Sunday was a pleasant day in the park for a catfight. The Detroit Lions pounced all over the Carolina Panthers in Ford Field, mauling the winless visitors 42-24. The final score was not that close, either.
The Lions kept the positive momentum flowing after the mini-bye following Detroit’s Week 4 win in Green Bay back on Thursday Night Football 10 days earlier. Despite missing key pieces on both sides of the ball, the Lions quickly clawed out a big lead and never let the Panthers sniff hope of coming back.
Buy Lions TicketsHere are some takeaways from watching the Week 5 game in real-time.
Aggressive creativity worked on offense
Ben Johnson gets a lot of love nationally for his work as the Lions offensive coordinator. His mad scientist play design and aggressive play-calling doesn’t always work, but when it does, it’s glorious. And it worked a lot more than it didn’t against the Panthers.
We had a hot potato-style flea flicker touchdown pass to Sam LaPorta for the rookie’s second TD of the afternoon. We had coordinated offensive line traps, powers and wham blocks from TEs and WRs that the Panthers defense never saw coming.
This is just wicked work from Johnson’s offense. Expertly executed chicanery:
Getting tricky with the snap @KNARFWONGAR 👀#CARvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/3qMCnpU4aD
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) October 8, 2023
One of the side effects of Johnson’s wizardry is that it keeps everyone involved and engaged. Jared Goff continues to prove he’ll make the smartest decision with the ball and won’t play favorites with his targets, a big part of why Johnson’s offense works so well. Six touchdowns in nine full drives against Carolina, with five different players scoring, proves it’s working very well.
Defense was not scared of the Panthers offense
Carolina came into the game winless and largely punchless on offense. No. 1 overall pick Bryce Young had the NFL’s lowest yards per attempt (yards divided by attempts) and air yards per attempt (average distance of the throw beyond the line of scrimmage) coming into the game. Their longest pass play with Young was just 22 yards in the three games he played entering Week 5.
With that in mind, Lions DC Aaron Glenn dialed up a defense that was focused on swarming to the ball and making sure short reception didn’t turn into long plays. Game film study will likely confirm it, but the safeties left some open deep shots for Carolina’s offense knowing that Young either wouldn’t see them or wouldn’t try them. That strategy proved correct. While Young worked the short margins effectively, it was the football version of empty calories. Nibble away, Frank Reich.
The run defense was very good once again. The Panthers destroyed the Lions on Christmas Eve with over 300 rushing yards. On Sunday, they got 99 total and just 54 in the first half. It’s a figure that will raise Detroit’s league-best average a little in the wrong direction, but they tackled very well. On handoffs to running backs, Carolina managed 68 yards and just two carries that gained more than six yards, with none higher than nine.
Glenn’s game plan nicely matched up against how the Panthers wanted to play offense. The yardage totals look a lot worse than the actual game play and execution felt, particularly with Carolina’s final two TDs coming with great assistance from some questionable officiating calls.
More injury woes
The Lions played this game without rookie phenom DB Brian Branch, fellow rookie RB Jahmyr Gibbs and top wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. Unfortunately, the team did not make it through the win unscathed.
Emmanuel Moseley saw his first action in a year, but it barely lasted. The cornerback returned from a torn ACL suffered in Week 5 a year ago and didn’t even make it out of the first half before leaving with another knee injury. He tore the left knee up in 2022 and this time around it was the right one. Moseley was quickly ruled out for the game.
Reserve RB Zonovan Knight also barely saw action before leaving with what looks to be a serious injury. Knight got his first touch of the game late in the third quarter on a reception. He injured his left arm while being tackled and was carted off from the sideline.
Those losses are players that the Lions have not needed to count upon in 2023, but it’s still another shot to the team’s depth.
3 stars of the game
We haven’t done this yet in 2023, but with the NHL about to fire up, the 3 Stars of the game are back!
3rd star – WR Josh Reynolds: 4 receptions for 76 yards and a toe-tapping TD
2nd star – RB David Montgomery: 109 rushing yards and a TD on 19 carries, plus 20 yards on 2 receptions
1st star – DE Aidan Hutchinson: 3 tackles (all for loss), one sack, one one-handed INT and 2 other QB hits
Honorable mention to QB Jared Goff for a mistake-free passing day (20-of-28, 236 yards, 3 TDs) where half of his incompletions were dropped by Lions receivers, too.
Quick hits
–Alim McNeill didn’t make a huge dent in the stat sheet, but the big DT played a fantastic game. He forced a fumble, but also had two plays where he bulled his blocker into the backfield and forced the Panthers RB to stop in his tracks. That’s impact beyond the stat sheet.
–Jameson Williams didn’t do a lot as a weapon, including dropping his first target. He finished with 2 yards on 2 catches, including a catch where he was hit in the backfield immediately after the ball arrived. But “Jamo” blocked exceptionally well at wide receiver. It’s not what anyone wants as the featured positive for a first-round pick, but the effort shows Williams is at least able to contribute without the ball in his hands.
–Jerry Jacobs had his second straight good game. Jacobs picked off a pass and registered four tackles. Just as importantly, he didn’t have a missed tackle in my recollection. That’s big for him. He was guilty of a defensive holding call, however. With Moseley likely out long-term, the Lions need more games like the last two weeks from Jacobs at outside CB.
–Goff got sacked twice. One was Carolina’s speedy Brian Burns beating Taylor Decker, with Decker still quite clearly not 100 percent. The other came on a perfect slot blitz call by the Panthers defense where nobody on Detroit had any chance.
–Worst play of the game: 4th-and-4 from the Panthers 37-yard line, the Lions tried a slow-developing swing pass to David Montgomery that would have been stopped for no gain (at best) if he caught it. Ben Johnson gets too cute at times, and this was one of them.
–Graham Glasgow started once again at right guard and had his best game of the season upon first blush. He and Frank Ragnow handled Derrick Brown very well, notably in pass protection.
–Very scary moment early in the game when Panthers rookie OG Chandler Zavala went down after appearing to lose all feeling in his body. He was carted off and taken to a local hospital. Reports indicate he had feeling and movement in all extremities. Zavala was a player the Lions liked a lot in the 2023 NFL draft.
–Punter Jack Fox bounced back from a rough Week 4 with two near-perfect punts. Both pinned the Panthers inside their own 16-yard line.
–Teddy Bridgewater finished the game at QB with victory-formation snaps for his first action in a Lions uniform.
