Here’s something we have not been able to say much over the past five or 10 or 30 years: The Detroit Lions put on a clinic Sunday. They didn’t get the Cardinals’ best shot, but most of what happened in Detroit’s 30-12 upset was because Dan Campbell’s team executed its stuff — not because Kyler Murray had an off day or anything else like that.
On both sides of the ball, the Lions made the Cardinals uncomfortable. They forced them into some difficult spots, then ratcheted up the pressure in those moments, via blitzes on defense and a handful of creative shots on offense. Arizona never responded well to either.
A few plays that stood out along the way …
This was Arizona’s first third-down attempt of the game, and it’s noteworthy for a couple of reasons:
1) It didn’t come until more than 10 minutes into the first quarter. Despite Jared Goff taking a sack on the game’s very first snap from scrimmage, the Lions’ opening possession ate up eight minutes and 50 seconds and resulted in a field goal. Before Murray even took the field, the Lions had taken control of the tempo.
2) The Cardinals actually had a third-and-4 initially, and the Lions were set to play that rather straight up — a Cover 2 up top (two safeties splitting the field high), with linebackers Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Alex Anzalone dropping into zone coverage underneath after showing blitz. But when a false-start penalty moved Arizona back into third-and-9, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn instead dialed up a blitz from safety Dean Marlowe. Anzalone and Charles Harris (on the end of the line) fell back into coverage, and Harris was in perfect position to tackle receiver Rondale Moore for a loss of 1.
Detroit’s defense maintained that aggressiveness all day, and Glenn even further pressed the issue. “Yeah,” Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said, “I mean, they went with a bunch of zero pressures.”
“Zero pressures” as in Cover 0, which means there’s no safety help deep — Marlowe was about 20 yards back in Cover 1 on that third-and-9 shown above. Those are blitz calls, typically with five to seven defenders rushing the passer and everyone else playing man coverage.
There are still a lot of different ways to disguise and employ those looks, though, and Glenn zipped through a bunch of them. Here, on Arizona’s second third down of the game (already into the second quarter), the Lions walked both linebackers up over the A-gap, dropped them, then sent slot corner A.J. Parker at Murray.
It wasn’t perfect, by any means. Arizona’s line picked up that Parker blitz and gave Murray a clean pocket; Murray missed a wide-open Christian Kirk breaking across the middle late, after linebacker Josh Woods collided with a teammate. But Murray really wanted to push the ball downfield here, and the Lions did manage to take that away. They also hurried up his process enough to keep him from getting back to Kirk in his progressions, and Harris eventually worked free to split a sack with Jessie Lemonier.
The Lions didn’t blitz more overall Sunday, relative to their usual approach. But they did send extra bodies on 46.7 percent of Arizona’s third downs, per TruMedia. Contrast that with, say, Week 3 against dynamic Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson — he saw blitzes on just 20 percent of the Ravens’ third downs.
Another one from the first half, with the Lions faking an overload blitz to Murray’s right. The Cardinals didn’t account for the right people and it left Harris with a clean path on the QB.
There goes that man, AGAIN!@Charles_AO1#AZvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/W33P2mOMkz
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) December 19, 2021
“We needed to hit this guy,” Campbell said of Murray. “We needed to bottle him up, we needed to be aggressive on these receivers and those guys did it.”
The play design on the Lions’ first touchdown, to put them up 10-0, was a beauty. Amon-Ra St. Brown disguised his route by chipping (not particularly well) Isaiah Simmons on the edge, then leaking out the backside of the play and getting vertical.
.@JaredGoff16 to @amonra_stbrown for the touchdown‼️#AZvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/89gOT2SU0C
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) December 19, 2021
As St. Brown explained, the play worked because the Cardinals’ defense was in a zone coverage for it, so the safeties were preoccupied by two other routes: Josh Reynolds on a go from the right side and Kalif Raymond on a deep over from the left slot. As St. Brown’s teammates pulled defenders away, it left the deep left corner exposed.
A great call. But not exactly a revolutionary one, even though the Lions didn’t add it to their playbook until this week. Goff himself ran it — as he pointed out at the end of his postgame news conference Sunday — for a 70-yard touchdown to Cooper Kupp vs. the Vikings in 2018. And the Lions hit these same Cardinals with it in 2019, on a throw by Matthew Stafford to Danny Amendola.
Matthew Stafford ➡️ @DannyAmendola 🎯 for the TOUCHDOWN. #OnePride pic.twitter.com/QpsBgMiSMK
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 8, 2019
(Hat tip here to Nick Baumgardner, who reminded me of the Amendola play.)
Even Sunday, on the game’s opening drive, the Lions rolled out a similar concept for a 15-yard completion to Raymond — Reynolds on a vertical route, St. Brown on that deep over.
A big difference on this one, however, is that Raymond flowed into the same side as those vertical routes — Goff looked for a deep ball to Reynolds or St. Brown, then came back to Raymond in space. But the idea wasn’t all that far removed: Use the vertical routes to clear out the safeties, then find the gap.
It sounded like tight ends coach/de facto passing game coordinator Ben Johnson added the St. Brown “sneak” route into the repertoire. And this is how those developments happen a lot of the time: Find a play that’s had success before, combine it with something your current team can do, then turn it loose.
Another example of how the Lions stayed a step or two ahead of Murray (and Kingsbury, as play caller) …
On Amani Oruwariye’s game-changing interception in the third quarter, the Cardinals’ hope was to flip Detroit’s aggressive approach back in its face. On a second-and-8, Murray pump-faked a screen out to his left and wanted a deep shot to that same side — Will Harris erased it by staying on the receiver’s hip downfield.
