Looking back, how did we manage to hold Detroit to just 7 points?

[Sam Mills Fan]

If I remember correctly, there were 1 or maybe even 2 missed field goals and Calvin Johnson dropped a touchdown that he catches 90% of the time. Even if you give the Lions another 13 points, that's STILL sadly the second best job the defense had done all year. 

 

What do you guys think? Is it possible to recapture that magic from that game? My theory is that the Detroit tackle that faced Mario Addison (2.5 sacks that day I think?) gameplanned all week against Greg Hardy and was caught with his pants down against a backup. (Think about how Panthers defenses of yesteryear would always make rookie and backup QBs look like prime Peyton Manning against them with no film.)

 

To those of you that can remember or have access to NFL Rewind or whatever, what do you think was different against Detroit?

[PhillyB]

we had a pass rush, consistent linebacker play, and the safeties weren't taking atrocious angles

[SOJA]

Calvin Johnson dropped a TD he would normally catch with his eyes closed 

 

 

More importantly we had confidence. Steelers game we lost it. 

[Ruff]

Matt Stafford did what Matt Stafford does, when he's behind he gets upset and starts just throwing the ball to megatron as much as possible.

[Eazy-E]

I think the team was pissed about Hardy and used it as motivation. Seemed to play very aggressive. After that I believe players are mad about how it was handled after that point.

Realistically I just think the game film started exposing our new players in the secondary and D line. Detroit was only the 2nd game of the year and forst without Hardy. Lions didn't really know what to expect.

[bigdog10]

Joique Bell fumble, multiple missed fgs, Calvin dropping a TD and then Stafford throwing into double coverage.

Detroit kind of beat themselves that day.

[CRA]

Detriot actually looked good the first half. Points just didn't come from it. Golden Tate was abusing us.

2nd half they quit doing what worked and just forced it to the one guy we were doubling

[Kuhndog94]

If you're going to start playing the "what if" game, you have to remember all of our mistakes this year too. If we didn't shoot ourselves in the foot every week, we could possibly be 6-1.

The Packers game was just horrible. We didn't do ANYTHING until it was way too late.

The "what if" game works both ways, remember that. Like what if there was no PI call on KB during the Bengals game. That's a W. What if Gano made that FG. That's a W. We shoot ourselves in the foot just as much, if not more than the rest of the teams we've played.

[Kuech the Sneak]

The team didn't know hardy would be out until just before the game, wonder if it's been a confidence factor

[General_Purr]

We stopped the run. Cason had a great game.. at times he has great flashes and is in on every tackle. Some he is getting waxed in coverage. still the best DB we have... 

 

Linebackers played great. this game looked like 2013 and on offense we were aggressive and made Cam throw a lot. We were on a good quick pace, instead of slowing poo down and letting problems come up.

[CharlottePanther]

Thank you for making this topic, I wanted to make a post similiar to this so bad but unfortunately I lost my post making abilities long ago. This baffles me how our D looked so amazing against a very good Lions offense, I would make the defensive players sit in a room all day and watch that game on a loop and tell them to do just that every game.

I just dont get how we have the same players on D from that game, same coaches and same schemes and have such a sudden drop off.

This isnt a situation where our D was just middle of the pack to begin with and we just fell off, this D looked as elite as you could look and even better than last season through the first two weeks then suddenly drop off.

The way our D took such a dramatic and sudden drop off would be equal to Peyton Manning playing the rest of the season like Kirk Cousins or some other crappy QB with no explanation or reason whatsoever. Our D was like the Broncos offense of defenses, it was that good, then suddenly poof, they do a complete 180 and fall to bottom of the league..

How does that happen in this league in a span of two weeks?!

[Peppers90 NC]

What if we game planned as if Hardy was going to play? And now maybe we changed preparation unnecessarily.

[KendrickPanther]

I think the Steelers showed a blue print for running on the Panthers. They had Maurcice Pouncey block Luke on every play. Straight up watching tape. I've seen guys assigned to block Luke go get him no matter what. I saw a blocker let Thomas Davis go right by him and block Luke instead. The Steelers showed how you could out scheme our run fits and it's been a disaster since. With Luke blocked on nearly every play it's only a matter of time before the other guys miss the tackle or bust a gap.

 

We also lost Bene.

[Brooklyn Bully]

We played good, they played bad.