News » Lions vs. 49ers: What Just Happened? What’s worse?

Getting blown out on national television by a bad Jets team or coming within an inch of a win in San Francisco? I think most people will go with the first one here Detroit Lions T-Shirt , but for me, it’s the second, simply because the second had me pacing around the house with my heart beating like crazy, only to feel disappointment and sadness in the end. The Lions lose their Week 2 matchup with the 49ers, 30-27. As always, I have thoughts on this game. These are those thoughts. Not quite the bounceback you hoped Stafford would have...... but it was a bounceback nonetheless. Matthew Stafford looked like his old self for the most part on Sunday. He threw for 343 yards and three touchdowns. He even completed 63.3 percent of his passes. On paper, this looks like a pretty dang good game. But to steal from the FOX broadcast, this game was all about almosts, and Matthew had a lot of them on Sunday, specifically on deep passes. Stafford tried to hit Marvin Jones Jr. on a long pass three times and the two just couldn’t connect on any of them. I’ll give Stafford plenty of flack for overthrowing, but I’ll also give Jones some flack for being a step behind on Sunday. Which brings me to my next point. The Lions receivers are right on the top of the ladder, but they won’t reach for the beltThe Lions receivers remind me of a ladder match in the WWE. They’re slowly climbing the ladder and they’re almost there. Almost to glory. Then this happens. Look at Marvin go through that table.What I’m getting at here is for the last two weeks, the Lions receivers, specifically Marvin Jones Detroit Lions Hats , have been in position to make a major play and then they drop the ball or the ball goes through their hands or they just get fingertips on it. It’s eating the Lions’ chances at victory alive. But it oddly gives me hope. If the Lions are able to connect on these moments in the immediate future, they can be that elite offensive unit that everyone knows they have the potential to be. If they don’t, I‘ll jump through a table myself like I’m from Buffalo. You’re killing me, TheoI won’t ride Theo Riddick too hard here. These things happen. But Theo-riddick-ly, if he catches one of those passes at the end of the game, we’re talking about a whole different ending to the game. Dang it, Theo!The Lions defense was actually okayThey can’t stop the run to save their lives, but the Lions defense put on a decent show down the stretch on Sunday. They were able to stop a 49ers offense that had been running all over them all day, and it gave the offense a chance to come back. They only allowed three points and 51 yards in the fourth quarter.But that wasn’t all. The Lions actually had a pass rush on Sunday, too. They managed to get to Jimmy Garoppolo six times. That is very encouraging, especially since we can all agree the pass rush looked like the Lions’ biggest issue over the summer. In the secondary, losing Slay for any amount of time is going to suck, but even without Slay, the Lions were getting some good coverage at times. Some of that coverage led to a few of those sacks we were talking about. But alas Detroit Lions Womens Hoodie , it was the Lions’ secondary that did them in in the end. Tracy Walker almost made a name for himself when he grabbed what looked to be a huge interception to set up the Lions in the red zone for a chance to win. But then that thing happened. You know the thing. The Lions shot themselves in the foot with penaltiesThis thing. I absolutely loathe this. It’s the thing that makes me want to turn the Lions off and go listen to Mumford and Sons in my basement until I fall asleep. You know you secretly like them as much as I do. You also know you don’t know why. The Lions committed 10 penalties for 105 yards in all. The thing about them is that they all happened in moments when the Lions were gaining momentum. I’m specifically talking about the back-to-back holding calls on Taylor Decker and Frank Ragnow that took the Lions from first-and-10 in the red zone to first-and-27 and an eventual long field goal. This isn’t new. The Lions have been doing this for years and I can’t understand why. It sucks to watch other teams march down the field unabated while the Lions push themselves backwards. Speaking of push.Blount showed he can still be a hot headI’m not going to react like so many people on social media did. I saw a lot of people with this dumb take: “At least Blount is showing that he cares.” How? By setting his own team back and potentially costing them another possession? The players do care. They’re not Vontae Davis. They won’t retire at halftime. If you need blatant idiocy to feel good about the team, I just think that’s dumb. This helped nobody. This not only put the Lions back a few yards, it also put them down to just one running back for a short period of time while Riddick was dealing with an injury. I sincerely hope that’s the last time Blount does something like that and you should too. There’s just no room for that when you’re down three scores. Like I said, I still come away somewhat encouragedTo go back to the FOX broadcast team one more time, the game of almost means something to me. It means that someday those almosts will turn into wins, and I think the Lions are just inches away from that. It’s all about the little things right now. I’m a crazy person and everyone knows that. But I still think there’s a winning record in here somewhere. I even think there’s postseason berth. Don’t get me wrong. I still think there’s also a giant chance that this season turns into an unmitigated disaster and the Lions get a great draft pick in April. I could go either way at this point, but what I’m really hoping for is that the Lions decide which team they’re going to be already, because my heart can’t take much more of this.Film