DETROIT — There was a moment, early in the fourth quarter Sunday night, when you could feel the crowd really, truly, inexplicably begin to believe that the Lions were going to take down the Patriots.
It came on the first snap after Matt Prater’s field goal put Detroit ahead 23-10. Tom Brady dropped to throw, felt a little delayed pressure off the edge and just whipped the ball 50 yards downfield to no one in particular. The officials huddled. A flag flew. Intentional grounding.
Advertisement
And Ford Field erupted. As the umpire marched the ball back 10 yards to where Brady had let fly that throw, almost every Lions player on the field waved his arm, asking the fans for more. They delivered, bringing a current of sound that had no starting point and no end but simply engulfed the entire building.
“The city was there,” said Detroit defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois. “The city brought the lightning. … I take my hat off to them, because it was so loud to the point we couldn’t hear each other on the field. All we could do was see the ball move.”
Five minutes later, Brady — his team still down 13 and time dwindling — tried to hit Phillip Dorsett streaking downfield. The pass never had a shot. Lions cornerback Darius Slay was waiting for it, and if he hadn’t picked it his teammate, Quandre Diggs, probably would have. It was the only turnover Detroit forced all night, but it capped a defensive performance that was more than anyone backing the Lions could have asked for, in a 26-10 win against the defending AFC champs and their future Hall of Fame quarterback.
“I saw that thing, I said, ‘Ooooh, I have me one,'” said Slay. “I was already thinking, ‘It’s from the GOAT? I get this from the GOAT?’ When he done and retired, I’m gonna keep that ball and … I’m gonna ask him to sign it. He’s the GOAT and there’s nothing like having the GOAT’s signature on your picked ball. I doubt if he’d do it, but if he do want to do it, I would gladly send it to him so he could sign that thing.”
Brady finished 14 of 26 for 133 yards, with one TD and that pick. Sunday marked the 256th game of Brady’s NFL career, and in just 20 previous outings had he thrown for 135 yards or fewer. Most of those performances came either in a relief role or when Brady was pulled early to rest late in the season.
Advertisement
Detroit did this without its top pass rusher (at least by reputation), Ziggy Ansah, and after allowing a combined 78 points over Weeks 1-2. The Patriots had just 70 yards of total offense in the first half, with 57 coming on a field-goal drive late in the second quarter. Even there, the Lions snuffed the possession by blowing up a third-and-1 rushing attempt by Sony Michel.
“I’m not gonna say ‘surprised,’ because I have a lot of faith in my teammates, but it was shocking,” said Eli Harold, who notched both of Detroit’s sacks. “To see a high-powered offense like that struggle, it was fun.”
This was an early masterpiece from Matt Patricia, following two weeks in which he’d already had to deal with mounting criticism. While he’ll still have to repeat this work against an offense he doesn’t know inside and out, Patricia kept the clamps on the Patriots all night. Central to that success was what the Lions did against Rob Gronkowski, who after the game confirmed an earlier report that he’d shot down a potential trade to Detroit this offseason. We’ll get into that aspect shortly.
With Gronk struggling to find space and Josh Gordon inactive, though, the Patriots never found another reliable option.
“I think they believed in what they were doing. I think they went out and executed at a high level,” Patricia said of his team. “… The thing I will tell you is we work really hard to get better every day. These guys … I fully believe in that blue-collar work ethic, you know, grind-it-out, work hard during the week.
“Shoot, that’s what this city does, right? Doesn’t everyone in this city go out and work really hard every single day? So why are we any different?”
More on the Lions’ potentially season-saving victory:
In a bubble, Kerryon Johnson had an excellent night, carrying the ball 16 times for 101 yards (a 6.3 yards-per-carry average). In the grander scheme of things, his rushing total of course snapped the interminable 100-yard rusher drought for Detroit, dating back to Nov. 28, 2013.
