Lions vs. Cardinals film notebook: Superb defense and power-based offense secured the Detroit road win

Detroit is becoming known around the league for having a tenaciously effective run defense. The game in Arizona is a good microcosm of why.

Arizona running backs carried the ball 13 times and gained 32 yards. Seven of those runs gained two yards or less. Even the ever-dangerous Kyler Murray, arguably the best running QB in the NFC, gained just 45 yards on his five attempts. On the two designed runs for Murray, he gained just seven yards.

Even on Arizona’s most successful designed run play, the first snap after the Goff INT in the third quarter, the Lions played this very well. RB Trey Benson takes a toss off right tackle. Play-side DE Marcus Davenport sets a good edge and nearly makes a tackle in the backfield while he’s being held down low. Safety Kerby Joseph smartly attacks the next hole, except he dives head-down at Benson’s feet and misses. Branch is the next man in and he has Benson stopped for a minimal gain, except he forgets to wrap and the rookie RB bounces off him. Aidan Hutchinson, the backside end, finally finishes him off for a 6-yard gain after hustling and scraping behind the line, never quitting on the play. Even with the missed tackle opportunities, the Lions avoided giving up a big run.

Play that forward on the drive. Arizona runs the exact same play on the next snap, and Carlton Davis pushes him out of bounds for a short gain. Both LBs, Campbell and Rodriguez, beat their blocks to string the play farther outside. On third down, the Cardinals tried Benson up the middle. Levi Onwuzurike and Jack Campbell both stand up their blockers and Hutchinson swoops in from the left to tackle for a minimal gain. Fourth down, Branch outruns Kyler Murray to the edge and gets the stop, with a little help from video review.

Incidentally, the third-down run play here is where Davenport got injured.

The Lions third-quarter offense continues to be a scourge upon Detroit. While a lot of the fan (and media) enmity has been directed at OC Ben Johnson, in Arizona the finger points some at the players not executing, too.

Take the first drive, which many have probably tried to block out of their minds already. Coming off the Kerby Joseph INT in the end, the Lions had potential momentum. A first-down swing pass to Montgomery gained nine, and then everything fell apart.

The Lions went back to the exact same formation as the very first play of the game–a jumbo set with Dan Skipper in as an extra blocker, all three TEs tight right. Montgomery doesn’t follow them this time, instead trying the left (backside) and he gets blasted by a disciplined Mack Wilson, one of two players Taylor Decker had to account for on the play. Hard to tell if Montgomery went left on his own or if that was the design. Both Graham Glasgow and Frank Ragnow lost their block efforts on the play, so even if Montgomery had broken the initial tackle, he was dead to rights.

The next play sees Goff get antsy and quickly throw to Tim Patrick on an out route that didn’t have enough time to get to the sticks. That sets up a 3rd-and-short, and again, the Lions go to the same jumbo set overloaded to the right. Now the Cardinals have to think about what might happen because Montgomery has gone either way on the run. As the Cardinals defense frantically scrambles to figure out their assignments, Glasgow flinches. Now the 3rd-and-easy is 3rd-and-6.

This is another play where Goff gets impatient. He throws the ball a full step behind an unaware St. Brown crossing right to left. Tight end Brock Wright is also in the vicinity but further upfield and well-covered. On this play, Jameson Williams is uncovered on a short out-route to the right. But Goff gets quickly pressured from the A-gap between Ragnow and Glasgow and effectively throws it away.

The exact same thing happened on the Goff interception that ended the next drive. Tim Patrick is ignored by the defense deep right; nary a defender sees him. Unfortunately, this was a predetermined play from the offense. The Cardinals defense saw the circle motion from St. Brown and it appeared to tip them off where Goff was going with the ball.

In between those plays is an abomination of a reverse attempt, blown up by both good recognition from the Cardinals defense and a matador block by Glasgow that very nearly results in a fumbled exchange between Jahmyr Gibbs and Jameson Williams. The entire line was off on this one, with Goff throwing the most effective block on the play.

