Allen Park -
Preseason is only preseason, but the first two
games against Pittsburgh and Cleveland left one impression that stood above all
the rest. The flash and performance of the Lions’ offense greatly overshadowed
the wallowing and ineptitude of our defense.
This is not all together surprising.
Matt Millen, during four off-seasons, has heavily
focused on the offensive side of the ball. Table I illustrates this imbalance
in terms of player acquisitions.
Table I. Player
Acquisitions under the Millen Regime (projected starters only)
|
Offensive
Players Acquired |
Defensive Players Acquired |
|
Charles Rogers |
#2 overall 2003 |
Boss Bailey-INJ |
2nd Round |
|
Roy Williams |
#7 overall 2004 |
Lehman |
2nd Round |
|
Harrington |
#3 overall 2002 |
Holmes |
4th
Round-FA |
|
Kevin Jones |
1St Round |
Marion |
7th
Round-FA |
|
McDougle |
1st Round |
Bryant |
1st
Round-FA |
|
Backus |
1st Round |
Wilkinson |
1st
Round-FA |
|
Raiola |
2nd Round |
Rogers |
2nd Round |
|
Woody |
1st
Round-FA |
Holt |
5th Round |
|
Loverne |
3rd
Round-FA |
Edwards |
2nd Round |
|
|
|
Bly |
2nd
Round-FA |
GMs have two principal forms of capital: salary
cap space and draft picks. Over the first four years of Millen’s tenure he has
invested all five of his first round picks (one was acquired through a trade) on
offensive players.
True, Millen spent 3 of 4 second round picks on
defensive players, but three out of the first five offensive players drafted
were top 10 picks that received long term contracts averaging over 6
million/year. These are not easy to shed and the resulting salary commitments
means that the maturation of these three key players, more than any other single
factor, determines the Detroit Lions’ future over the next 4-7 years.
There are many theories
one could posit to explain the Lions’ lopsided pursuit of offensive talent. The
company line when Millen came on board was that the Lions’ defense from the 9-7
team he inherited was a strong unit.
With the gimpy Batch and
Moore headlining the offense, and with aging, injured, and overpaid veterans on
the offensive side of the ball in general, the focus given there was perfectly
logical. Also, it was a question of how the draft fell for the Lions.
With so much riding on the
early picks you want to take the best player available. Except for the
Harrington selection in 2002 over Jammer, the thinking going into the draft
under Millen’s tenure has generally been that the Lions would be compelled to
take an offensive player.
Of course, drafting
offensive skill players made strategic sense too.
The superstar offensive
skill players are disproportionately found in the top 10 of the draft, and
defensive players typically take less time to reach their peak performance. In
that sense, drafting offensive linemen early, followed by young offensive skill
players, puts the Lions in a good position moving forward with future defensive
acquisitions able to impact the bottom line quickly.
So, sound logic and chance
came together in a way that the Lions of 2004 are disproportionately talented on
the offensive side of the ball. There are different blue prints for building a
team and there are different ideas about what one should ideally invest in
various positions.
In recent history there
have been quite a few teams with that went to the playoffs that shared the
Lions’ offensive lopsidedness. St Louis is one example of such a lopsided team
that managed to win a Super Bowl. From a distance it seemed that the
explosiveness of the “greatest show on turf” was such that it elevated the play
of the defense. This was because St. Louis scored so early and often that it
put great pressure on the opposition, who was frequently playing from behind and
had to cut back on their playbook and take more chances to stay in the game.
The 1998 Minnesota Vikings
had one of the best records in the NFL while carrying a very unskilled defense
that nonetheless generated a lot of turnovers by running an attacking defense
that put even more pressure on the opposition and covered some of the holes in
their personnel.
Last season KC too had one
of the NFL’s best offenses and worst defenses, while finishing 13-3. Over the
last 7 years offensively lopsided teams like these and Indianapolis have tended
to do well in the regular season, but often did not fare well during the
playoffs when the games got more physical and the referees a bit more reluctant
to blow the whistle. This trend has given merit to the adage of a
countervailing logic: defense wins championships.
