Sunday afternoon was an exhausting one. The matchup between the Detroit Lions and Buffalo Bills featured so much intensity and excitement; it was hard to come down from the emotions of the Lions’ 48-42 home loss. Detroit fought valiantly despite being extremely undermanned on defense and seeing three more defenders suffer serious injuries. Buffalo had to hold on for dear life even after playing a near-perfect game on offense.
The film review of the coach’s tape from both the sideline and end zone angles took some serious time. Offensive shootouts tend to take longer to watch and evaluate what went right or wrong for so many different players on either side of the ball. This one had almost 100 passing plays, many of which were extended by the quarterbacks, Josh Allen and Jared Goff.
The hours this took were worthwhile. The Bills won the game by a combination of being a very good, well-coached and disciplined unit in combination with smartly squeezing the pressure points Detroit was vulnerable to with all the reserves all over the defense. Much of what ailed the Lions’ defense in this game can either be cleaned up with more time playing together or not so easily exploited by anyone not named Josh Allen. Solace.
Here’s the film review notebook from the Lions and Bills.
Bills hit the Lions with a taste of their own medicine
Watching the Bills offense, their coordinator Joe Brady appeared to throw Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson’s own book at the Detroit defense. And it worked spectacularly.
Johnson is known for his creativity, complex blocking assignments and use of multiple different looks out of varying formations. That’s exactly how Brady set up Buffalo’s offense.
There were runs with the right tackle pulling around left end leading the charge. There were pre-snap motions and formational shifts that purposely isolated TEs Dawson Know and Dalton Kincaid on Detroit’s linebackers in space, a definite advantage for the Bills offense. Guards running trap blocks with the left tackle beelining to LB Jack Campbell, that worked well. Wham blocks from receivers on the edge to leverage more options for Josh Allen to get outside; yeah, they checked that box a few times, too.
It was akin to watching a Lions offense attack, with the added dimension of Allen’s almost superhuman running ability with his size. Very few teams have the offensive line talent and attention to detail from the tight ends and wide receivers to run many of those concepts. The replacements on the Lions defense, particularly the linebackers around Campbell, had no clue what was hitting them.
Give the Bills credit on this one for staying aggressive throughout. The one drive where they didn’t do much other than line up conventionally is the only time the Lions defense forced a punt. That doesn’t seem like a coincidence…
LBs and DL missed assignments were costly
In keeping with the theme of the Bills offense masterfully exploiting all the injury replacements at linebacker and the D-line, some of the blame must, too, fall upon those Lions newbies. They were largely incapable of carrying out even basic assignments.
Some of the issue was simple size. Kwon Alexander, David Long and Ezekiel Turner are all lightweight off-ball LBs; Turner, a college safety, is listed at 214 while Alexander is on the roster at 220 and Long plays in the 220-225 range. Those both seem pretty accurate in relation to Jamal Adams, the practice squad call-up who is quite visibly bigger than all of them despite being officially listed at just 213; Adams is much closer to 233 than 213.
Buffalo abused their lack of mass and power, to be blunt. Pulling lineman ran over Alexander and Long repeatedly in the run game, while Turner ran himself out of several plays trying to avoid blocks. The Bills TEs are not noted for their blocking, but they were very effective at locking up the replacement LBs. The lack of coordination and communication in playing together inhibited any real ability for the group to adjust cohesively, though Long does deserve some positive mention for his pre-snap anticipation.
The lack of positional discipline from the linemen in front didn’t help the LBs. I counted 13 times where Allen was able to venture outside the pocket or run due to a Lions lineman not keeping their proper containment. Whether it was Josh Paschal overrunning his mark, Jonah Williams getting trapped inside, Levi Onwuzurike getting stood up and turned, the containment principles were too often out the window. Jamal Adams aggressively running himself past the point of attack on two runs didn’t help, either.
One play in particular stood out, and it’s a combination of a testament to Josh Allen but also a missed assignment by Onwuzurike specifically. On the first play of Buffalo’s third drive, the interior DT combination of DJ Reader and Alim McNeill work to get good pressure in Allen’s face. Paschal controls a double-team enough, with Carlton Davis on the backside zone coverage, to keep Allen from going any direction except back and to his left. Onwuzurike began the play lined up on the outside shoulder of the left tackle, and his rush path pushed him more outside. That’s right where he’s supposed to be to keep Allen contained…
…except Onwuzurike opts to sprint to the inside (with LT Dion Dawkins welcoming it so he can pick up McNeill in pursuit of Allen), leaving Allen all kinds of room to escape. After almost eight seconds to survey post-snap, Allen then finds running back James Cook in between layers of the zone, breaking free for a big gain.
Davis and LB Jack Campbell were perfectly in place to quickly snuff out any Allen run, but the one missed assignment ruined what was otherwise a well-defended play. There are other examples throughout the game with different Detroit defenders committing missed assignments, but this one stood out as an example of “it only takes one” for an MVP candidate like Allen to beat it. On a play where the LBs finally did their jobs, the defense still couldn’t stop Allen.
Run blocking was worse than expected
Normally a major strength of the Lions, the offensive line did not have a great day against Buffalo. Even the return of Taylor Decker at left tackle didn’t help a lot. It wasn’t Decker’s best day, which was to be expected in coming back off missing two-plus weeks with a knee injury. Unfortunately, right tackle Penei Swell and center Frank Ragnow looked nothing like the All-Pros they’ve been either. Facing stacked boxes with well-coordinated attacks from the extra DB or LB, the Lions just couldn’t find their marks in the run game.
The Bills did very well limiting Sewell’s ability to get to his point of attack. Their interior DL was very good at gumming up the works and keeping Sewell from using his range in the run game. In that regard, this might have been Ragnow’s worst game of the season; the All-Pro center couldn’t reliably push his initial blocking mark out of the way well enough to let Penei do his thing. There is an almost artful syncopation and choreography to the Lions run blocking scheme, but not on this day.
Left guard Graham Glasgow repeatedly fell off his blocks or simply never got to them. I counted four different runs where the defender Glasgow appeared assigned to block wound up making the tackle. That’s on just 13 run plays. Again, the choreography and timing were off around Glasgow, so that needs to be put into context too.
Goff’s masterpiece
Quarterback Jared Goff proved he absolutely belongs in the MVP conversation with Allen, effectively dealing blow-for-blow. And Goff did it against a much healthier defense, albeit one that clearly missed two of its top three safeties, as well as facing a much more potent pass rush on Sunday.
Goff played better than the stats (38-of-59, 494 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INTs) or PFF grade (62.0 overall) would reflect. Under more pressure from a Bills front than Goff has seen in several weeks, it took him a little time to get going and into the rhythm of the game. Some early incompletions were due more to good coverage and pressure forcing either a rushed throw or Goff unable to get to the proper throwing angle.
Some of Goff’s throws were as great as he’s ever made. A deep strike to TE Sam LaPorta required perfect touch and placement, and Goff delivered. He was great at hitting LaPorta, Amon-Ra St. Brown and David Montgomery (before his injury) in perfect stride and sequence. Goff’s pocket manipulation showed more creative athleticism than we’ve seen from No. 16. Throw after throw was on the money, especially later in the game when every play had to work.
One of the things I’ve really come to appreciate about Goff is his ability to know precisely where all his options will be at any time in a play. That was evident on a couple of outlet throws to his RBs. Goff will not attempt risky throws in part because he seems to have a preternatural sense of where the better option will be. That’s not just from this game against Buffalo, but what he did in attacking the Bills defense with such a variety of weapons all over the formation reinforced it for me.
Quick hits
–On Jakes Bates’ missed 52-yard field goal, it appeared that his plant foot got a little too far forward. Like a golf swing, even missing the impact spot by a centimeter throws the whole thing off and it looks like that’s what happened. Special teams coordinator Dave Fipp has worked very hard with Bates on the consistency in his approach and motion, which was the root cause of most of Bates’ accuracy struggles throughout training camp.
–Aside from his (glorious) touchdown reception, extra tackle Dan Skipper was very effective in his limited blocking role. It appeared the Bills haven’t played against a 6-OL package much because they didn’t counter it well; the one time they did, Skipper got pushed off his block by the action to his inside shoulder.
–On the early strip-sack against Jared Goff, Bills DT Ed Oliver ran a very simple bull rush and completely, quickly dominated Graham Glasgow. That was par for the course in what felt like Glasgow’s worst all-around game in a Lions uniform (in either stint with the team). His team-low PFF grade passes the sniff test.
–The Lions were about two combined feet away from recovering both onside kick attempts. If Mack Hollins doesn’t jump at the exact right time to flip the first one to himself and get the big return, that’s an easy recovery for Brandon Joseph on the outside.
–Detroit didn’t even consider running any of Buffalo’s nine kickoffs back. It was clear the returners were instructed to avoid running it out of the end zone before they got on the field.
–It took a rewatch of the game broadcast feed (on a tip from social media) that the Bills focused their trash talk at safety Brian Branch, clearly trying to get him to lose his composure. And there were a couple of instances where it looked like it was working before Branch either got pulled away by teammates or the official dropped a chill pill on the situation. Something to monitor going forward, as the Packers tried hard to get in his head, too.
–The officiating was pretty consistent in this one, if applying the “absence of criticism equals quality” principle. I saw several complaints about the Bills OL holding, but it wasn’t any more frequent or worse than the Lions TEs and WRs doing the same in this one. They let the DBs and WRs (on both sides) battle with their hands more down the field than most crews have.