Johnson reached the century mark on a third-and-18 draw play. He powered ahead for the final yard or two, then was given a resounding ovation by an alert home crowd that recognized the significance of his gain. When he returned to the bench, the Ford Field scoreboard announced his 101-yard total, and Johnson was subsequently mobbed by LeGarrette Blount and Theo Riddick.
Advertisement
“It’s a lot easier when you break a long run,” said Johnson, who topped out with a 15-yarder, “but they’re a good team, good defense, they’re sound, they tackle, they don’t make mistakes, so we knew it was going to be a grind. But we were ready for it.”
The Lions also received 48 yards rushing from Blount and another 10 on a scramble by Matthew Stafford, giving them a total of 159 for the night. They ran the ball 33 times and threw 36 more, finally achieving the long-discussed balance that had been banished from the kingdom for ages.
“It was great,” Stafford said. “Really, all of our backs played well. A ton of credit to our guys up front, man. That’s a defense that does not want you to run the football on ’em and we did it.”
New England was without three defensive starters Sunday: edge Trey Flowers, safety Patrick Chung and cornerback Eric Rowe. Stafford said their injuries in the secondary forced the Patriots into more Cover-2 looks than they’d showed so far this season, while Detroit center Graham Glasgow remarked that “there definitely was some aspect of the game that was changed by who was not playing.”
The Lions took advantage. Much of Johnson’s success came off the left side, either behind or between Glasgow and rookie guard Frank Ragnow. That list includes his 15-yarder. On it, Glasgow pulled behind Ragnow, and Johnson spotted a seam in the resulting gap.
“I don’t think there was any switch flipped or anything like that,” Ragnow said of his play, “just technique coming together and being who you are.”
As far as game plans go, the Lions’ on Sunday was rather simple. Here’s Slay: “Take (Gronkowski) away as much as possible, and keep (Brady) off the field as much as we can. That’s what the game plan was.”
The offense took care of the latter, piling up 12:30 of possession in the first quarter and 39:15 for the game. The former fell to a steady stream of double and even triple coverages, often headed up by DeShawn Shead. As mentioned in this week’s “5 Things to Watch” game preview, Shead handled several coverage snaps vs. Gronkowski during a 2016 Seattle-New England game. He is one of the few Lions defensive backs with enough size and speed to even have a chance against Gronk.
Advertisement
“I had a feeling when I signed that we’d just try to find the matchups,” Shead told The Athletic. “That was definitely one of the ideas I had coming in here.”
It helped that he often was running Gronkowski into back-end support from either Diggs or Glover Quin. (Quin, for what it’s worth, had his best game of the season by a sizable margin.) Gronkowski did lead the Patriots with four receptions for 51 yards, but he never came close to taking over.
Brady tried one deep ball for him, a corner route fired about 40 yards deep on a third-and-10 near midfield. Shead stayed with Gronkowski stride for stride, at least bothering him enough to force an incompletion.
“I remember just having good coverage,” Shead said. “Stayed with him well, took that inside release, and the way he was leaning I knew he was going to come back out, so I had good coverage.”
It wasn’t just the rushing attack for the Lions’ offense. Stafford opened the night 12 of 13, and he closed at 27 of 36 for 262 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. The INT threatened to flip the game, and Stafford admitted it was a poor throw — the intended target, Luke Willson, had 50 yards of green grass behind him but Stafford threw behind him, where linebacker Ja’Whaun Bentley was waiting.
New England turned the mistake into 7 points, trimming Detroit’s lead from 13-3 to 13-10.
The Lions responded with a must-have answer on their ensuing possession. Stafford kept it alive by delivering a third-and-9 rope along the sideline to Kenny Golladay, threading the needle between Jason McCourty and Jonathan Jones. He capped the scoring drive with a 33-yard touchdown to Marvin Jones, who ran right past Stephon Gilmore’s coverage.
“I threw a little hand up just so (Stafford) could know, so he could see,” Jones said. “He has to deal with a lot of things in that pocket. It was just a good play by him, great throw by him, mine was the easy part.”
