The Detroit Lions formally declared that they had reached a deal to sell the team once the identity of the prize tag was revealed.

The Detroit Lions formally declared that they had reached a deal to sell the team once the identity of the prize tag was revealed.

Lions-Bucs’s main statistics are: long live the run game, death to screen passes

The Detroit Lions formally declared that they had reached a deal to sell the team once the identity of the prize tag was revealed.

The Detroit Lions were unable to duplicate their heroics from their Week 1 victory over the Los Angeles Rams, as they lost a tight game that came down to the last play, 20-16, against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Pro Football Focus has provided us with some statistics that we can go over in order to have a better understanding of the football the Lions have played thus far and what to expect in the upcoming weeks. We will do this every week for the duration of the season for this Lions squad. After the Lions’ defeat by the Bucs, let’s examine the team’s statistical performance in more detail.

Football fans may gain significant insights into the game by utilizing Pro Football Focus’ premium statistics. If you want complete access to a wealth of statistics and rankings to keep you updated on college and NFL football, think about becoming a subscriber to PFF. In addition, NFL Pro is providing some unique and compelling advanced statistics of their own that are well worth the price of admission.

The Lions offense’s dedication to the screen game on Sunday was among the most annoying things to see. Detroit believed a strong dosage of screen passes (10.3% of Jared Goff’s dropbacks) may offset Tampa Bay’s game plan if the Buccaneers were going to create pressure up front and muck up the middle of the field for the Lions passing offense.

It was unsuccessful.

Goff finished 27th out of 28 quarterbacks who qualified for Week 2 (at least three screen pass attempts) with an average of 1.0 yards per attempt. Goff’s average depth of target was -4.5 yards (ranked 25th), and he hit four of his five screen throws for a total of 5 yards. The second-to-last drive by the Lions included the most heinous sequence of the game:

With your backs against the wall, converting a third-and-9 into a third-and-14 in four-down territory is akin to inadvertently pushing pause and switching the game to All-Madden.

+2.2 running yards per carry more than anticipated
When questioned on Monday, Dan Campbell stated that the Lions thought throwing the ball 55 times would help open up the rushing game. It’s conceivable that the Lions, who had been down for all but three minutes of the game, were never in a position to lean into the run, but when they were, they ran the ball very effectively. Even after taking away the attempts from Goff and Jameson Williams, Detroit managed an average of 5.1 yards per rush over 27 carries. David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs ran the ball 24 times for 119 yards (averaging 4.9 yards per carry).