In the moments following the Detroit Lions’ 21-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, coach Dan Campbell used one phrase over and over again.
“We got a lot to clean up,” he said.
And, he’s not wrong. Though the Lions ultimately outscored the Chiefs in the thriller at Arrowhead Stadium, the offensive side of the ball left a lot to be desired for a team that’s looking to improve on a top-five offense from a season ago.
The numbers looked decent enough for Lions quarterback Jared Goff, who completed 22 of 35 passes for 253 yards and a touchdown with no interceptions for a passer rating of 94.1. But that did not tell the story of Detroit’s offense.
It largely looked out of rhythm for the first three quarters, and especially during an all-so-critical third quarter in which the Lions punted three times but tied the game at 14 on a pick-six from rookie safety Brian Branch.
“Man, we’ve got to improve our tempo,” Campbell said Friday. “That’s probably top of the list right now.”
Campbell also said he wanted to clean up third downs on defense. To be fair, his team partially did that during the game. The Chiefs went 0-for-7 on third down in the second half — the worst second-half third-down clip of Patrick Mahomes’ career, according to ESPN — after dominating in the first half, going 5-for-7.
“We weren’t great on defense either in that first half. Now we turned it around there, but I think those are a couple things we’ve got to clean up that would be top of the list here,” Campbell said. “And they are very correctable issues that we’ve got here, so that’s what fires you up. We’ve got so much room to grow and get better. … I guess the first thing I thought of was just tempo offensively. We can be so much better.”
The Lions went three-and-out on four of their nine possessions, but even on the drives they did get going, there was an element of struggle.
After going three-and-out on the first series, Detroit scored a touchdown on its second drive of the game, but it was only because of a fake punt inside the Lions’ 20-yard-line that the drive didn’t end in three plays. Some miscommunication led to Frank Ragnow snapping the ball off Brock Wright’s lap on the first drive of the second quarter and, moments later, Marvin Jones Jr. fumbled the ball for the first time in his 11-year NFL career to turn the ball over in the red zone.
Campbell attributed some of the struggles to the daunting road environment at Arrowhead.
“You never want to make excuses, but at the same time, yeah, I think that’s a lot of it,” Campbell said. “It is Game 1. You’re getting your crew out there for a full 70 plays, you’re on the road in a very loud environment, but you also want enough ammo to be able to score if you need to score in one of those affairs against a dang good offense and quarterback.”
When the Lions were putting drives together, the Chiefs did a good job of shutting them down by keeping Goff off balance with disguised blitzes that forced him to get the ball out before his reads developed. Chiefs defensive linemen Mike Danna and George Karlaftis each recorded a pass defense.
Campbell said some of the issues that came up “didn’t surprise” him and that ultimately they’re not that concerning.
“Like I told the staff and players, all that matters is that we win by one,” he said. “As long as you end the game and we’re up at least one point and defense, we hold them to at least one less, then that’s all that matters.”
nbianchi@detroitnews.com
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