Detroit’s most recent game featured a setting quite similar to its next, with the Lions going on the road and winning in Green Bay, 20-16, in the final game of the 2022 NFL season to end the Packers career of Aaron Rodgers.
There are some elements that make this game a little bit different: For one, it’s banner night. The Chiefs, Super Bowl LVII champs, will be receiving their rings before kickoff, so that’ll undoubtedly add to the electricity at Arrowhead Stadium, a 51-year-old structure that’s widely known as one of the most daunting road environments in the league.
Lions quarterbacks coach Mark Brunell, who made two starts at Arrowhead over his 17 years in the league, described the atmosphere as “enormous.”
“I told (rookie tight end Sam LaPorta) today, I said, ‘Your first NFL game of your career might be your loudest NFL game of your career. This is a top-three as far as my experience,” Brunell said.
“Obviously, it’s nationally televised — you kind of forget about that after the game starts — but what you don’t forget about is that noise and the importance of communicating and using the silent cadence, and when you’re not able to be loud enough for those guys to hear you on the line of scrimmage.”
While it’d be easy to get overwhelmed by the moment, the Lions are doing their best to rise to it.
“I think everybody’s been embracing this opportunity for some time now. It’ll certainly be — for the guys who have never been to Arrowhead, it’s a unique experience,” offensive coordinator Ben Johnson said.
“Coach (Dan) Campbell was talking about it this morning to the unit, just about how special this place is. It’s probably top five in terms of, call it historical significance in the NFL. You feel different when you play on the road in Arrowhead.”
Of course, in this type of environment, the offense and defense are playing by different sets of rules. Lions quarterback Jared Goff, who’s never played at Arrowhead, can expect deafening crowd noise when his unit has the ball. Campbell already had started to account for this weeks ago, pumping in fake noise to a team-wide scrimmage before the final preseason game.
Last season, the Lions’ offense produced much differently at home than it did on the road, although that became a little more balanced by season’s end. Goff threw 23 touchdown passes at home and just six on the road, while featuring a home passer rating of 109.3 and a road passer rating of 87.4. On the ground, those differences were also big: Detroit averaged 5.1 yards per carry on the ground at home and 3.9 on the road.
“I’m just focused on my breathing. Calm it down, cause there’s so much energy, just remember your breath,” said Lions receiver Kalif Raymond, who visited Arrowhead as a member of the Denver Broncos in 2016. “It’s different, because when I played (there the first time), it was very, very, very, very cold. So that takes away like 50% of it right there.
“The biggest thing is just, first game of the year, all the glitz and glamour, all the cameras, all the pictures. Warmups, everybody’s hype. Just find yourself, find your breath, calm down and do what you always do. Just play football.”
Defensive captain and starting linebacker Alex Anzalone said his unit won’t necessarily have to deal with the effects of the environment on a play-to-play basis — home crowds usually get quiet when offense has the ball — but that it’ll be a challenge to make sure the offense doesn’t ignite a crowd that’s ready to explode.
“I feel like if an offense gets a drive going and you can feel the momentum and the crowd, but outside of that, I love playing away games,” Anzalone said. “Just because communication is easier, it’s clear. Calling the plays, you don’t have to scream in the huddle telling everyone what to do. I like playing away games. It makes my job a little easier.”
These types of environments tend to have an “everybody’s got a plan until their hit in the mouth” type of attitude to them. If there’s one thing helping Brunell sleep at night, it’s not the guy calling plays or the output of last year’s offense. There’s only one counter: the right people. If Detroit proved anything in last year’s win over the Packers, it’s that they seem to have plenty of those.
“There’s a lot that goes into it, but the good thing is we have a veteran quarterback that has been in those environments and we got a bunch of veteran guys that, yeah, it’s difficult,” Brunell said.
“But very doable with the guys that we have playing.”
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
Twitter/X: @nolanbianchi