The first two weeks of the 2019 season left the Lions at a respectable 1-0-1 mark. Week 3 brought a trip to Philadelphia to face the highly-touted Eagles, which is where our season rewatch project takes us next.
I went back and watched the broadcast feed of the game, followed by the All-22 coach’s tape courtesy of NFL Game Pass. This was an entertaining game full of twists and turns, capped off with Matthew Stafford and the Lions coming up big in the clutch for the second week in a row.
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Notes and observations from the Lions’ 27-24 win in Philadelphia.
Pregame
The only Lions regular player who was out with injury was DL Da’Shawn Hand. The Eagles were missing starting WRs Alshon Jeffery and DeSean Jackson as well as DT Timmy Jernigan. Jarrad Davis makes his season debut, while Taylor Decker is back after missing Week 2.
Lions wore blue pants with the white jerseys.
First quarter
The defense starts hit-and-miss. A Trey Flowers encroachment penalty on 3rd-and-3 extends the drive. Carson Wentz foils a good rush on the very next play and catches a communication error between CB Darius Slay and S Quandre Diggs for a big gain. Slay bit up on a short route–it looks like he was expecting the rush to force the throw–and Diggs never rotated over. If Wentz throws a better pass it’s six points.
Another 3rd down penalty, an iffy holding call on Justin Coleman, sets up a short field goal. The Lions DL had no problem controlling the middle of the formation against the run. Eagles up 3-0
Fun time! Jamal Agnew takes the ensuing kickoff to the house, 101 yards for the TD. Great blocks from Will Harris and Dee Virgin helped out, but Agnew made two guys miss and ran through another tackle. Matt Prater nails the conversion and it’s 7-3 Lions without an offensive play for Detroit yet.
Noting for future Lions reference: Eagles bring in Hal Vaitai as an extra tackle and run behind him. He blatantly holds LB Jahlani Tavai but gets away with it on an 11-yard run by Jordan Howard. On the very next play–the Eagles leave him in for several reps–he falls down trying to get a reach block on Romeo Okwara. They run behind him three times in four plays and the third one is a beautiful edge seal block on the right side on Devon Kennard to spring a 3rd-down conversion run from Miles Sanders.
Lions are consistently rushing four or five but Wentz has little issue avoiding the pressure. A huge scramble on a Jarrad Davis blitz sets up an easy TD plunge, 10-7 Eagles. Former Lions LB Chris Spielman is on the broadcast call and he’s rightly apoplectic about the defense abandoning the middle of the field against a mobile QB.
Detroit’s first offensive drive features mostly 12 (1 RB, 2 TE) and 22 (RB, FB, 2 TE) personnel and it works well. The OL, notably LG Joe Dahl, clears nice holes for Kerryon Johnson and the methodical drive caps with a Johnson TD from a yard out. Taylor Decker had a great block on the TD. 14-10 Lions very quickly into the second quarter.
Second quarter
No creativity to the Lions pass rush. It’s four guys trying to bull their way to Wentz. Flowers does an improvised twist after he’s initially stymied on an effort but that’s it. Downfield coverage is very good from Slay, Rashaan Melvin and Justin Coleman.
Sam Martin continues to have an outstanding season punting. Great directional punt pins the Eagles deep after the teams trade bad possessions. It leads to an interesting series for Jarrad Davis at LB.
Davis sat the prior series in lieu of Tavai. He missed being in the right place with his assignment two plays in a row but redeems himself with a fantastic punch-out of the ball to force the turnover. It was the second forced fumble against Miles Sanders on the drive after Okwara ripped it out a couple plays earlier. Okwara is working Vaitai, who is now in the game full-time at LT. LG Isaac Semualo is not playing well against Damon Harrison and Okwara either, and it very much feels like it’s that and not the Lions defenders playing great.
Love the gadget play reverse to J.D. McKissic coming right off the turnover. Aggressive call and it catches the Eagles overpursuing, something their LBs have shown all game. The drive stalls thanks to good red-zone coverage from the Eagles (Golladay has zero space) but Prater’s FG extends the lead to 17-10. Stafford was quick to throw the ball away rather than buy time and try to force things, playing conservatively for the FG.
Trend alert: The Lions continue to load up the line of scrimmage when the opposing offense goes to an empty backfield. They did this against the Chargers in Week 2 as well, primarily with six guys on the line. In this case, as happened against L.A., the LBs cannot drop fast enough to cover the middle of the field throw.
The Lions catch a huge break when Nelson Agholor fumbles shortly after making a catch on a quick-hit throw. Slay was right there but didn’t cause the fumble; Agholor just lost it. Slay picks it up and scampers into the red zone. Surprised the replay official didn’t overturn it as Agholor had the ball a lot less than what Calvin Johnson did no several of his overturned catches. Also, props to Wentz for hustling and making a nice touchdown-saving tackle on Slay. I can think of a few QBs who wouldn’t have done that…
The Lions offense gets too cute and has to settle for a field goal. Decker is progressively getting more upright in his base stance as the game progresses, a sign the back injury that kept him out of Week 2 is impacting him.
Last play of the half, the Lions rush three with Davis rushing in and Flowers dropping. Good blitz and Davis forces Wentz to flee to his left with all his WRs on the right. Flowers closes in and gets the sack. Side note: Wentz has already taken several cringe-worthy hits if you’re an Eagles fan. He does not protect himself nearly as well as Stafford does. Lions up 20-10 at the half