Five thoughts on the Detroit Lions‘ impressive 30-12 win over the Arizona Cardinals, and what comes next in this 2-11-1 season:
Saint-ly performance
Amon-Ra St. Brown has more catches as a rookie than Calvin Johnson had in 2007, way more than Herman Moore had in 1991, and as of Sunday, more than Jahvid Best had in 2010.
St. Brown broke Best’s Lions rookie record for receptions Sunday, when he caught at least eight passes for the third straight game. A fourth-round pick out of USC, St. Brown has 65 catches for 601 yards and two touchdowns this season.
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It’s a different NFL than when Johnson broke into the league with a 48-catch season 14 years ago, and certainly a different time than when Moore caught 11 passes as a rookie. St. Brown has a long, long, long way to go to approach what either of those players did as a Lion, but we start off this week’s day-after dive into the Lions by taking a minute to appreciate what he’s done, and maybe what he can become.
St. Brown has been a valuable security blanket for Jared Goff in a Lions offense that has struggled most of the season. This receiving corps looks nothing like what the Lions thought it would back in July, except for the fact that St. Brown is playing well and continuing to develop as the team’s primary slot receiver.
At 9.2 yards per catch and with one drop this season, St. Brown is the definition of a possession receiver. But he has proven the past three weeks — really since the Lions tried to expand his role coming out of the bye — that he has more to offer as a playmaker.
St. Brown won’t ever be a Johnson-type deep threat; few receivers are. He is a savvy route runner, however, whose toughness gives him versatility; if used properly, that know-how can go a long way.
On Sunday, St. Brown lined up in the backfield and got his first career carry, a 5-yard draw, on the Lions’ first offensive possession, then caught a 37-yard touchdown pass —the Lions’ longest play of the day — to finish their second drive. On his touchdown catch, St. Brown sold a block in the run game at the line of scrimmage, then leaked out the back side of the field where no defender was around. Goff delivered a tough pass under pressure, and St. Brown waltzed into the end zone with his second career TD.
“He’s a stud,” Goff said. “I’ll say it again, he’s a stud. He’s a stud. We’ve known it since training camp. Finally getting him involved quite a bit now. I thought the route on the touchdown was just so perfect. It’s such a unique route that only some guys can run, and you have to have a good feel for the space and the game. He has all of that. We had him on a few choice routes today and we’re constantly talking on the sidelines. He’s really starting to learn. He’s really starting to pick it up and understand coverage, and understand where the holes are, and it’s really fun to play with him.”
Big Ben
It’s no coincidence St. Brown’s emergence — he has 26 catches on 35 targets for 249 yards and two touchdowns over the past three weeks — has coincided with tight ends coach Ben Johnson playing a bigger role as the Lions’ de facto pass game coordinator.
I wrote about Johnson before last week’s loss to the Denver Broncos, but it bears repeating that his creative coaching mind has had a positive impact on the Lions’ playbook.
Again, the one knock I heard when Dan Campbell was assembling his coaching staff loaded with ex-NFL players was the Lions were light on “idea guys.” I thought that appraisal was a little too generic. Sure, a lot of NFL players were able to win with their phenomenal talent, but you don’t have to be a career coach who’s spent years designing (or in many cases, repurposing) inventive ways to win games to be an idea guy.
Seeing the Lions’ pass game in action in recent weeks, though, it’s clear Johnson is an idea guy. Campbell detailed the role Johnson played in Brock Wright’s first touchdown earlier this season, and St. Brown said he thought Johnson installed his touchdown play Sunday.
The play wasn’t a unique concept. Goff said he ran it to Cooper Kupp with the Los Angeles Rams in a game in 2018. But it was a new addition to the Lions playbook last week and it was another example of the way one play or concept — the Lions running the ball with Craig Reynolds, and using St. Brown as a blocker — can open up a world of possibilities.
“You ask any one of us, we love the creativity,” St. Brown said. “We feel like we want more of it, if I’m being honest. We want more creativity. We love it all. Obviously, some stuff might be too much so you can’t do everything, but we love the creativity …. Plays that are really hard to guard as a defense, cause you don’t see it much, and when it does come, it’s hard to defend. So we love the creativity and we love what’s going on right now.”
