Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Lions love, Packers loathe week 2 primetime

By Blake Froling

Two primetime games, two very different results.

It's not really fair to compare the Lions' win with the Packers' loss. Atlanta is far superior to New York right now and let's be honest, the Falcons simply own the Packers. The Giants were dealing with a depleted offensive line that couldn't block me and receivers who couldn't catch the ball. The Falcons looked nearly flawless against the Packers in the first half. Two completely different situations. Let's look at them one at a time.

Lions beat Giants 24-10
It definitely wasn't a pretty game to watch. Matthew Stafford did just enough to put the Lions ahead with touchdown passes to Marvin Jones and Eric Ebron, but threw for just 122 yards. 122 yards??? Did the Lions run the triple option the whole game or something?

Despite his low passing yards, Stafford looked impressive. He continues to surprise people with his scrambling ability, something he was dreadful at during the first few seasons of his career. Stafford also seemed more in control at the line of scrimmage than in recent years, and Jon Gruden made sure to point it out several times on the ESPN broadcast. He engineered the win more with the intangibles than the stats last night.

Running back Ameer Abdullah showed improvement running the ball against the Giants after a lackluster performance against the Cardinals. He looked like the elusive back we saw in his rookie year and ripped off a couple big runs, finishing with 86 yards on 17 carries. Believe it or not, that’s the most rushing yards for a Lions running back since Joique Bell had 91 yards against the Bears on Thanksgiving 2014. There's your sad Lions stat of the day.

The Lions have shown now that they are committed to the run, whether it's successful or not, and they’ll need more performances like that out of Abdullah if they're going to keep defenses honest.

On defense, Ziggy Ansah and company exploited the Giants’ paper thin offensive line and sacked Eli Manning five times. I almost felt bad for Manning a couple times after seeing the sad attempts his offensive line made to protect him. Let's just pretend I didn't pick the Giants to win their division.

The front four for Detroit, which had been maligned as the weak spot of the team going into the season, has gotten to the quarterback for six sacks and allowed just 107 rushing yards through two games. Ansah has already surpassed his sack total from a year ago, when he was dealing with a high ankle sprain. I, along with many other fans, was worried about how Ansah would play early in the season after being M.I.A. for most of training camp and the preseason. Through two games, it's safe to say he's back.

The secondary looked extremely impressive for most of the night, minus one breakdown in coverage in the red zone that led to a touchdown. Giants receivers had no space to work, Eli constantly ran out of time to throw and Odell Beckham Jr was held in check.

That secondary will be tested even more on Sunday when the high octane Atlanta Falcons come to town. They effortlessly dropped 34 points on the Packers and have a stable of talented receivers to spread out the Lions defense. Add in two great running backs with Devonta Freeman and Tevin Coleman, and this will be the toughest game on the Lions schedule this season. Speaking of those Falcons...

Falcons beat Packers 34-23
I bet if you Google who owns the Packers, instead of seeing thousands of Green Bay residents, you'd get Matt Ryan. At least that's what it should say. Ryan surgically picked apart the Packers' revamped secondary early in the game. I had flashbacks to the NFC Championship game last year where he basically did the exact same thing. I certainly didn't mind.

The absence of Jordy Nelson completely derailed this powerful Packers offense. It's clear that despite having a bevvy of talented receivers, Aaron Rodgers depends on Nelson the most, and without him, things go wrong. It also doesn't help when you have two starting offensive linemen out, and your best defensive tackle, and two members of the secondary.

Injuries cost the Packers a real shot at a Super Bowl last season, and they're already threatening to do the same this year. We still don't know the severity of these injuries yet, so don't jump to conclusions, but if this becomes a trend, they'll have to wait another year to get over the hump.

Maybe this is me reading into things too much, but if the road to the Super Bowl runs through Atlanta again, does Green Bay even have a chance? Right now, I'd say no. Whatever adjustments Dom Capers made from the NFC Championship game to Sunday night clearly didn't work. For all the talk the young secondary gets and how great the "nitro" defense is, will it ever be good enough to beat these Falcons? I have serious doubts.