The Detroit Lions have a problem that’s really been hurting them lately and that’s scoring in the red zone. How bad has it been? The Lions are currently 21st in the NFL in red zone scoring percentage. They score on just 48% of their trips to the red zone. That’s just not great at all. What’s worse is that the Lions are scoring on just 12% of their red zone trips in the last three games.
I think that gives us answer as to what’s causing the problems right there. Who’s been missing the last three games? Yes the Lions were missing Jonah Jackson for those games and Frank Ragnow for their latest game, but the real answer here is David Montgomery.
Montgomery has ran for 68 yards and five touchdowns in the red zone this season. Despite the fact that he hasn’t played for the last two and half games, that’s the 10th most red zone rushing yards in the league right now. The five touchdowns in ninth. That’s how good he is in the red zone. So good that he could miss nearly three weeks of action and still be near the top of the league in production.
Montgomery really took over for the Lions once they got into the redzone and once he went out with that rib injury early in game against the Buccaneers, the team just didn’t know how to replace him. You could see, especially on Monday night against the Raiders, that the Lions were trying to get Craig Reynolds to be that red zone guy. Reynolds has had six red zone rushing attempts this season and he’s produced 21 yards and a touchdown. That touchdown came late in the game against the Panthers and wasn’t in the last three games.
The good news is that David Montgomery is expected to be back on Sunday when the Lions play the Chargers.
It’s not just Montgomery though. Jared Goff is 22nd in the league in red zone passing yards. He’s thrown for 91 yards and five touchdowns on just 25 throws. The attempts should be noted. Goff doesn’t throw a lot in the red zone because the Lions like to run the ball more often down there. The other reason is becasue the Lions just don’t have a receiver that can go up and get the contested balls that usually get thrown in the red zone.
The Lions have a guy like that now in Donovan Peoples-Jones. Just last week we talked with Brown’s beat writer Brandon Little and he told us that contested catches is where Peoples-Jones succeeds the most.
Peoples-Jones has had a rough 2023, but the Browns tried to lean on him a lot in the red zone last season. He was targeted 13 times and caught five balls for three touchdowns. That doesn’t seem good, but consider that Deshaun Watson completed just 32% of his passes in the red zone last year and Peoples-Jones only had two drops all season. Not in the red zone, just everywhere.
The Lions are presented with a good team to try to get things back on track with this week. The Chargers are currently 23rd in the NFL in total yards allowed. They’re pretty good against the run this year. They’ve allowed the sixth fewest rushing yards this season. The pass is where they get hurt. They’ve allowed the third most passing yards in the NFL.
Where things really get helpful for the Lions here is that they’re able to pass their way to the red zone. That’s where the Chargers are allowing teams to score 53% of the time. That’s 16th in the league.
We’ll see what happens in the red zone on Sunday, but the Lions might be able to get things corrected.