While it is far too early
to say whether the Lions will even be a high power offense and perhaps their
defense under a new coordinator will not be such a great liability, but both the
Lions’ uneven investment in personnel and our early performance in preseason
strongly suggests that the team will be lopsided offensively.
This being the case, I
thought it might be interesting to compare the Lions against three such teams
from 2003: Indianapolis, Minnesota, and Kansas City. These teams had different
records and one object is to scrutinize what critical factors enable a team of
that configuration to succeed.
Second, I also want to
ascertain the gap between the Lions and those teams in order to ascertain what
statistical categories merit improvement for us to match their record on the
field. With that in mind Table II compares several critical offensive
statistics.
Table III then ranks the
three lopsided teams above against Detroit in 2003 and 2002. Detroit in 2003 is
compared with 2002 largely to create a baseline, although it also of course
tempts one to compare Mooch and Mornhinweg.
Table
II. Select Statistical Comparison of Offense Heavy NFL Teams
|
|
Detroit 2002 |
Detroit 2003
|
KC |
Minnesota |
Indianapolis |
|
W-L |
3-13 |
5-11 |
13-3 |
9-7 |
12-4 |
|
3dn Conv |
64/216 |
80/228 |
84/201 |
102/219 |
91/217 |
|
4dn Conv |
8/11 |
8/20 |
6/10 |
8/20 |
11/17 |
|
Rush Avg |
4.4 |
3.6 |
4.3 |
4.8 |
3.7 |
|
Pass Avg |
7.45 |
5.8 |
7.67 |
8.02 |
7.54 |
|
Sacked |
20 |
11 |
21 |
42 |
19 |
|
Time of Pos |
25.44 |
28.24 |
29.23 |
32.52 |
30.15 |
Source: NFL.com
Table
III. Comparative Ranking (1-5)
|
|
Detroit 2002 |
Detroit 2003
|
KC |
Minnesota |
Indianapolis |
|
W-L |
5 |
4 |
1 |
3 |
2 |
|
3dn Conv |
5 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
|
4dn Conv |
1 |
4* |
3 |
4* |
2 |
|
Rush Avg |
2 |
5 |
3 |
1 |
4 |
|
Pass Avg |
4 |
5 |
2 |
1 |
3 |
|
Sacked |
3 |
1 |
4 |
5 |
2 |
|
Time of Pos |
5 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
Right away when looking at these tables several
things jump out. The first peculiar thing is that Minnesota 2003 seems grades
out the highest offensively, even though their 9-7 record is a clear cut below
Indianapolis and Kansas City. Of course they were sacked more, but still some
critical factor not taken into consideration appears to have a bearing on this
question.
When it comes to rushing yardage per attempt, time
of possession, and third down conversion, the holy grail of any offense,
Minnesota ranks at the top in all three. What is even stranger is that
Minnesota’s defensive personnel appear to be at a glance better than that of
those other two teams.
We all know that Detroit in 2002 and 2003 had
horrible offensive teams, and it is no surprise that they finished behind the
big three in every category. The only exception was in rushing average, where
James Stewart, under Mornhinweg’s tutelage, had a very productive season.
The interesting thing in comparing Detroit from
2002 to 2003 is that both in terms of rushing and passing average Detroit was
far better in 2002. Indeed, they compare very favorably to the big 3.
The big drop off last year is no real mystery.
Without Stewart and also losing Rogers for most of
the year, the Lions became too predictable and lacked any playmakers. They were
easy to game plan against and Harrington started to lose his confidence.
Looking forward, this also suggests that our running game may hold the key to
our entire offense including the productivity of our wide receivers. After all,
the starters on our 2002 squad were Schroeder and Hakim, who put up averages
similar to teams that boasted superstars like Gonzalez, Moss and Harrison, the
very best in the business.