After the game, Dan Campbell praised punter Jack Fox. He earned the praise.

That might seem odd for a head coach known for his aggressive nature on fourth downs, but Campbell smartly trusted his punter and his defense in this game and they rewarded him.

Fox’s punts:

68 yards, touchback–but the Cardinals were guilty of a personal foul and pinned themselves deeper.

61 yards, downed at the ARI 2

36 yards, fair catch at the ARI 12–his worst punt and he knew it, based on his reaction after the play.

36 yards, downed at the ARI 9–the punt bounced back from about the 6-yard line before Ben Niemann grabbed it.

46 yards, fair catch at the ARI 7

In total, that is five Fox punts for an average of 49.4 yards. Thanks to the Cardinals penalty, all five of their subsequent drives began inside their own 12-yard line. That’s winning the field position game, and it played a big role in winning the actual game, too.

The Lions used an extra offensive lineman more than any other offense over the last two seasons. Yet in the first two weeks of 2024, Ben Johnson’s unit hadn’t deployed Dan Skipper (or anyone else) as a bonus blocker in the formation once.

That changed in Arizona right from the get-go. Skipper was in on the Lions first two snaps, and it resulted in two David Montgomery runs that netted 17 yards. He chipped in for 15 total plays, which is the second-most Skipper been used as a sixth OL in a game in Detroit.

Not every play was effective, but it was a signal that the Lions were not messing around with finessing the ball on offense. It also impacted the Cardinals defensive package, which is something Ben Johnson can file away for later usage. When Skipper played as an extra tackle, the Arizona defensive adjustment was to shade the high safety (Budda Baker) to that side and also walk up the strongside linebacker closer to the line of scrimmage (and Skipper). There are play-action opportunities off that if similarly styled defenses (Minnesota comes to mind) don’t play the Skipper package with supreme discipline.

–Once again, neither special teams coordinator wanted anything to do with the new kick return. Every kickoff was a touchback and there was zero effort by either return team to even think about trying one. Practice squad promotion Tom Kennedy had three kickoff returns in Week 2, while the Rams ran back one Jakes Bates kickoff in Week 1. Everything else has been touchbacks by design and consent.

–This was not a game that featured good perimeter blocking from the Lions TEs and WRs. Sam LaPorta was definitely struggling with base strength and driving with his leg injury. Tim Patrick, Brock Wright and Jameson Williams all had failed blocking reps that resulted in quicker tackles than should have been.

–On Patrick, who has since been added to the active roster, he presented well as a target but he’s pretty slow off the line and out of breaks. Leggy as a route runner in this one.

–Patrick looks like he’s taken over as the No. 3 receiver. Kalif Raymond played just five offensive snaps and I’ll be darned if I could tell you I noticed him even once.

–There was a late misfire from Goff to Jameson Williams that should have been a huge play. Goff just missed wide and probably a half-count late, enough that Williams couldn’t catch the ball inbounds. I put this one on Goff, but having said that, Williams hasn’t quite figured out the air brakes footwork on routes just yet either.

–I broke down Terrion Arnold’s game in detail, but the other starting outside CB, Carlton Davis, did not have a good game outside of one very nice tackle in run defense.

–This was Kevin Zeitler’s best game in a Lions uniform. The veteran right guard looked like the 2023 Pro Bowler he was in Baltimore in this one. My experience in covering Zeitler in the past is that he doesn’t always “win” reps, but he almost never loses–ever. That was very true in Arizona.

–Jack Campbell played very well as the commander of the defense. He still struggles to find his landmarks in zone coverage (or, more accurately, moving off them), but he was consistently when and where he needed to be in the run game and in man coverage situations.

–The Jake Bates missed extra point was eerily similar to the many he missed in training camp. Looked like his planting base was a little too wide and it caused him to hit a banana ball to the right.

–Seeing the crowd shots of a good 40% of the lower bowl clad in Honolulu blue was really cool. The Lions fans were significantly more engaged than their Arizona hosts, too.