I get it. A dead horse is laying here right in front of me and I’m about to beat it again. Sunday night’s win over the Los Angeles Rams was big proof of why the Detroit Lions needed to get a receiver this offseason.
When we spent the summer talking about it, the big thing that people would come back and say was that the Lions had so many weapons already and that they would figure out a way to make it work. That didn’t happen and it almost cost the Lions the game.
Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta were taken away from the Lions and while Jameson Williams was able to step up, he couldn’t do it all. The Rams started to pay more attention to him and before you knew it, Goff had nowhere to go. If the Lions had a true WR3 in these moments, they would have been able to utilize that guy and have another weapon the Rams would have had to try and stop.
Kalif Raymond may be the current WR3, but it felt liek he wasn’t out there all night, but he was. He played 37 snaps, but he never got targeted because he never really got open. He had that nice end around in overtime though. Tom Kennedy played four snaps and Isaiah Williams predicably played none. This team doesn’t have anyone that strikes fear in defenses when you take away St. Brown and LaPorta.
Luckily the Lions got a big unnecessary roughness call go their way, on the final drive of regulation, and were able to amass 33-yards on Sam LaPorta’s biggest play of the night. That put Detroit into field goal range immediately, but they were pretty much unable to pass the ball before and after that late in the game. Goff was 3-6 for 41 yards in the fourth quarter before that.
So what can the Lions do? The first thing is to see what Tim Patrick can do to remedy the situation. If he’s the guy he was before the injuries, then the Lions are on a gravy train with biscuit wheels. If he’s not, well then you try with Allen Robinson and Donovan Peoples-Jones.
If none of these work, it’s time to bite the bullet and make a move. This is the year you want to win the Super Bowl. You have to be equipped to make that happen. Finding a receiver to trade for early could be hard, but you still have to try.