Let’s be honest, the Detroit Lions’ offensive performance against the Arizona Cardinals was strange.
For the better part of four possessions, the Lions couldn’t get anything going. The Cardinals forced the visitors into a trio of three-and-outs in the first quarter as the Lions finished the frame with -9 yards.
There are slow starts, which have plagued the Lions all year, and there’s whatever this was.
And the team faced a worse fate than punting on their fourth possession — a turnover on downs — before finally breaking through.
Often, there’s one play that defines a drive. For today’s film review, we’re going to identify that one play from each of the team’s first 10 possessions, before the starters gave way to the backups late in the fourth quarter.
We’ll explore what went wrong early and oh so right before the seven scoring drives to follow.
Possession 1
From the opening kick until early in the second quarter, Detroit was plagued by sloppy execution, resulting in the aforementioned string of three-and-outs.
On the game’s inaugural drive, the Lions opened with back-to-back Jahmyr Gibbs runs netting 5 yards. On the first, no one got a hat on outstanding safety Budda Baker, who crashed into the lane for the stop. And on the next, it was the back who made a poor read on his lineman’s leverage, running into the tackle.
Still, it was third-and-manageable. Detroit came out in 11 personnel — one back, one tight end, three receivers. Quarterback Jared Goff aligned in shotgun with running back Sione Vaki offset to his right. The team was initially in a condensed 3x1 formation, but spread out by having Isaac TeSlaa motion wide of the numbers pre-snap.