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In his postgame press conference following Dallas’ win over the Detroit Lions in Ford Field, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott drove a dagger right into the heart of Lions coach Matt Patricia. Prescott’s opening statement gave a lot of credit to his offensive line, but it also illustrates the epic failure that is the Detroit Lions pass rush in 2019.
“Our offensive line did a great job giving me some time,” Prescott said. “I had time to go through the progressions once, and a couple of times to go through them again to find the open guy.”
The Lions sacked Prescott just once. He completed 29 of his 46 pass attempts for 444 yards and three TDs, racking up a QB Rating of 116.6 against Patricia’s defense.
Believe it or not, that’s actually an improvement in the Lions pass defense. Prescott’s 444 yards and three TDs without a turnover wound up producing the lowest QB Rating the Detroit defense has allowed since Week 6.
The Lions don’t have a single interception since that game in Week 6, when Justin Coleman picked off Aaron Rodgers. A lot of that stems from the complete failure to generate pressure on the quarterback. Sunday’s loss to Dallas was no exception.
Prescott was officially hit on six of his 47 dropbacks, per the NFL’s initial gamebook. That’s the latest chapter in the horror story that has been the complete and utter failure of Patricia’s defense to prevent the opposing quarterback from picking apart the secondary and linebackers in coverage because there is no pressure from the front. Detroit remains dead last in blitz percentage, too.
Prescott was praising his offensive linemen and wasn’t intentionally dissing the Lions, but his words only go to serve as a further indictment of Patricia’s failure as a defensive mastermind.