Lions Blog: 2018 Season Postmortem

With the loss to the Bills of Buffalo, The 2018 season for the Detroit Lions effectively ended. While I know I have not been posting much to this blog since the season began, I felt the need and desire to do some posts on sort of a brief autopsy of the season, what I expect to happen in the upcoming off season and finally where I think this team is heading in the future. This is the first in a 3 part series I will be posting between now and the start of free agency in march. I would like to get some predictions in before that stuff happens. If this encourages me to put up more blog posts about one of my favorite topics then that can only be good for me.

Its pretty obvious to say that the 2018 NFL season was a disappointing one for the Detroit Lions. I was convinced that the team was heading to an easy NFC North title and at least one playoff win. Clearly that did not happen as nothing about the season was easy for my professional football team. It is also easy to dwell on only the negatives after such a season and ignore the hand full of good developments that happened that could result in legitimate optimism for the coming year. I intend to avoid that here in this post.

• Lackluster Offense

The biggest reason for the Lion's disappointing season was its totally lack luster offense. The Lions came in to September they had every reason and right to expect to be one of the most dominant offences in the NFL. The team had the best trio of Wide receivers, a high caliber rookie running back and a veteran Quarterback who can make every throw in the book and many that aren't. Instead and starting with the preseason games, the offence had no personality or rhythm. The receivers seemed out of sync with QB Matthew Stafford and could not make catches to save their own lives. The Lions also did not use their committee of running backs correctly as they often ran short yardage specialist LeGarrette Blount on first downs instead of trusting their rookie Kerryon Johnson. To make matters worse none of the Tight ends made their presence known for most of the season.

Blame for these offensive woes seem to drift between Stafford and the team for cutting Eric Ebron and trading Golden Tate following the team's loss against the Sea Hawks. While the quarterback will always deserve some of the blame for problems for the offense, blaming Stafford has become to go to route for "S.O.L.ers" for years and with the flashes of his "former" greatness that he still shows on the field We know he is capable of doing much better than this. The loss of Ebron and Tate from the roster and the season ending injury to Marvin Jones seems like a better place to start. It is important to note that both Tate and Jones were on the roster and playing for the first halve of the season and the team had those problems with its offense back then as well. Golden Tate was dropping passes and so was Marvin Jones. The Lions did suffer more on the offensive side from the loss of their top receivers as their score average went from 24.4 points per game before Golden Tate was traded to just 17 afterwards. Ebron was cut from the team before the season began  so measuring the impact of his departure is harder to do. I still think that cutting Ebron was a mistake, for what it is worth.

I think the real problem was the lack of proper usage of the personal on the offensive side of the football. Using Blount as a starting or a change of pace back was the wrong move. Being to conservative in the passing game and not going deep more often was a mistake. I think the offense made plays that were more complicated than they needed to be and it put the players out of sync as a result. I believe that most of the problems with the offense this year come from the offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter. J.B.C. came in after the departure of Joe Lombardi and proved to be better at the job from the get go. I believed at the time that with more time and experience at the job that he would get better but sadly he did not. J.B.C. made the wrong plays on offense and seemed to do so out of fear that the obvious route of attack would be too predictable. I would call a passing play on a 3rd and short when handing the ball off to Blount (who was brought on to do just that) would have been better. Theo Riddick was not used enough in the passing game, even after Tate was traded and Marvin Jones was injured. Kenny Golladay was barely used at all in the second halve of the season. Jim Bob Cooter just did not know how to make use of the weapons he and Stafford had at their disposal either at the start of the season when the Team had plenty of them, or the end of the season when they had few. It looks like the team realizes that it is time to move on from J.B.C. as the Lions have announced that they will not renew his contract for 2019.

• Surprising Defense 

Much like the offense, the Lions Defense started out very bad in the beginning of the season. Unlike the offense, the defense improved through out the season with promising young players and a very good mid season acquisition that gives very good reasons to be optimistic for the group in 2019. To be fair, the improvement is not noticeable in the points allowed but in other statistics. The team came in with obvious need on the defensive line after the loss of Haloti Ngata and the constant injury of Ezekiel Ansah. Thankfully the team has a bright future with its recent draft picks from Alabama in defensive linemen A'Shawn Robinson and Da'Shawn Hand, both of which have been praised by Pro Football Focus this season.  The biggest weakness was in stopping the run game. This to was addressed by trading for Damon Harrison (a.k.a Snacks) for a 5th round pick. Snacks has been the best defensive Tackle against the run for years and his inclusion turned the Lions run defense from bad to good overnight. What is more he is more than just a rental as we will have him at least until 2020. The Lions have 3 elite or potentially elite defensive linemen on the roster and an effective run stopping game as well. The team has a good foundation to build off of on the defensive line.

The Lion's secondary on the other hand needs a little more work. Darius Slay had a bit of a down year but  still proved he was one of the best corners in the NFL and was once again selected to the pro bowl as was once corned and now safety Quandre Diggs.Rookie Tracy Walker has seen a decent amount of playing time this year and is poised to take over for Glover Quin when he decides to retire from football. The search for a good outside corner opposite of Slay has been unsuccessful thus far and will almost certainty require another high draft pick or a really good free agent signing. Teez Tabor will either make a move to safety and/or will have to take a major leap in progress to salvage his spot on the team this off-season. The nickle corner spot could use some improvement as well. The Linebackers are more difficult to judge. Jarrad Davis started the season poorly but became much better by the end. Davis's spot on the roster is not in jeopardy but his starting position might be. Devon Kennard looks like a keep as a pass rushing LB on the line.

• Injuries and Departures

As is the norm for the Lions, the injury bug hit the team hard this year with the loss of our rookie running back Kerryon Johnson, Wide out Marvin Jones and Right Guard T.J. Lang. We also saw something we are not used to, the trading of the very productive Golden Tate for a 3rd round pick to the Eagles.  Even Kenny Golladay went down to injury late in the season leaving Stafford with no significant weapons in the passing game. This is on top of the team's decision to cut Eric Ebron in the off season.The net results were that the offense laid an egg in the second half of the season even as the defense show signs of improvement. On the defense side there was the continued injury saga of franchised tagged defensive end Ezekiel Ansah and second year Corner Jamal Agnew. The biggest story was the inclusion of Damon Harrison which boosted the Lions Run defense to one of the better ones in the league. 

In short, the season started off as a disaster against the New York Jets, seemed to get better going up to the loss against the Sea Hawks and went off the rails when Golden Tate was traded away as the Lions threw in the towel at the mid way point and set themselves up for a high draft pick and plenty of cap space to use in free agency. While it looked like the team could still some how get in the playoffs if they won out and got to an even record their loss against Buffalo ended that illusion. The off season started earlier than usual for the Lions this year and while I am still annoyed with some of the decisions the team made I am never the less looking forward to the changes that will be made starting with who ever takes over the offense for Jim Bob Cooter, which I will cover in the next post.