The Detroit Lions currently have a 20% chance to make the playoffs, according to FiveThirtyEight. Those odds could shoot up to 41% after reasonable results next week — a win over the Jets, a Washington win over the Giants, and a Seahawks loss to the 49ers.
Add on a win over the Panthers in Week 16 along with losses by Washington (at 49ers), the Giants (at Vikings), and Seahawks (at Chiefs), and the Lions could be sitting at a 74% chance to make the playoffs after Week 16.
We’re clearly getting ahead of ourselves running through these scenarios but the Lions have now surpassed fun and frisky and with a 34-23 win over the Minnesota Vikings in Week 14, they’ve convincingly made the leap to good. Given the state of the NFC, it would be hard to suggest the Lions aren’t one of the top seven teams in the conference and that would be selling them short.
Since their Week 7 bye, the Lions are sixth in EPA per play and second in EPA per dropback, per TruMedia.
By DVOA, the Lions are seventh overall since their bye — sixth on offense and 13th on defense.
That defense going from a league-worst unit to around average has allowed some of Detroit’s close games to flip from losses early in the season to wins but this is a team that has been fueled by its offense. Under offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, the Lions have been one of the most versatile and effective offenses in the league.
Jared Goff is currently sixth among quarterbacks this season in EPA per play. That’s ignited debates about if the Lions should bypass a quarterback with what is currently the fourth overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft and if Goff is a better quarterback than Matthew Stafford. (The answers are probably not and absolutely not.) But what has been evident is the position Detroit has put Goff in this season to thrive.
A lot of that starts up front with what the Lions have been able to build around a strong offensive line and diverse run game. Goff has historically been a product of his offensive line and the scheme built around it.
While some metrics can disagree on the full quality of play for Detroit’s offensive line this season, there’s little doubt the offense has limited the negative effects it can have on the quarterback.
This year 63.3% of Goff’s dropbacks have been in the pocket with no pressure, that’s the 11th-highest clean pocket rate among quarterbacks, according to TruMedia. On those plays, Goff ranks fourth in EPA per dropback at 0.36.
The Lions have also limited what’s asked of Goff out of structure. Only 8.6% of Goff’s dropbacks have lasted at least four seconds after the snap, which is the seventh-lowest rate among quarterbacks.
To get the most out of the offensive line, Detroit worked off the strength of the run blocking. If we look at the five most common run concept groupings — outside zone, inside zone, gap, power, and counter — the Lions are one of two teams with at least 10% of their designed running back rushing attempts in each category, per TruMedia.
“Diverse” doesn’t necessarily translate to “good” — the Lions are 16th in EPA per rush on running back carries and the other team to hit that 10% threshold is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — but it’s what the Lions have done off of those concepts that make them so useful. That’s been especially true off play-action.
When one of the most important aspects of successful play-action is making everything look like a run and meshing the pass designs with the run concepts, it helps to have a bigger palette to work with.
The Lions have upped Goff’s play-action rate over last season (21.1% to 28.2%) and he’s already run more total play-action dropbacks this season (132) than he did all of last year (116).
There’s a bunch of misdirection in this offense. The Lions haven’t gone to the extremes but they are one of six teams with above average rates of both motion and play-action on passing plays.
While the play-action rate has increased, so has Goff’s efficiency off it. Goff currently ranks fourth in EPA per dropback off play-action (0.26). That comes a year after he was 23rd (0.04). The biggest difference is where Goff is throwing off play-action. His average depth of target has gone from 5.43 to 7.05. Much of that has come from swapping throws that went behind the line of scrimmage with ones targeting the intermediate part of the field (11-19 air yards). He’s where Goff has thrown play-action passes over the past two seasons:
Jared Goff On Play-Action, 2021-2022
data per TruMedia
| Season | PA% | EPA/DB | Comp/Att | aDOT | YPA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 21.1% | 0.04 | 72/104 (69.2%) | 5.43 | 7.55 |
| 2022 | 28.2% | 0.26 | 86/125 (68.8%) | 7.04 | 8.46 |
This has also been an overall trend with the Detroit passing offense. Goff has gone from 22.5% of his passes at or behind the line of scrimmage and 9.9% of his pass attempts being screens to rates of 19.1% and 7.7%, respectively. Like on play-action, those little shifts have turned into more intermediate passes but where the Lions have truly thrived is in the short game.