Room: 49ers usage of tight ends and backs could be a problem for the Lions The Detroit Lions will attempt to bounce back from the Week 1 shellacking they suffered at the hands of the New York Jets by facing off against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. The 49ers have been a team at the bottom of league for years now and even lost to the Minnesota Vikings last week. This iteration of the 49ers is much stronger than those of the past, though, and it is mainly because of the presence of former Falcons offensive coordinator turned head coach Kyle Shanahan.Shanahan earned his reputation as the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator when he was the mastermind of the league’s best offense in 2016. He is a creative play caller that uses interesting formations, a lot of pre-snap motion, RPOs, play actions and other elements that keep defenses on their toes. Tight ends, running backs and fullbacks play huge roles within his offenses as they create matchup problems and sometimes can slip through the cracks of a defense’s coverage. San Francisco opened their season against one of the league’s best defenses last week Womens Customized Detroit Lions Jerseys , but Shanahan still managed to work a bit of magic. Non-wide receivers combined for seven receptions for 151 yards—for comparison’s sake, the wide receivers combined for eight receptions for 110 yards. Tight end George Kittle was the star of the show Sunday as he accounted for five receptions and 90 yards. Shanahan lined him up everywhere on the field and found creative ways to get him into space. Minnesota did a great job disguising their coverage on this play, showing zone and playing man, but Kittle still got free and punished them for a decent gain. The variety of motion, play action and RPOs that San Francisco uses do a lot to defenses. First, the motion usually gives a look at whether the defense is playing man or zone coverage. Second, it overloads the defense. With so much for a defense to account for both pre and post snap, even the best players can make the simplest of mistakes. On the above play, the linebacker responsible for Kittle was Eric Kendricks, one of the smartest defenders in all of football. He was frozen for a few seconds with all the charades the 49ers were putting on and just lost track of his man.The final and most understated effect it has on defenses is the “Shanahan Factor.” Any defense that spent an entire week studying film on the offensive coordinator is aware of his reputation and his amazing use of motion to confuse a defense. This makes dummy motions, like the receiver who shifts one yard to his right at the bottom of the screen pre-snap, live within the mind of the defenders. The motion looks almost useless, and it was useless, but just that quick action is one more thing defenders have to worry about. Shanahan builds upon his play calling throughout the game and often will just run the same play again with a slightly tweaked formation. On this play later in the game www.lionscheapstore.com , the 49ers have Kittle run the same route, but this time to the other side of the field. A play-action is used instead of an RPO but it again frees up Kittle for an easy pass into open space. The offensive coordination also uses a variety of motion and trickery in the red zone as well. With the field so compressed near the goal line, it’s incredibly hard to create space for a receiver, but the 49ers manage to do so anyways.San Francisco runs a creative slip screen here to get Kittle into space with a lead blocker in front. The pre-snap motion out wide by fullback Kyle Juszczyk not only shows zone coverage but also removes a defender from the area they want to exploit. Kittle’s initial block takes away another defender and the lead block from tackle Joe Staley takes out one more. Just like that three defenders at the second level are taken out of the picture, opening space in the most congested area of the field. Kittle gets a good gain and sets up the 49ers near the goal line. San Francisco may have won the game had Kittle not dropped a huge pass on a well-schemed play. The 49ers had ran two similar plays to this one earlier in the game, except they had previously handed the ball off to Matt Breida once and ran a jet sweep on another. Minnesota’s defense probably recognized the play by this point, and they seemed over-eager to sniff out both Breida and Pettis by this point. Kittle yet again came all the way across the offensive line then released out into the large seam they two decoys left behind. Kittle dropped this pass, but had he caught it San Francisco would have gained at least 50 yards, if not a deep touchdown. Detroit will not be able to count on Kittle dropping a key pass once again. Shanahan is great at getting running backs and fullbacks involved as well. Juszczyk’s lone catch of the day was a deep reception where he was schemed wide open. The fullback is split out wide here against the Vikings mixed coverage. The receiver runs one corner out of the play. The safety is distracted and doesn’t seem at all aware of the fullback’s threat. This creates a huge gain for the 49ers on a rare pass to a fullback. So what does this mean for the Detroit Lions?The Lions have been awful at covering tight ends and running backs in the passing game for years now. None of their linebackers are great in coverage and it’s hard to see how they plan on making sure Kittle does not have another huge day. Jarrad Davis in particular has a lot of issues over the past year dealing with motion and play-action. He seems over-eager to bite on anything shown to him post-snap and often will just voluntarily run himself out of plays. It will take a lot of great game planning from Matt Patricia and Paul Pasqualoni to deal with the 49ers this week. We may be in for another rough day for the Lions defense.