Advertisement
The play design and execution were perfect. The Lions had run the ball on their previous two plays, the most recent a third-and-1 conversion from Blount. They set up for the snap like this, with Jones (No. 11) tucked inside close to left tackle Taylor Decker and Golladay (19) part of a bunch to the right, surrounded by tight ends Willson (82) and Levine Toilolo (87).
The play-action fake was a stretch to the left, with Willson running a dig route in that direction. Golladay initially headed that way as well before contact knocked him off his spot. By that time, though, Duron Harmon — playing deep in a Cover-1 set — had bitten on the movement. Jones streaked across the field with a step on Gilmore.
Both Stafford and Jones stated that Jones was not the primary read here — it had to be Golladay otherwise. He was by far the most available option when Stafford turned his head after the fake to Blount.
“He was runnin’, he was open,” Stafford said. “He ran away from a really good player, I’m just glad I put it out there.”
A forgotten candidate for most important play of the game: Teez Tabor’s tackle on the opening kickoff. The Lions had been shredded on kick and punt coverage by the Jets and 49ers, so it was no surprise that Patriots return man Cordarrelle Patterson brought the opening kickoff out from 3 yards deep in his own end zone.
He nearly sprung it, too, as the Patriots cleared a hole for him to the right. Tabor was the last line of defense before kicker Sam Martin, and Martin had neither the angle nor the speed to make that play if he had to. Fortunately for the Lions, Tabor made the tackle at the Patriots’ 42, and the defense then forced a 3-and-out.
Speaking of which, the Patriots failed to pick up a first down on any of their first three possessions. On their third consecutive 3-and-out, they faced a third-and-1 from their own 34 and attempted a stretch zone to the right with rookie back Michel.
Those stretches had been an Achilles’ heel for the Lions in Weeks 1 and 2 — you might recall Matt Breida’s long touchdown run last week in San Francisco, off that design. They’ve also been a popular short-yardage call for the Patriots in recent years, so Detroit was ready for it Sunday. Jean Francois exploded past a stationary Shaq Mason on that Michel carry to force a 1-yard loss and a punt.
Advertisement
“I knew they were gonna run stretch at some point,” said Jean Francois, who took the blame for Breida’s explosive play. “I was thinking, ‘No way in hell I can give up another stretch tonight.'”
Michel’s second shot at the third-and-short stretch, just before halftime, had even less of a chance. Quin came flying up on New England’s back with an assist from Tavon Wilson. Blocking tight end Dwayne Allen barely slowed either of them.
Another week, another strong Golladay showing. The emerging, second-year star reeled in 6 grabs for 53 yards, highlighted by a 4-yard touchdown to put Detroit up 10-0. The play was initially ruled a catch and a fumble, with the ball spotted at the New England 1. Patricia wasted little time whipping the challenge flag.
“I just saw the ball crossed and thought it was a good opportunity for us to challenge,” he said. “It was the first half, so it’s a good risk to take in that situation because the points obviously are critical.”
The review paid off. And, as with the Jones touchdown, Golladay’s score came off a nifty wrinkle from offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter. As Golladay did on his TD grab vs. San Francisco, he motioned in to a spot just off the left side of the line. Rather than block, or release to the corner as he did against the 49ers, he ran a shallow crossing route as Jones and Golden Tate ran the Patriots’ other coverage defenders off into the end zone.
The Lions showed a wide variety of alignments with their receivers and backs Sunday night, frequently dropping Jones or Golladay into the slot to create different matchups there. They also utilized a Johnson/Riddick combo on multiple occasions. (One to file away: Riddick motioning into the backfield, then running a screen right with a Johnson play-action up the middle; Sunday night, the Lions handed the ball to Johnson off that look.)
There is a ton of versatility within Detroit’s playmakers, and Cooter’s figuring out how to utilize it.
(Top photo of Eli Harold and Tom Brady: Tim Fuller/USA TODAY Sports)