The Vikings converted a 3rd and 30 in week 18. The Rams converted a 3rd and 18 (I think) last week. 3rd and long seems to be worse for us than 3rd and medium. How is this going to be fixed? It’s been a problem all season and things like this tend to make or break a team in the playoffs.
I don’t recall seeing a Lions defense be so bad on 3rd and long. For one, the defense is good enough to force a long 3rd down, but terrible enough to allow easy conversions.
Does anybody have advanced stat splits for the lions on 3rd and long? I’d love to see it compared to the rest of the league. We have to rank towards the bottom.
Tbf, the Lions have been consistently giving up 3rd and very long for decades, it’s not a new problem unfortunately. This off season, Brad makes upgrading the defense priority #1…giving up 3rd and forevers are one of the last remaining things that need to be shook from Dan’s SOL cocaine pants.
IMO you can’t play soft on 3rd and long. you need to bump them at the line, play 3 safeties at the 1st down line if need be but you need to disrupt the timing at least so some pressure can at least make the QB move. 3rd and long and you have 4 down linemen and 7 coverage to me is fine.
Also, to be fair, it’s an extremely small sample size. I mean on the first one Jefferson made a superstar play. On the second Mullins ripped a timing throw to a spot that ended up being a perfect pass, most times throwing without any care like that would lead to a pick.
And on 3rd and 18 Stafford made a side-arm throw as Alim was hitting him to a spot only his guy could get it.
Sometimes you just have to tip your cap to the opposing team.
Its my fault. Both times I said the only way they get a 1st is if the Lions commit a penalty. My wife and daughter gave me dirty looks when I said that against the Rams.
Against the Vikings they rushed four, didn’t get any pressure and Mullens threw it to a double covered Jefferson who made a spectacular catch. I’m not sure what they could of done besides generate more pressure.
What really concerns me is on 4th and 1 they had Vilder one on one with Jefferson with zero safeties over top. That made it way to easy for them. Mistakes like that can end our SB run.
It’s a scenario that exposes the bend but don’t break defense we’ve been forced to play. The “don’t break” part is really about red zone D. These 3rd and longs have the whole field to work with, essentially. Our DBs have to hold up, and they’ve already proved they won’t, which is why we’re forced to play this defense in the first place.
True but are we league average for giving up 3rd and forever? Conversions happen so infrequently in other games that I’ve watched that I have to believe we are one of the worst in those situations.
An interesting point about that data set. We are tied for 3rd in the league for forcing the most 3rd and longs. So our defense is good enough to get teams in low percentage plays, we just can’t seem to finish. If we can cut down on this there isn’t a team that I’d be worried about playing besides Baltimore in the Super Bowl.