72.7% of Goff’s throws have been within 10 yards of the line of scrimmage this season, which is the ninth-highest rate among quarterbacks. Only the Philadelphia Eagles (0.27) have averaged more EPA per play on throws between 1-10 air yards than the Lions (0.25) this year.
Detroit is tied for second with the 49ers for 10 receptions that gained 20 or more yards on short throws, behind only the Chiefs (13). Goff has a league-leading 53.3% of his yards in that area after the catch.
There are just some little tweaks the Lions have made in their passing game that have opened up space. Detroit has cut down on hitches and increased routes that give more space in the middle of the field like crossers, slants, and ins. With an aDOT that’s about the same as last season on short area throws (4.67 to 4.57), the Lions have added an extra yard after the catch per completion (3.96 to 4.96) by targeting more routes that leave room to run.
Jared Goff Targeted Routes On Throws 1-10 Air Yards, 2021-2022
data per TruMedia
| Season | Crossers | Slants | Ins | Outs | Hitches |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 11.9% | 7.1% | 4.1% | 32.1% | 20.5% |
| 2022 | 15.5% | 8.4% | 7.1% | 29.8% | 16.0% |
The in-breaking routes have been a big boost to the offense at all depths of the field (for grouping purposes short ins and intermediate digs will be included here). Goff has again thrown more in routes in 2022 (35) than he did all of 2021 (24).
Goff has the highest yards per attempt (12.83) on these throws and he’s fifth in EPA per dropback (0.68) though the only quarterback with higher EPA and more such attempts is Derek Carr.
This is where so many things work together for the Lions. When Goff throws these routes, the Lions have motioned 45.7% of the time. They’ve used this motion to help create spacing to open up the throws. Goff has killed zone coverage with these plays and that was apparent this past week against the Vikings.
In the fourth quarter, the Lions had a third-and-9 from their own 26-yard line. Detroit came out in a 2×2 set and before the snap motioned Amon-Ra St. Brown from the outside to inside D.J. Chark. At the snap, St. Brown ran a hitch that pulled in the slot corner and Chark ran a dig behind him into the open space for a gain of 11.
Later on the same drive, the Lions had a third-and-3 from their own 44-yard line. Instead of motion, the Lions quickly broke the huddle into empty and rushed to snap the ball. This time, Josh Reynolds ran a hitch from the outside while Shane Zylstra broke in from the slot behind him for a gain of 14.
On third downs, Goff is 13-of-14 targeting these in-breaking routes for 1.79 EPA per play. Goff has the fourth-highest EPA per dropback overall on third down — while he’s blitzed at the second-highest rate among quarterbacks on third down (39%).
In those situations, Goff has been able to get the ball out quickly with the sixth-lowest aDOT on third down blitzes while having the 10th-highest yards per attempt and sixth-highest EPA per dropback.
Goff has been able to pick his spots in many situations with this offense and that has also started to sprinkle in with the deep passing game. 10.4% of Goff’s throws have traveled at least 20 air yards, which is 19th in the league. Though since the bye, it’s just 8.6%, which ranks 28th. But he’s 9-of-20 on deep throws since the bye and seventh in EPA per dropback.
With so much open underneath, Goff hasn’t had to force anything down the field. Per Next Gen Stats, Goff is throwing into the 10th lowest rate of tight windows (a yard of separation or fewer) on deep throws and the fifth-highest average receiver separation.
We saw this impact on the Jameson Williams touchdown against the Vikings. The Lions came out in a tight 12 personnel look and before the snap they motioned tight end James Mitchell in as a full back from Williams’s side.
Detroit sent both Williams and Josh Reynolds vertical and worked a coverage but with two receivers against three defensive backs. Minnesota had a coverage bust but the Lions helped force it by sending their two deep receivers basically straight at the single-high deep safety. The Vikings showed a two-high shell but brought a safety down at the snap. Cameron Bynum (24) bit on the post from Reynolds in the middle of the field but there was no right answer. If he carries Willaims deep, Reynolds is open in the middle of the field with the leverage against Patrick Peterson.
But when Bynum broke to Reynolds, Williams had a wide-open path to the end zone.
A poor start to the season might rob the franchise of a playoff berth but this is clearly one of the better teams in the conference at this point of the season. There may be some questions for what this offense looks like in the future, especially with the likelihood of a departing offensive coordinator to a head coaching job.
But right now, the Lions have so many ways to win on offense. It’s a unit that has pulled all of the right levers to increase production while the talent might not be top-tier at every position. It’s one of the league’s most fun units and it could be a dangerous one if the playoffs become a reality.