Coach speak
Johnson has to be the leading candidate to be the next Lions offensive coordinator. He’s a 35-year-old former college quarterback who has worked with just about every position on the offensive side, and his history with Campbell dates back to their days together with the Miami Dolphins.
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I don’t know that anyone had Johnson pegged as the NFL’s next innovative offensive mind, but I do know it will be difficult to keep him a position coach going forward.
Two more coaching staff thoughts:
• Defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn has always struck me as a guy who is on track to be an NFL head coach soon. It probably doesn’t happen this hiring cycle. Hiring an assistant from a two-win team is a tough sell to a fan base starting over. But the Lions have overachieved defensively under Glenn this fall.
• Even though he had his play-calling duties revoked, let’s not minimize the role Anthony Lynn has had in the Lions’ improved offense. Lynn still is overseeing the Lions’ running game, and that’s been a big driver of their recent play. The Lions have run for 100 or more yards in five of six games since the bye, and they’ve done so with a revolving cast at running back and on the offensive line.
The bullies
So let’s talk about the offensive line. The unit was pegged as the Lions’ biggest asset coming into the season, and it has lived up to that billing despite all its moving parts.
Left tackle Taylor Decker missed the first eight games of the season. Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow hasn’t played since October. Rookie Penei Sewell has bounced between tackle positions (and played well while doing so). And guards Jonah Jackson and Halapoulivaati Vaitai have missed time with injuries, and replacement center Evan Brown was down for a game with COVID.
The Lions have started six different combinations on their offensive line and rarely had much drop-off. Hank Fraley is one of the best offensive line coaches in the business, and his teaching has been instrumental to the line’s success.
But this is a deep group that should return intact in 2022 (including sixth lineman Matt Nelson) and be the lifeblood of everything the Lions do.
“I think when you set a standard, any guy that steps in and plays is expected to play up to that standard, no matter who it is,” Decker said. “So I just think we have a standard that we’ve kind of established that it’s just not going to change. And as you guys all know, in this league you’ve got to be able to run the ball. You’ve got to be able to do it. It sets up the play-action pass. They can’t just sit back in coverage. There were plays today where it seemed like there were nine guys in the box, and we’re going to try and run it anyway. So yeah, it’s been fun to see, and we’ve got a really good group.”
Slip and slide
Draft talk always seems to be top of mind this time of year, at least in Detroit. But I’ll reiterate what I wrote two weeks ago and what my colleague, Shawn Windsor, wrote Sunday: It’s more important for a team like the Lions to win games in a year like this than it is to tank for draft position.
Maybe I’d feel different if there were a Trevor Lawrence-type talent at the top of the draft (though Lawrence hasn’t exactly lit the league on fire this season). But in Year 1 of Campbell and Brad Holmes, the Lions need to do as much foundational work as possible and that means winning games.
No, I don’t believe there’s much carryover from season to season in the NFL. And “learning how to win” is only true to an extent. Goff, Vaitai, Jamaal Williams — lots of key players on this team have won in the NFL, and what good has it done the Lions so far?
But there are ancillary benefits to winning that can definitely help a program take root.
The stronger the Lions finish the season, the more excited the fan base is for 2022 —and after playing in front of an announced crowd of 45,211 on Sunday, their smallest non-pandemic crowd since 2009, that would be welcome.
The more proof there is that Campbell and Co. can win in the NFL, the easier it should be for the Lions to lure free agents to Detroit, and to get continued buy-in from players already on the roster.
Winning games is what professional sports is all about, and it’s silly to suggest the Lions should be doing otherwise.
As for the draft component, look, it’s way too early to know if a win or two down the stretch will even matter at the end of the day. There appear to be two top pass rushers in this year’s draft, Oregon’s Kayvon Thibodeaux and Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson. Both would make a nice addition in Detroit, and people seem pretty split on who is the better prospect.
If the Lions pick first or second, they should get one of those two. Even if they fall to third (or potentially fourth, with a win against Atlanta this week, a Jacksonville Jaguars-New York Jets tie, and a Houston Texans loss), they could end up with Thibodeaux or Hutchinson, as there is no consensus No. 1 player in the draft.
The Lions have a chance to beat the Falcons on Sunday, and they close the season with games against a subpar Seattle Seahawks team and a very good Green Bay Packers team that could be resting several of its key players. Enjoy whatever happens on the field. There will be plenty of time to worry about the draft.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.