The first two weeks of the 2019 season left the Lions at a respectable 1-0-1 mark. Week 3 brought a trip to Philadelphia to face the highly-touted Eagles, which is where our season rewatch project takes us next.
I went back and watched the broadcast feed of the game, followed by the All-22 coach’s tape courtesy of NFL Game Pass. This was an entertaining game full of twists and turns, capped off with Matthew Stafford and the Lions coming up big in the clutch for the second week in a row.
Notes and observations from the Lions’ 27-24 win in Philadelphia.
Pregame
The only Lions regular player who was out with injury was DL Da’Shawn Hand. The Eagles were missing starting WRs Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson as well as DT Timmy Jernigan. Jarrad Davis makes his season debut, while Taylor Decker is back after missing Week 2.
Lions wore blue pants with the white jerseys.
First quarter
The defense starts hit-and-miss. A Trey Flowers encroachment penalty on 3rd-and-3 extends the drive. Carson Wentz foils a good rush on the very next play and catches a communication error between CB Darius Slay and S Quandre Diggs for a big gain. Slay bit up on a short route–it looks like he was expecting the rush to force the throw–and Diggs never rotated over. If Wentz throws a better pass it’s six points.
Another 3rd down penalty, an iffy holding call on Justin Coleman, sets up a short field goal. The Lions DL had no problem controlling the middle of the formation against the run. Eagles up 3-0
Fun time! Jamal Agnew takes the ensuing kickoff to the house, 101 yards for the TD. Great blocks from Will Harris and Dee Virgin helped out, but Agnew made two guys miss and ran through another tackle. Matt Prater nails the conversion and it’s 7-3 Lions without an offensive play for Detroit yet.
Noting for future Lions reference: Eagles bring in Hal Vaitai as an extra tackle and run behind him. He blatantly holds LB Jahlani Tavai but gets away with it on an 11-yard run by Jordan Howard. On the very next play–the Eagles leave him in for several reps–he falls down trying to get a reach block on Romeo Okwara. They run behind him three times in four plays and the third one is a beautiful edge seal block on the right side on Devon Kennard to spring a 3rd-down conversion run from Miles Sanders.
Lions are consistently rushing four or five but Wentz has little issue avoiding the pressure. A huge scramble on a Jarrad Davis blitz sets up an easy TD plunge, 10-7 Eagles. Former Lions LB Chris Spielman is on the broadcast call and he’s rightly apoplectic about the defense abandoning the middle of the field against a mobile QB.
Detroit’s first offensive drive features mostly 12 (1 RB, 2 TE) and 22 (RB, FB, 2 TE) personnel and it works well. The OL, notably LG Joe Dahl, clears nice holes for Kerryon Johnson and the methodical drive caps with a Johnson TD from a yard out. Taylor Decker had a great block on the TD. 14-10 Lions very quickly into the second quarter.
Second quarter
No creativity to the Lions pass rush. It’s four guys trying to bull their way to Wentz. Flowers does an improvised twist after he’s initially stymied on an effort but that’s it. Downfield coverage is very good from Slay, Rashaan Melvin and Justin Coleman.
Sam Martin continues to have an outstanding season punting. Great directional punt pins the Eagles deep after the teams trade bad possessions. It leads to an interesting series for Jarrad Davis at LB.
Davis sat the prior series in lieu of Tavai. He missed being in the right place with his assignment two plays in a row but redeems himself with a fantastic punch-out of the ball to force the turnover. It was the second forced fumble against Miles Sanders on the drive after Okwara ripped it out a couple plays earlier. Okwara is working Vaitai, who is now in the game full-time at LT. LG Isaac Semualo is not playing well against Damon Harrison and Okwara either, and it very much feels like it’s that and not the Lions defenders playing great.
Love the gadget play reverse to J.D. McKissic coming right off the turnover. Aggressive call and it catches the Eagles overpursuing, something their LBs have shown all game. The drive stalls thanks to good red-zone coverage from the Eagles (Golladay has zero space) but Prater’s FG extends the lead to 17-10. Stafford was quick to throw the ball away rather than buy time and try to force things, playing conservatively for the FG.
Trend alert: The Lions continue to load up the line of scrimmage when the opposing offense goes to an empty backfield. They did this against the Chargers in Week 2 as well, primarily with six guys on the line. In this case, as happened against L.A., the LBs cannot drop fast enough to cover the middle of the field throw.
The Lions catch a huge break when Nelson Agholor fumbles shortly after making a catch on a quick-hit throw. Slay was right there but didn’t cause the fumble; Agholor just lost it. Slay picks it up and scampers into the red zone. Surprised the replay official didn’t overturn it as Agholor had the ball a lot less than what Calvin Johnson did no several of his overturned catches. Also, props to Wentz for hustling and making a nice touchdown-saving tackle on Slay. I can think of a few QBs who wouldn’t have done that…
The Lions offense gets too cute and has to settle for a field goal. Decker is progressively getting more upright in his base stance as the game progresses, a sign the back injury that kept him out of Week 2 is impacting him.
