Winning sure does wonders for national recognition.
After hardly sniffing any weekly honors nationally over the first month of the season, the Detroit Lions have seen player’s names show up all over the place to kick off Week 7.
Rookie running back D’Andre Swift is nominated for the Ground Player of Week 6 award, as well as the NFL Rookie of the Week. While, over at Pro Football Focus, the Lions offensive line has been recognized as the best run-blocking unit in the NFL, and two defenders landed on the PFF Week 6, Team of the Week: EDGE Trey Flowers and linebacker Jamie Collins.
Flowers earned a 92.0 grade from PFF, securing five tackles, two pressures, and a strip-sack — which per Next Gen Stats, was the fastest sack of Week 6:
According to @NextGenStats, this strip-sack by the @Lions Trey Flowers (@III_Flowers) happened in 2.7-seconds and was the Fastest Sack in the NFL in Week 6. pic.twitter.com/HXu5VOUW4X
— Erik Schlitt (@erikschlitt) October 19, 2020
Collins earned an 89.8 grade, recording seven tackles, a quarterback hit, and a key pass break up, late in the game on the final drive.
While Flowers was top graded Lions player of the week, Collins was actually third on the list, checking in behind safety Duron Harmon who had a 90.4 grade from PFF. Unfortunately for Harmon, his high grade was still behind Minkah Fitzpatrick (Steelers) and Marcus Maye (Jets) for the week, so he missed the recognition.
Interestingly, if you eliminate the snap count threshold, then Jarrad Davis’ grade of 95.2 would have topped them all, but with only 11 snaps on the day, it’s not enough to garner recognition. If you’re interested in reading about how Davis is finding success in his new role, be sure to check out our film study from Week 6.
