I was overly confident the backups would be enough but it was an uphill battle and you really have to credit Detroits Oline and Game Plan. Detroits Line when fully healthy might be the best in league they have one good and one great starting tackles, one good and one great starting OGs, and maybe the best OC in the game who was out but 4/5th of one of the best units in the game is still hard to handle without your best dudes.
Seahawks were missing their best pass rusher and maybe not their best but strongest/stoutest/peskiest run defender on their front line in Williams and Murphy respectively.
Seattle was also missing their best pass rusher., best run defender, and best coverage defender from their 2nd level unit in Mafe, Nwosu, and Baker.
In the first half, Detroit did what any good team would do with a great Oline and took the physicality to the Seahawks and forced them to either man up or get punched in the mouth. Great game plan by Johnson knowing this team didn’t have its depth or rotation to recover from a slugfest.
In the 2nd half, Detroit never as most football teams do counted Geno Smith and the Seahawks out learning from the two previous match-ups and decided to keep cutting the throat. This time they forced the Seahawks to sell out vs their run approach but then delivered knockout punches through play-action against a Love-less secondary.
It was a game plan that worked to perfection once Seattle couldn’t get points on the board in their first two drives and all but lost momentum in what was a big time game for Detroit. Campbell couldn’t lose to Seattle yet again and go 0-4. The previous two times more or less cost them HFA and a Play-Off berth. They chose to wear their new alternates for this game, it was prime time, and everyone from the team to the crowd had that sense urgency to win this game. It was a play-off atmosphere and Lions played this game like it was do or die no in between. It was funny and weird in a sense that the whole city felt like this was a must win game, like they circled the date, like their was some sort of revenge to be had against the Seahawks for the last 10 years of losses.
All in all it was a tough go, if Seahawks could have got at least 10 more points in the first half without the DK fumble giving Detroit all the momentum needed to execute its game plan and held serve on defense at least once forcing a FG and they went into the Half tied 17-17 this might have ended up as another OT thriller and whomever won the toss wins the game.
However this game did highlight a
two critical opportunities in my eyes, yeah the front 7 needs to get healthier but this was the third straight game where this defense couldn’t force any type of turnover that could tilt the field and change momentum. Big reason why it feels like teams are closer than they should be. I think once scheme become fully implemented and 2nd nature players will become instinctive and if luck bounces our way more, you’ll see better results. But this D really needs to start taking the ball away to really demoralize the opposition out of its game.
The other thing for the first time this team seems like it’s lacking a big bodied enforcer type in the Secondary like Mike Jackson, our guys can hit with a full head of steam but none of them have the anchor to sit bigger, stronger players down and make them think twice or giving them alligator arms in terms of going over the middle. It’s been showing up each game but Ben Johnson was able to exploit it.
Wonder if MacDonald can swing a trade to grab a big body enforcing type SS but it something that should get better if they can get a healthy Nwosu and Baker on the field. Nwosu is very physical in his approach especially downhill and Baker imo already seems like he’s a big safety playing ILB so in Nickel packages he’s probably a big part of what they want to do.
