The Lions Defense Took Away Green Bay's Play-Action Passing Game
The Lions beat the Packers convincingly on both sides of the ball last Thursday night. On defense, they combined a pass rush that dominated in the trenches with a smart coverage scheme that took away what the Packers like to do on early downs. That kept Green Bay behind the chains and made Jordan Love uncomfortable for much of the night.
Matt LaFleur loves to use play-action to scheme his receivers open. It makes sense for him to lean on these types of plays since he has an inexperienced quarterback leading his offense.
Play-action passes are generally quarterback friendly. They’re called on early downs against more predictable coverages. They tend to create clean and defined reads. And they can often slow down the pass rush.
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn was ready for this on Thursday night, however. He stifled these drive-starters with post-snap movement that took away the areas of the field that Green Bay wanted to target.
On the Packers’ second drive of the game, they came out in “12” personnel on first down and aligned in a condensed formation with tight receiver splits. They were selling run:
The Lions weren’t buying. After starting in what appeared to be some kind of single-high coverage, they spun out into cover-2 at the snap:
The Packers would only attack with two downfield routes off of the play-action. Detroit’s two deep safeties were able to get on top of them and eliminate the threat:
The Lions’ underneath coverage was also very cognizant of the play-action threat at the intermediate level. After the play-fake, linebacker Derrick Barnes immediately turned and hunted up Christian Watson’s deep-over route:
Both of Love’s downfield options were completely smothered. Before he could flee the pocket, check it down, or throw the ball away, defensive tackle Isaiah Buggs had beaten center Josh Myers, and would get in for the sack: