One of the cries from Detroit fans, one echoed here at Lions Wire, was that the 2020 Detroit Lions were too slow. They needed to get faster on both defense and offense.
New Lions GM Brad Holmes might have heard the cries because the Lions offense has indeed gotten faster this offseason. In fact, Detroit now sports one of the fastest offensive skill position groups in the entire NFL.
Phil Perry of NBC Sports Boston calculated the 40-yard dash times of all the skill position players on each NFL offense. The Lions now rank third in raw speed from the 40-time averages of the running backs and wide receivers after factoring in the NFL draft class of 2021.
Last year, @MoveTheSticks dug up old 40 times and calculated average speeds for the top skill players in projected 11P packages.
Tried to update that list for ‘21. Here are the top-5 rankings:
1. NYG: 4.418
2. WFT: 4.422
3. DET: 4.436
4. ATL: 4.448
5. MIA and KC: 4.450— Phil Perry (@PhilAPerry) May 7, 2021
Detroit added speedsters Kalif Raymond (4.34 40) and Breshad Perriman (4.25) at wideout and lost players like Kenny Golladay (4.5) and Danny Amendola (4.58) who timed slower.
Speed isn’t everything, of course. No one would argue that the Lions have gotten better at the offensive skill positions with losing Golladay, Amendola, Marvin Jones and Adrian Peterson among others. But they have indeed gotten faster.