The Lions also bluffed pressure here, before sending just three and pulling edge Austin Bryant back into coverage. So, they wound up with eight guys defending the pass, including a line of Bryant and two linebackers watching both running back James Conner (No. 6) and Murray.
.@AmaniO with the full extension for the INT‼️#AZvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/dWwcsDD6U0
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) December 19, 2021
Check out how slowly this play developed. Murray didn’t know where to go with this football. His last option was A.J. Green, all the way over to his right.
“(He) kinda ran a slow route — I don’t think he was expecting to get the ball,” Oruwariye said of Green. “And then he rolled out, I kinda just baited it and made (Murray) throw the ball, then made a play.”
It’s really difficult to box in a quarterback with the type of athleticism Murray possesses. But he never got out and ran Sunday (four attempts for 3 yards), and the Lions’ effective use of disguised pressures drove Murray deeper in the pocket, not laterally. Even on Murray’s most highlight-reel-worthy moment — a completion to Green for 19 yards — he drifted back almost 25 yards in the face of pressure, before heaving one up to his receiver.
Better play calling has helped the Lions’ passing attack, without question, especially when it has come to St. Brown. But we’re also seeing a more confident Goff of late, and his touchdown throw to Reynolds on Sunday showed that.
Right on target for a @J_Rey_11 touchdown!#AZvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/wP1f05uOBi
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) December 19, 2021
The key to this play was what Arizona did with safety Budda Baker (No. 3; you can see him around the 10-yard line as Reynolds break off his route to the post). Baker started this play showing a two-high coverage, then inched down right after the snap. Had he stayed in his initial alignment, Goff’s primary reads likely would have been Tom Kennedy, cutting across the middle, or Godwin Igwebuike in the flat.
As Baker stepped up, though, Goff’s quick look to his left had one purpose: to hold the remaining, single-high safety for a beat. Without that, Jalen Thompson could’ve closed into the throwing lane and either knocked down or picked off an attempt to Reynolds. (You can better see how it all unfolded here, via the NFL’s Next Gen dots.)
Again, this call was perfect for the defense Detroit saw. But give a ton of credit to Goff for making the right read, occupying Thompson with his eyes and then putting one on target for Reynolds.
Charles Harris was absolutely everywhere on Sunday, starting from Arizona’s first snap — Murray kept it on a zone-read, but Harris held the edge and then cut off Murray at the sideline for a tackle. He finished with 12 tackles (three for loss), two QB hits and 1 1/2 sacks. His story isn’t all that different from that of Reynolds, who lit up when asked how long he’d been waiting to be a featured player in an NFL offense. “Since I got in the league, man,” Reynolds answered.
It took him four-plus years to land in Detroit. Harris arrived here a few months earlier, hoping to revive his career after busting out in Miami (and, to a lesser extent, Atlanta) as a first-round pick. He’s now up to a career-high 7 1/2 sacks and has carried the pass rush most weeks. Without question, he should be on the Lions’ list of offseason priorities.
Reeves-Maybin ought to be there, too. Finally given a real shot after the previous regime preferred bigger linebackers, Reeves-Maybin has become arguably the most important linebacker on this season’s roster. Certainly, Sunday, his athleticism was instrumental in limiting Murray’s chances. The Cardinals countered Reeves-Maybin (and the defensive game plan) with a few effective screens, but the rest was played on Detroit’s terms.
One instance of Reeves-Maybin’s omnipresence:
That’s a two-point conversion attempt by the Cardinals, and Reeves-Maybin first had to diagnose the play as a pass and then drop into coverage over the middle — almost a truncated Tampa-2 look. He got there and erased Murray’s read to the back of the end zone. He then slipped as his feet got tangled up, yet still somehow managed to cover a 15-yard gap between he and Murray as the play broke down.
He’s quite literally a blur in the final frame of that GIF. And, eventually, he swatted Murray’s pass attempt.
A final tip of the cap to Will Harris, who made his first NFL start as an outside corner Sunday because the Lions were so thin at the position.
“I’m just comfortable playing defensive back,” Harris said. “I put it in my mind a long time ago, when I first got drafted here, that’s the first thing I said: Wherever they need me, whatever they need me to do … I’m up for it.”
Because of the Lions’ blitz-heavy plan and the Cardinals’ size on the outside, Campbell and his staff believed Harris could survive out there this week. If those blitzes worked, they figured, Murray wouldn’t have enough time to expose Harris’ issues defending downfield. That Oruwariye interception above is a perfect example. Detroit didn’t need Harris to cover forever, in man, against dangerous receivers. He just had to cover long enough to let the rush rattle Murray.
The plan worked. And Harris provided a reliable tackling presence on the outside, too. For example, this first-and-goal play to help launch Detroit’s critical goal-line stand before halftime.
The Cardinals used Kirk to block down on the slot, then had tight end Zach Ertz step out to take Harris, as Moore looped in behind both of them for a screen pass. Harris, however, blew up that Ertz block — lowered his shoulder, drove Ertz off him, then squared up and tackled Moore.
It might not look like much in the grand scheme of the victory, but it was a huge play on this series and, quite frankly, might be among Harris’ best individual efforts of the entire season. If Ertz finishes that block, Moore has an easy walk-in touchdown. And Ertz should have had the physical advantage in that collision.
Harris won that battle instead, and his confident play Sunday was another example of what Glenn and defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant have accomplished. The Lions had no business being as difficult to play against as they were in Week 15.
(Photo of Amon-Ra St. Brown: Raj Mehta / USA Today)
