Detroit isn’t yet content with its offensive production.
Heading into the quarter mark of the season, the Lions are as feisty as ever on defense and gobbling up yards on the other side, but the touchdowns have lagged behind.
Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has no doubt the points will catch up, given the playmakers he has to work with.
“It’s coming,” Johnson said Friday, via the Detroit Free Press. “We’re just too talented a group to not have more production and more points than what we’ve had and so it’s just a matter of time before we break through.”
It’s a small sample size of three games, but the 2-1 Lions are playing their best defense in a decade, for the first time since 2014 ranking in the top 10 in both points and yards allowed. Johnson has the offense in line with its yardage totals from his first two seasons, with the unit sitting fourth in the league, one spot lower than it ended the 2023 campaign and matching the 2022 one.
As for the aforementioned scoring shortage, Detroit is right in the middle of the NFL at 16th with 20.6 points per game. The Lions were fifth in each of the past couple years.
The struggles to punch it in were notable in the team’s Week 2 loss to the Buccaneers, when Johnson’s crew finished 10 of 11 drives on Tampa Bay’s side of the field but came away with just 16 points.
In Week 3, the Lions won, 20-10, but they were held scoreless by the Cardinals for the final two quarters of the game.
It’s a testament to head coach Dan Campbell and Detroit that they are now squarely in the category of teams that can win despite failing to fire on all cylinders, but it’s not something the Lions will want to hang their hat on too long.
And they have all the pieces to avoid doing so. David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs form perhaps the best running back duo in the NFL, while Jameson Williams has elevated his game alongside Amon-Ra St. Brown to pose another major threat in the wide receiver room. Tight end Sam LaPorta is perhaps most symptomatic of Detroit’s slow start, as he was banged up with a sprained ankle last week and has gone for just 94 yards on eight receptions after exploding his rookie year with 86 catches, 889 yards and 10 touchdowns.
If Johnson is correct that a breakthrough is on its way, LaPorta would seem to be a sleeping giant. Quarterback Jared Goff is plenty capable of rousing him, and of maximizing the squad’s many targets.
Still, the next opportunity to return to lighting up the scoreboard isn’t an easy one.
The 3-0 Seahawks are coming into town for Monday Night Football sporting the league’s fourth-ranked scoring defense. If Seattle continues as it has, so, too, could Detroit’s scoring dip.
Johnson has been stressing avoiding such an outcome in the game’s lead up.
“That’s really our emphasis now going into the week is it’s a really stout defense we’re about to face and we just have to make sure that when opportunities present themselves we capitalize,” he said.
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