This week’s Detroit Lions game film spotlight changes things up a bit. Instead of focusing on one individual player, the Week 9 edition looks at the entire tight end room and how it fared in the 15-9 win over the Green Bay Packers.
This was the first game after the Lions traded away T.J. Hockenson. Detroit replaced Hockenson with a combination of Brock Wright, Shane Zylstra and James Mitchell. The trio maximized their contributions on the stat sheet, combining for three receptions on four targets, eight yards but two touchdowns.
Jeff Okudah: Breaking down the Lions CB’s Week 1 performance vs. the Eagles
Malcolm Rodriguez: Breaking down the Lions rookie LB in Week 2
Film review: Breaking down Aidan Hutchinson’s performance vs. the Seahawks in Week 4
Film review: Breaking down Penei Sewell’s Week 5 game vs. the Patriots
Josh Paschal: Breaking down the Lions rookie DE in his Week 7 debut
Kerby Joseph: Breaking down the Lions rookie safety in Week 8
The methodology for the film evaluation here is pretty simple. Plays where the player wins his individual matchup or performs the role on the play correctly earn a plus; plays where he loses his matchup or does the wrong thing get a minus. Not every play earns a mark.
With three different players in this one, we’ll divide them up.
James Mitchell
The fifth-round rookie played the fewest snaps of the group, accounting for just 13 reps. He made the most of them, however.
Mitchell earned three plusses in the receiving game with no blemishes. His touchdown reception showed a great release and excellent spatial awareness, as well as confident hands. Other than needing to decelerate less into his comeback routes, Mitchell looked very impressive in pass patterns. He filled in very nicely in the bunch formation role where Hockenson was typically at his best. As a blocker, I had Mitchell for one clean win and one loss, splitting the plus/minus ratio.
Overall, that’s four plusses and one minus in an eventful 13 snaps for the big rookie. Based on his play, I’d expect to see more of Mitchell in the passing game over the rest of the season.
Brock Wright
Wright saw the lion’s share of the action. He was on the field for 50 of Detroit’s 62 offensive snaps.
He had two passing targets in the game and earned a plus on the first one even though he didn’t make the catch. Wright had a clear win against the coverage early, but he wasn’t Jared Goff’s primary read on the play. By the time Goff progressed to him, he was out of real estate in the corner of the end zone and Goff threw the ball away. If Goff gets to Wright earlier, he was open for a potential TD. His other target came on a screen pass that Green Bay’s defense read beautifully and broke up the pass.
Most of Wright’s work came as a run blocker, and he had a mixed bag of a day in that capacity. I found three plusses and four minuses in the run block game. One of the minuses came on a holding penalty that he absolutely earned. He spent a lot of reps as the backside blocker in the run game, which doesn’t leave much room for a consequential win or a loss.
As a receiver, Wright earned two plusses for winning on his routes and one minus for not running a clean break and being covered up on a play where Goff might’ve thrown his way. That puts Wright at five plusses and five minuses.
Shane Zylstra
The practice squad call-up played 16 snaps. His first one came in a fullback role on the opening drive and earned Zylstra one of his two blocking plusses of the game.
Zylstra played almost exclusively in-line at TE and did not once stay in as a blocker on passing plays, which was pretty commonplace with Hockenson’s usage this season in Detroit. As a run blocker, No. 84 had the win on his one FB snap and split a pair in run blocking.
As a receiver, this is a great plus to earn:
not d’andre swift…
not amon-ra st. brown…
not jamaal williams…
shane zylstra, everybody! pic.twitter.com/8pWSKWafPz
— NFL Fantasy Football (@NFLFantasy) November 6, 2022
Three plusses, one minus on the game for Zylstra.
Overall it was a solid game for the Lions TEs. The final group tally was 12 plusses and seven minuses. This better matched the value of the TE role in Ben Johnson’s offense, especially given the context of Mitchell being a Day 3 rookie who missed all offseason with a knee injury and Wright and Zylstra as undrafted free agents in their second seasons.
