For the first time since last season against the Arizona Cardinals, the Detroit Lions have completely dominated their opponent. The Detroit Lions played the Jacksonville Jaguars where they dominated from the start. After an impressive 13 yard run by Jacksonville young star running back Travis Etienne, the ball was stripped by Lions Cornerback Deshon Elliott and recovered by Lion’s Alex Anzalone. This turnover eventually turned into another touchdown for Jamaal Williams who now has 14 touchdowns on the season, which is two short for the team record. After this fast start for the Detroit Lions, the team did not let up and continued to press the medal for a blowout victory where the Detroit Lions put up 40 points and only gave up 14 points. Here are three reasons why Detroit smoked Jacksonville.
No Punts
The Detroit Lions did not punt once in the victory against the Jaguars. Their nine possessions in the game were as follows: touchdown, touchdown, field goal, field goal, field goal, touchdown, field goal, touchdown, and end of game. They displayed the ability to move the ball all game and convert it into points. Earlier in the season, Dan Campbell would have elected to go for it on several of these possessions on close fourth down yardage situations. This risky gameplay could have given momentum back to Jacksonville if Detroit failed to get the fourth down conversion. However, Dan Campbell elected to get points and run up the scoreboard instead. This shows growth for the second year head coach who coached one very good game against a super bowl winning head coach.
Good Defense
After a historically bad start to the season for the defense, it has been improving ever since the bye week where Dan Campbell and Aaron Glenn tweaked a few things. One of these few adjustments is not rushing the quarterback and leaving the cornerbacks on islands against talented wide receivers. In addition, they also have continually tried new personnel on the defense, which has resulted in the emergence of James Houston, who has three sacks in his first career two games. The Jacksonville Jaguars could hardly get anything going against this defense, which shows that this defense is playing its best football in December.
Also, the defense is finally getting healthy. Romeo Okwara, the Lions star pass rusher, is set to return soon.
MVP Jared Goff
The offense that did not punt against Jacksonville was being led by Jared Goff who was 31/41 for 340 yards and 2 touchdowns and no interceptions. His astounding game contributed to him having a 115. 9 quarterback rating. In addition, this is the fourth game in a row where has not thrown an interception, which is very impressive. Jared Goff is impressing as of late, which could ultimately lead the Detroit Lions to not draft a quarterback in the upcoming NFL Draft.
