Lions Vs. Cleveland Report Version 1.0

Like in the movies, units in order of their appearance!

Special Teams - It was great return by Jeremy Ross! I especially loved the play, he sold it with a move up the middle then took it outside! Great execution, the blockers who swung out with him also sold the fake direction. We need to see more of that! Then the kick coverage was excellent on the first kickoff too, with Montel Owens SMASHING the returner. Tahir Whitehead was there along with Travis Lewis, so that dude should have just gotten OUT of BOUNDS! LOL

Starters On Offense- This drive showed some great plays that bode well for the future, even though we didn't get that much from a couple of them.

For Example:
On Bush's first run, the whole back side was there, had Bush seen it and cut back that way. Golden Tate showed what a pro wideout does when he's not getting the ball, as he leaked out to the right and sold the fake, even throwing his arms up.  That was just the start of why we will be THANKING MAYHEW all year for signing GOLDEN TATE!

Tate then burned the DB (ALL PRO Joe Haden) off the line to catch a quick slant from Matt. The Lions are going to hurt a lot of teams with that idea and Tate showed clearly he is HELLA QUICK! Then we got a pass from a double slot formation where the outside guys ran deep outs and the slots ran short ones. Tate got ten yards down the field and into his break in two seconds and was wide open. The pass went to Bush (who dropped it). But Bell, who leaked into the middle, was open late, but he was WIDE open; Im sure they will remember this play for the future. Three guys were open!

Then came the play of the night that showed why I believe how tough it will be to defense the new Lions: Split wides to both sides, Fauria in next to Pettigrew, giving the Lions a numbers advantage on the left side. And two huge dudes on the end!
And Stafford UNDERNEATH center! Haven't seen that for years! Handoff goes to Bell and the 11 yard gain to move the chains gives us an offensive play that can be used often and will be perfect for play action (cause there is a PLAY To ACTION FROM!) Cleveland defensed (or didn't)this by having their safety come up while the other moved to the deep middle meaning either Tate or Durham had single coverage! A fake on a play they have to respect and it is TD city, especially with Calvin and Tate together on the field. By the way, both Fauria and Pettigrew executed and sustained their blocks and Riley Reiff helped Pettigrew initially then stepped up and cracked the inside linebacker. And Bell put the icing on the cake with a perfect cut into the gap inside Fauria. This is a play that will be perfect on short yardage.

After a short run by Bush, the next play had its own story. While it was a short underneath toss to Durham, Stafford had plenty of time and Reggie Bush faked the out, then broke up field and was going to be gone, cause Ogletree was cutting into the middle, occupying two guys. Again, this will be seen on film and this play looks like a winner.

The last play of the night for the starters was the pass to Durham in the end zone. While I love Durham, he isn't Calvin; if he were he would have run right through Haden and it would have been a TD. But Calvin was not there, and the Browns sent a safety, but Haden had to hold Durham to stop him. (I guess the refs forgot the new rules on THAT one!  In addition, both Stafford and Tate didn't seem to read the safety blitz cause Tate was uncovered but didn't look for the ball and Matt didn't look at him. Had they both reacted to the coverage, it would have been CU LATA, baby! So again a play with great potential, even though it didn't pay off this time. 

So based on the above, it is the humble opinion of this writer that the Lions offense is going to be very tough to defense.  Yeah, yeah, it's just one drive in a preseason game, but against a defense that was 4TH in the NFL, I think the Lions showed a scheme to be feared. And we didn't even see the FULLBACK set yet!  What do you think???

NEXT: NO MORE of that FOUR FOUR (defense)