Lions find ways to lose to Cardinals, 25-21.

Last season, the Detroit Lions defeated the St. Louis Rams in a sloppy game at Ford Field, then went on the road at Tennessee and lost to a team they should have beat after repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot.  Fast forward to 2013, the Lions opened the season last week with a sloppy home win, and followed it up with a road defeat at the hands of the Arizona Cardinals, 25-21, after repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot.  Special teams was again an achilles heel for the Lions as David Akers missed not one, but two attempts to give the Lions a 3-0 lead, after a running into the kicker call moved the ball 5 yards closer.  In the fourth quarter, his FG attempt was blocked, and if all the Lions do is execute those two kicks, they most likely win the game.  It seems simple but for Detroit, nothing is ever that simple.  Last week the Lions were able to overcome their errors but not today.  In what has become the Lions trademark, they had a turnover erased by a penalty, and I believe it was absolutely the biggest play of the game .  Rookie defensive end Ziggy Ansah sacked and stripped Carson Palmer and Willie Young recovered the ball on Arizona's 26 yard line, with the lions up 21-16 with 2 minutes to go in the third quarter.  The problem was that Willie Young was called for an illegal use of hands to the face, negating what would have been the Lions second forced turnover of the quarter, and giving the offense a chance to have a short field for once, instead of starting inside their own 10 yard line like they did most of the game.  The Lions average starting position for their 12 drives was the 14 yard line.  That's a lot to ask of your offense to go the length of the field every time.  The Lions defense didn't play poorly, but the loss of Nick Fairley was evident as the pass rush lacked consistent push and the running lanes up the middle were not closed tight enough.  Suh did his part but in order for the secondary to hold up, the defensive line needs to create more pressure and Palmer ,too many times, was able to sit cleanly in the pocket.  In the end, this was just the Lions doing what the Lions do, find a way to lose.  Let's breakdown each position group:

Quarterback:
Stafford came out hot in the first half, completing 17 of 21 passes with two touchdowns, both to Calvin.  He had the offense humming along against a very good Arizona defense, using screens, play action, bootlegs and lots of quick slants to keep the cardinals off balance.  The bullet he threw into an impossibly tight window for Calvin's first touchdown was incredible, and I thought it was intercepted when I saw it live.  The tempo and body language of the entire offense seemed to change in the second half after the Reggie Bush fumble on the exchange inside their own ten yard line.  Stafford did not complete a pass in the 3rd quarter and was just 7 of 15 after the break.  The Lions were unable to throw the ball down the field, whether it was pressure on Stafford or lack of an open receiver, Stafford did not get a lot of help from his supporting cast today.  In a vacuum, Stafford played a nice game, unfortunately quarterbacks are judged on wins and losses and the lions had the ball needing a touchdown to win with 2 minutes left and Stafford didn't come through. 

Running backs:
One thing that is quite clear after two weeks, Arizona's defense is much better then Minnesota's.  The Lions weren't able to open many running lanes for Reggie Bush or Joique Bell and the Lions only managed 49 yards on the ground as a team.  Detroit ran the ball enough to stay balanced but the Cardinals almost looked geared to stop the run, relying on their talented secondary to get the job done with a single high safety.  Reggie Bush ran too east and west again this week, after he himself commented on wanting to run more north and south this week.  Joique Bell had a couple nice runs but again there wasn't much room for him to get started.  both backs were solid again this week catching the ball out of the backfield, though Bell had a couple of drops that need to get cleaned up.

Wide receivers:
With Broyles inactive again, Patrick Edwards exiting the game with an ankle injury, and Reggie Bush out with his injured knee, the pass catching options were running thin in the second half.  Still, I am pleading with Stafford to not throw the ball to Kris Durham or Brandon Pettigrew again, unless he is looking for an automatic incompletion.  I would rather force the ball to Calvin 30 times a game then throw it to either one of those guys.  I'm partly kidding but the Lions wide receivers were set up to have a collective big day if they could beat man to man coverage but they couldn't get free.  Johnson and Burleson were targeted eight times apiece, and the only other receiver that was thrown to was Durham, twice, for two incompletions.  Yes, Calvin is a beast and Nate has stepped up and made some big plays but two games into the season and this group looks really thin right now, that was a major concern coming out of the preseason.  Might be time to hit the waiver wire.  Calvin's catch and run on the slant was a thing of beauty.  My one positive for the day.

Tight Ends:
Pettigrew had a pair of nice plays today to go along with two drops on "catches in traffic" as Jim Schwartz would call them and a missed block on a reverse that cost the Lions eight yards to start the game, so all in all it was a typical Pettigrew performance.  No fumbles though!  Apparently an increased work load for Joseph Fauria means going from playing to not playing?  I was very disappointed in the production and the usage of this group of players, considering the Lions had a desperate need for playmakers through the air today and the only person targeted was Pettigrew.  That's on the coaching staff. 

Offensive Line:
The Arizona front seven was a different beast compared to the Vikings last week.  The Vikings were without their veteran nose tackle Kevin Williams, and Allen and Robison are more crafty rushers then pure physically imposing forces.  The Arizona defense re-established the line of scrimmage into the Detroit backfield and the Lions didn't have nearly the effect running the football this week.  The pass protection was good enough, Stafford was sacked just once, but that was due to great coverage, and hit only twice.  This group did enough to give the Lions a chance to win, and didn't hurt the team with any stupid penalties. 