The glaring difference between Detroit in 2002 and
the high octane offenses of Kansas City, Indianapolis, and Minnesota in 2003 is
time of possession, with Detroit giving up nearly a ten minute differential.
This suggests that Detroit’s averages in 2002 may have been deceiving and that
the Lions were often playing from behind against prevent defenses, raking up
yards late in games to little effect.
These tables look at
statistics selectively, and they are also not perfectly contextual since all
these teams played a different mix of opponents in schedules of varying degrees
of difficulty. Also, injuries appear to have been a very big factor in
Detroit’s poor offensive showing last year.
It's time now to turn to
one last statistical comparison: turnovers. It is a cliché, but it is often
said that turnovers are the key to success. Table IV. shows the take-away and
give-away totals of the five teams above. Table V. again ranks them.
Table IV. Take-away
and Give-away
|
|
INT |
FUM |
TOT |
INT |
FUM |
TOT |
SUM |
|
Det 2002 |
10 |
14 |
24 |
25 |
6 |
31 |
-7 |
|
Det 2003 |
15 |
13 |
28 |
24 |
4 |
28 |
0 |
|
KC 2003 |
25 |
12 |
37 |
12 |
6 |
18 |
+9 |
|
Ind 2003 |
15 |
15 |
30 |
10 |
10 |
20 |
+10 |
|
Mn 2003 |
28 |
7 |
35 |
13 |
11 |
24 |
+11 |
Table V
Turnover Ranking (1-5)
|
|
Giveaways |
Takeaways |
Differential |
|
Det 2002 |
5 |
5 |
5 |
|
Det 2003 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
|
KC 2003 |
1 |
3 |
3 |
|
Ind 2003 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
|
Mn 2003 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
This comparison appears to
explain why Detroit had a worse record in 2002 than 2003 despite having better
success moving the ball the year before. Again the difference between the
high-octane offenses and the Lions is reflected in the turnover differential.
What is interesting,
though, is that in terms of takeaways the teams are closely clustered. Where
the other teams pull away is in terms of making fewer mistakes on offense. That
makes sense since Harrington started and played most of those games as a rookie
and first year player.
Indeed, the interceptions
committed by the Lions are the telling statistics. It would be easy to make
Harrington the scapegoat, and, of course, in some of those games he was directly
to blame, but if one goes back to the woeful rush and passing averages it might
also be true that such mistakes were symptomatic of a failing offense.
In conclusion, where has
this circuitous journey taken me? It seems that the Lions’ ills last year on
offense was the absence of playmakers. Lacking chunk plays that puff up
averages our running and passing game struggled.
Compared to last year
Detroit added two major playmakers in Roy Williams and Kevin Jones. Another
playmaker that missed most of his rookie season, Charles Rogers, is also back.
When you factor in former Pro Bowl TE Stephen Alexander, a healthy Pinner, and a
more seasoned Fitzsimmons, the Lions have injected a major infusion of talent
into their offense.
While it is too early to
predict how these combinations will play out statistically, from my brief survey
above one would expect that the most telling change would come in terms of chunk
plays executed by the offense.
This should see the Lions’
rushing and passing averages dramatically increase. However, even if they
increase 40% from last year in those departments to mirror our performance from
the year before, and to be on par with the big boys, we could still have a very
long season if we cannot control the clock like the 2002 team did.
In other words, it is not
enough to pass and run the ball for good yardage, we have to be able to run the
ball when we want to, something the 2002 squad could not do.
Additionally, like the
Detroit 2002 squad that won only 3 games, we need to take the lead. If our
defense is so poor that we fall behind and have to play catch than our offensive
lopsidedness will not play into our favor. However, if we commit fewer
turnovers than last year, especially if we can cut Harrington interception
numbers in half, than we should have a winning record.
As Truman said, there are
lies, damned lies, and statistics. Many statistical categories like red zone
offense and tem defense were overlooked. Also, even these season aggregates are
not perfectly representative. Still, it was interesting to test my premise
about offensively lopsided teams and it gives us something to look for in the
next preseason game.
