One of the many contributing factors to the Detroit Lions humiliating 29-22 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving was the utter lack of a pass rush. Detroit did not get one single sack of Packers QB Jordan Love. he LIons defense only hit Love four times, per the initial postgame stats.
There was some sporadic pressure on Love from the defensive front, but overall it was another disappointing effort from the pass rush. The Lions have just two sacks in the three games since the bye week, both coming in the Week 11 win over the Bears.
Head coach Dan Campbell isn’t ready to panic about the ineffective pass rush. In fact, Campbell double down on the current group, led by Aidan Hutchinson, to ramp it back up and get back to being more impactful.
“Same guys we’ve had and we’ve been able to generate pressure, so this unit’s going to be just fine,” Campbell said. “We’re going to get going and we pressured a little bit more today, played a little tight, but these are our guys, man. And these guys can do it and they’ve done it.”
Campbell cited Detroit’s Week 4 win in Lambeau Field as evidence of how the defense has successfully created pressure.
“That same thing we just faced there, we went out to Green Bay, and we were able to create pressure. We weren’t able to do it today.”
In that Thursday night win, Detroit sacked Love five times and logged 11 QB hits on the Packers’ QB on 36 pass attempts. The absence of the pass rush has exposed the thin coverage ability and lack of depth in the secondary, exacerbating the defensive issues.