Defensive line: 
The loss of Nick Fairley up the middle really was a big time blow for the Lions as Mendenhall was able to find running room up the middle and Palmer was not nearly pressured enough.  Suh had a great game, Ziggy Ansah looks to be the real deal, and even Willie Young made some nice plays, but again the penalty nullifying the turnover was detrimental.  The reason this group is so tough is that it's nearly impossible for both Suh and Fairly to be doubled at the same time, but with Fairey out, you can count on Suh getting a double team on every snap and lets face it, CJ Mosley and Justin Bannan are no Nick Fairely.  The edge rushers applied pressure at times but didn't get home to Palmer as often as they needed to.  The defense up front again did enough to give the team a chance to win, holding the Cardinals to only a 58% completion percentage and just 3.5 yards per carry.

Linebackers:
DeAndre Levy got caught up in coverage with Darius Slay in the first half allowing Arizona's rookie running back Andre Ellington to slip out of the backfield on a wheel route and complete an easy pitch and catch from Palmer for one of the two Cardinal touchdowns.  However, this weeks version of pick six by Deandre stayed on the board as Palmer was pressured into throwing the ball right to Levy and the Detroit outside linebacker took it to the house for the only points the Lions were able to muster up in the second half.  Tulloch was a no show in the first half but made a few nice plays clogging up the running game in the 3rd and 4th quarters.  Ashlee Palmer was exposed this week by Carson palmer and Larry Fitzgerald in pass coverage on the Cardinals first play from scrimmage as the Detroit linebacker bit hard on the play fake and was unable to stay with Fitzgerald as he crossed the field.  Other then that, the line backers played well enough to help the lions win the game.

Defensive Backs:
Its not accurate to say the secondary was bad.  Let's single out the player who Arizona was singling out because they knew they could get him to commit pass interference penalties.  Bill Bentely was terrible.  Even if I give him a pass on the interference on Fitzgerald because I thought it was a bad call, guys get hands tangled up all the time, and it was no worse then the amount of contact Peterson had on CJ on the Lions final drive.  However, the penalty in the 4th quarter at the goal line where he just flat out doesn't attempt to turn and play the ball is inexcusable.  Bentley also missed a tackle on a dump off to Mendenhall that ended up going for a 20 yard gain and was flagged for a special teams holding penalty (more fun on this topic later, I promise!).  Chris Houston was solid and Mathis made a couple nice tackles and a pass breakup.  Slay got caught up with DeAndre Levy on the Ellington touchdown, hard to say who was at fault on that one.  Glover Quin played an excellent game from the safety position, he was around the football all game long, making tackles and breaking up passes.

Special Teams:
Where oh where do we begin?  We've already discussed the two missed field goals and how we lost by five points, so lets move on to the next special teams blunder and that would be the penalties.  Two holding penalties on returns that backed the Lions up inside their ten yard line, creating terrible field position all game long.  And last but not least is the return game.  I would personally like to ask Michael Spurlock if there is something in the water that makes Detroit Lions return men lose focus?  He almost ran out of then back into the end zone, nearly causing a safety, then later on a punt return he caught the ball then started running backwards inside his ten yard line.  I don't get it, why do we even have a return man, why don't we just let the ball bounce every time?  It seems safer.  On the flip side, Sam Martin was awesome on kickoffs and directional punting with excellent hang time today. 

Game Notes:

• A weird sequence on the Lions first drive of the game where an illegal substitution negated a play, but it was never explained and I thought the lions were accidently given an extra down.
• The Lions ran a nice play action bootleg and Stafford dropped the ball off quickly to Pettigrew and as he was rumbling down the field I almost just expected him to fumble when the Arizona defenders hit him, its not a good feeling with the ball in his hands.
• I'm not going to sit here and pretend that anyone can just walk off the street and make a 47 yard field goal, but it just always seems to be the Lions that cant figure these things out.
• In the first quarter, Arizona was backed up 1st and 20 following a holding penalty, they came up a yard short of the first down by a full yard and the officials decided to measure when I could see they weren't close from my couch 3,000 miles away.
• The Lions ran the ball with Bush from the shotgun with power action, the same play they ran against Minnesota inside the ten yard line on Reggie's first of two reviewed non touchdowns last week and both times I thought his split in relationship to the quarterback was odd, he lines up a half step wider and deeper then usual in the gun.  It's pretty easy to see.
• Martin's hang time on his punts allowed the coverage units to bottle up Patrick Peterson as he was a non factor in the return game.
• Peterson did however complete and catch a pass on offense.  His reverse pass seemed like an absolute broken play but it was a very unique and risky design for just a 17 yard gain.
• Chris Houston's pass break up running down the sideline step for step with Floyd was textbook.
• The play where Reggie Bush injured his knee was actually a great play designed to get Bush isolated on a linebacker, creating a mismatch the Lions didn't have in the second half as the offense was shut out.
• There were a few more really nice play designs on the same drive.  The quick inside slant to Burleson where he lines up behind another receiver and uses him as a de facto screen was really nice and then the touchdown to Calvin on a crossing route to pick the defender was the type of creative play designs I didn't see out of Linehan last year. 
• Suh had a couple of bone crushing hits breaking through the line and stuffing the running backs in the backfield.  I was surprised Ellington held onto the ball and got up after Suh flattened him in the 3rd quarter. 
• Lions defense did a nice job limiting the cardinals to a FG after the Bush fumble inside the 10 to start to third quarter.  That's all you can really ask of them in that situation.
• The lions secondary showed great awareness to force Michael Floyd out off the back of the end zone before he could come down even if he did catch the ball.
• I like Joique Bell as a pass catching back, but when he's lining up as your 4th wide receiver there's a depth problem at the receiver position. 
• In my season long prediction I had the Lions beating Arizona and losing at Washington in these opening two road games and though they lost to the Cardinals, they can still be 2-1 if the win in Washington next week.  The Redskins will be desperate for a win though after falling to the Eagles and Packers in the first two weeks.

Next week:  1-1 Lions at 0-2 Washington