The Detroit Lions went out there and balled out yet again. This time they got some big revenge over the Carolina Panthers with a 42-17 win at Ford Field.
I’ve got five winners and two losers on the Lions end. Here they are:
Goff continues to look really good this season. He went 20-28 for 236 yards and three touchdowns. He also ran one in as well. He completed 71.4% of his passes. When he plays like this, the Lions can do just about anything they want on offense. Such a great start to the season for him.
I shouldn’t have to qualify this, but I will. Moseley is not a loser becasue of his play or that he got hurt. He’s on this list because it sucks that he could be in a position where he could lose more time.
This was supposed to be Moseley’s big Lions debut after missing camp and much of the season with his ACL injury and the hamstring injury he suffered once he got cleared. Unfortunately Moseley came out and got hurt almost immediately and was taken out of the game. Snap counts haven’t dropped yet, but I think that was his first snap too. It’s just sad to see.
The kid just keeps making plays. This is not at all a normal thing for rookie tight ends. Back in July we tracked the last 27 tight ends to get picked in the first wo days of the NFL Draft and after adding up all their stats, we came up with an average of 30 receptions for 329 yards and three touchdowns.
Through his first five games, LaPorta has 25 receptions for 289 yards and three touchdowns. That’s something to watch.
The guy never really played. I guess that’s why he’s on this list. Look, I need to fill this out a bit. In all seriousness, yes the Lions are normally an aggressive team, but I think that part of that is because they might not feel as though Patterson can be reliable in long distances. You have to hope that fear doesn’t become a reality at some point.
Speaking of reliability, this guy shows week after week that he’s got it. Montgomery became just the third Lions running back to rush for 100 yards in back to back games since Barry Sanders retired. Kevin Jones in 2004 and D’Andre Swift in 2021 are the other two.
With Montgomery running like this, the Lions are able to have total control over the clock and can just move on down the field. The best part is that once this wrinkle gets figured out, the Lions can move to the Jamhhyr Gibbs wrinkle. The thing is, I don’t know if the Montgomery angle gets figured out.
Reynolds deserves a shoutout here. He has been the forgotten man this year. Zonovan Knight joined the team and he immediately took over Reynolds carries. In the last two weeks Reynolds has been working really hard to make everyone notice that he’s still very much here.
He had a beautiful special teams tackle against the Packers last week and this week he ran for 52 yards and scored his first career touchdown. With Knight going down with an injury, we might be seeing more of Reynolds this year.
This guy is just insane. There’s no other way to put it. He notched another sack on Sunday. That makes his 2023 total 4.5 in five games. If that weren’t good enough, Hutchinson decided to continue the interception thing that he does. It’s crazy to have a ball hawking edge rusher, but the Lions have him and he keeps getting better and better every week.