What Detroit Lions are doing to try to ramp up NFL-worst pass rush – Detroit Free Press

Bo Davis has seen the numbers, the ones that paint the Detroit Lions as having the least effective pass rush in the NFL, and he does not purchase them one bit.
Theyre just looking at you, are you pass hurrying, how efficient are you getting to the quarterback? In the video game strategy youve got to look at it and state, Hey, do we desire to just take off and just hurry this guy?”.
The Lions are connected for last in the NFL with 5 sacks entering todays game versus the Jacksonville Jaguars, and have the leagues lowest pass rush win rate, according to ESPN.
[If RBs are so simple to find, why do Lions keep taking them high in NFL draft? ] However Davis insists his groups low sack overall– linemen have actually accounted forthree of the five sacks– is partially a function of the quarterbacks theyve faced.
In Week 1, the Lions hosted a mobile quarterback in Mitchell Trubisky who was among the most unreliable passers in the league before he was benched.
In Week 2, they faced two-time MVP Aaron Rodgers, whos adept at extending have fun with his feet.
And in Week 3, the Lions played the ultra-athletic Kyler Murray, who leads NFL quarterbacks with 296 backyards hurrying and five goals.
” If were playing the guy in Arizona again and we dont play him like we played him and keep him in the pocket and we simply rushed it, yeah, we can have terrific efficiency hurrying the passer, however hell have 200 lawns rushing on us,” Davis said. “So I suggest, they all have determining sticks of how they measure that. Youve got to take a look at who youre playing, whos at quarterback, and regrettably we havent had a lot of possibilities to play guys that are stationary quarterbacks.
” We d like to play Drew Brees weekly. Our stats would be incredible playing against him. Sadly, we dont have that.”.
The Lions had their only multi-sack game of the season in Week 4 versus Brees and the New Orleans Saints, when Brees completed 19 of 25 passes for 246 backyards and 2 goals in a simple Saints triumph.
This week, they deal with a quarterback in Gardner Minshew whos more mobile than Brees however does not strike fear in challengers with his legs like Murray.
Minshew has been sacked 16 times this year– Joe Burrow, Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson are the only quarterbacks who have actually been sacked more regularly– and Davis stated his troops are delighted about the chance to get after a passer.
“Its like, … Hey, we can get after this guy, we can have enjoyable, and all those things begin playing a big role and guys begin actually like, Heres what we got to do. And we played versus some excellent running quarterbacks and we feel like, hi, we can get after these guys and do an excellent job hurrying the quarterback.”.
Beyond the quarterbacks theyve faced, Lions protective coordinator Cory Undlin said his groups poor pass rush stats are a reflection of the teams defensive battles as an entire, and specifically their inability to stop the run.
The Lions rank last in the NFL in rush defense, and have fallen under big deficits versus the Green Bay Packers and Saints.
” When teams are running the ball on you, the opportunities to rush the passer end up being a lot less than they would be if you were stopping it,” Undlin stated. Absolutely, I think we all understand that weve got to create some more pressure on the quarterback, and well see how we can do that going forward this week.”.
Lions coach Matt Patricia stated repairing the pass rush was a focus of last weeks bye, however that he also needs to be cognizant of putting too much on his gamers plates.
[Lions Matthew Stafford never has tossed TD pass versus Jacksonville ] Rather than plan up more pressures and blitzes and unique appearances, Patricia said he wishes to call it back defensively to “enable the guys to play a little bit much faster out on the field.”.
” Maybe some things essentially that we were trying to do that were just not prepared for that I believe weve got to just backtrack a little bit and do some other things well initially before we build on top of that,” Patricia stated. “Those are all a few of the important things from the self-scout from the bye week that I believed that we might carry out moving forward and truly simply try to construct on it as we try to go. Were going to require some of that things somewhere down the roadway, but at this moment lets just try to play some good football.”.
Contact Dave Birkett at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. The Free Press has actually started a new digital subscription design. Heres how you can get to our most exclusive Lions material..

Theyre just looking at you, are you pass hurrying, how effective are you getting to the quarterback? In the game strategy youve got to look at it and say, Hey, do we want to just take off and simply rush this guy?”.
” If were playing the guy in Arizona once again and we dont play him like we played him and keep him in the pocket and we simply hurried it, yeah, we can have terrific performance hurrying the passer, but hell have 200 lawns hurrying on us,” Davis said. Youve got to look at who youre playing, whos at quarterback, and regrettably we havent had a lot of possibilities to play guys that are stationary quarterbacks.
And we played versus some good running quarterbacks and we feel like, hello, we can get after these guys and do a good job hurrying the quarterback.”.