Last play of the half, the Lions rush three with Davis rushing in and Flowers dropping. Good blitz and Davis forces Wentz to flee to his left with all his WRs on the right. Flowers closes in and gets the sack. Side note: Wentz has already taken several cringe-worthy hits if you’re an Eagles fan. He does not protect himself nearly as well as Stafford does. Lions up 20-10 at the half
Third quarter
Poor offensive series for the Lions out of the half. Stafford is inaccurate and makes two bad decisions but the Eagles can’t catch them. Sam Martin bails out the offense with a phenomenal sideline punt. Eagles punter Cam Johnston answers with an even better one, pinning the Lions inside their own 1. Slay left on the series with an injury, replaced by Mike Ford.
Rick Wagner is having a rough time in pass protection. The Eagles have figured out to attack him inside-out and he’s struggling. Stafford misses a couple of throws as a result.
Bad tackling gives the Eagles a touchdown. Quandre Diggs, who missed a TFL opportunity on the prior drive, bounces off Agholor. Justin Coleman whiffs on the follow-up and Agholor struts into the end zone. Philly closes to 20-17 as a result. Lions pass rush is nonexistent in the second half so far.
Nick Bawden jumps over a defender to pick up a first down on a pass to the flat. Stafford keeps looking for Golladay but he’s not getting any room at all in man coverage.
Fourth quarter
This gets off with a bang. First play of the quarter sees Stafford feather a pass to the corner that Jones snags at full extension. Perfect throw and an even better catch by No. 11, who the Eagles have been unable to reliably cover all day. Lions go up 27-17.
I was wondering why the Eagles didn’t play Dallas Goedert more at TE. The answer becomes clear when Christian Jones easily beats him with a nondescript pass move to sack Wentz. On the next snap, Lions rush just three (Jones, Harrison, Robinson) and all three get touches on Wentz before he goes down. It’s a coverage sack but also nicely schemed for a 3-man rush. They nearly get Wentz for a third play in a row on the next snap with Okwara playing on the nose. This defensive series was Matt Patricia’s dream outcome.
Christian Jones has been great near the line of scrimmage but gets badly exposed in coverage by Sanders on the next Eagles drive. He just can’t turn and run. The safety help from Diggs is late. Lions run fits from the LBs, primarily Tavai but also Kennard as the JACK, are terrible here. Okwara and Davis both commit dumb, avoidable penalties to help extend an Eagles TD drive and it’s 27-24 Lions. As impressive as the prior series was defensively, this was rough to watch.
Stafford throws a perfect strike to Jones on 2nd-and-9 on the ensuing series to bleed more clock. Rolling to his right and backward, Stafford slings it where only a sliding jones can catch it. It’s not a play that makes highlight reels but it’s absolutely gorgeous and not a throw many others can pull off.
The very next play is a great call on a misdirection toss to Ty Johnson, but Golladay whiffs on his block. If Johnson gets that block he’s running for at least 10 yards by breaking inside but it only gains two. Another clutch throw from Stafford to Amendola keeps the drive alive on 3rd-and-11, under five minutes to play.
I absolutely abhor the deep handoff to a static RB. It was a staple of the Jim Bob Cooter offense in Detroit and it never worked. The Lions try it here with Stafford giving the ball to Kerryon Johnson, who is standing still, 6-7 yards deep. Against a loaded box. It’s a white flag and a complete waste of opportunity. Lions forced to punt, and deservedly so with the suddenly passive playcalling.
An inspired defensive series featuring a great downfield PD from Coleman and a swarming 4th down stop on a Wentz scramble sets the Lions up inside the Eagles 30 with just over two minutes to play. But the offense again goes passive and is obviously playing for a field goal. They do try a shot to Golladay but he can’t make the contested catch.
Said field goal attempt gets blocked. Logan Thomas was on the left edge and had to block two Eagles. He didn’t touch either of them. Tyrell Crosby was to his inside and he didn’t block anyone either. Great call by the Eagles, terrible assignment recognition by the Lions special teams. An illegal block on the return keeps the damage from being catastrophic.
Coleman continues a very solid second half with a great open-field tackle to create a third down. Darren Sproles gets called for offensive pass interference against Tavon Wilson to negate the conversion. The call was technically correct but getting it on the road is a huge surprise for the Lions.
Wentz makes his best throw of the game on the 4th-down effort. He hits J.J. Arcega-Whiteside in both hands near the goal line over a leaping Diggs but the rookie WR drops it. It’s probably the best throw against the Lions in the first three weeks but it falls incomplete. Ballgame. Lions win 27-24.
Good games: Agnew, Marvin Jones, Dahl, Coleman, Okwara, Martin
Bad games: Golladay, Wagner, Diggs, Davis, Logan Thomas (special teams), Hockenson (as a blocker)
Stafford had another up-and-down game, though this one seemed more receiver-based than on the QB himself. Marvin Jones played great, Amendola did well but this was the worst game from Golladay I’ve seen since his rookie year. He offered nothing in this one. The tight ends presented little as receivers, too. Stafford was very good in clutch situations.
There is a tangible sense in watching the second half play out that Patricia is growing enamored with the 3-man rush and dropping eight into coverage. It works here in no small part because the Eagles WRs are not good and Wentz tends to overreact to pressure. I came away feeling like the win is almost a false-positive test for that defensive strategy, based on what’s coming later in the season. But the win here is very nice.
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