ALLEN PARK, Mich. — All anybody wants to talk about these days is how the Detroit Lions allowed a record-breaking rushing performance by the Carolina Panthers this past Sunday.
And with good reason — it was by far the ugliest portion of the Lions’ crushing Christmas Eve loss.
But what’s equally concerning — maybe more so, given how the trend has carried over a handful of months — is the Lions’ inability to get their own ground attack going. Detroit has averaged just 3.7 yards per carry over its last eight games, hitting rock bottom with a mark of 2.6 in the loss to Carolina.
“Look, it goes back to fundamentals, but I would say even finish," Lions head coach Dan Campbell said. "We’ve got to finish across the board. We’ve just got to finish. Us as coaches, we have to put an emphasis on it, more of an emphasis that we have, and we’ve really got to hone in on it.
“There again, the run game, the first thing everybody looks at is the O-line because … there’s five of them, and they’re always going to have a big hand in it, but it’s also your tight ends, it’s your receivers, and it’s the way your backs run. Everybody’s got a hand in this run game, everybody. It’s up to us to design a good run game, and it’s up to them to make a go of it and make it work and finish and all those things.”
One thing the Lions have going for them entering the weekend: Chicago's run defense ranks 30th. The Bears have given up 5.3 yards per carry and 169.6 yards per game over their last five games, all of them losses.
But maybe there’s something to the particular span of games where the Lions’ run game has suffered: The start of Detroit’s eight-game rushing drought coincidentally started the same week tight end T.J. Hockenson departed for Minnesota via trade.
While Hockenson has hovered around being a league-average blocker for most of his career, there’s been a noticeable drop-off in his absence. Through their first eight games — and before Hockenson was traded — the Lions were averaging 5.2 yards per carry. He was handling his own.
In his place, the Lions have made more use of Brock Wright, who grades out as the Lions' second-lowest graded run blocker this season (per Pro Football Focus) and has more pass-blocking snaps (287) than tight ends Shane Zylstra, James Mitchell and Garrett Griffin combined.
“I think there’s been some inconsistencies for sure in the tight-end room. Whether we’re missing a drive block on the front side of the zone, or we’re missing a backside cutoff on the backside of a wide-zone play, you know? So we’ve just kinda gotta do our part,” said Tanner Engstrand, tight ends coach and passing-game coordinator.
“Again, it’s really focused on the technique and the fundamentals of what we’re trying to do and see a big picture of, ‘What’s the defense doing? How should we expect them to play?’ That enables us to play a little bit faster, so if we can just ratchet down the technique and the fundamentals of what we’re trying to do and where we need to be to help, what our job is in that specific play, I think we’re gonna be all right.”
It's somewhat surprising that this half-season rushing slide has coincided with a 6-2 run and the fact that Detroit is still one of the league's best in multiple offensive categories. Detroit ranks fourth in total net yards (5,633), tied for fifth in touchdowns scored (47), sixth in yards per play. And here's the humdinger: Despite averaging 3.7 yards per carry — which would be the third-worst mark in the league over the whole 2022 season — the Lions still are averaging 4.4 yards per carry over the season, the franchise's best since 1998.
The shortcomings of the Lions' run game go beyond simply handing the ball off more, Campbell said.
"It means efficiency," Campbell said. "We have to be better when we do run the ball. We have to get more chunks. We have to be better to where, man, it's second-and-6, second-and-5, second-and-4, not second-and-9, second-and-19 every time we hand the ball off.
"We have to be better."
