It’s not dumb luck. The Lions looked for the weakenss in the Minnesota offense. It’s not the receivers, they are lethal. Hockenson can still do damage in the middle. Their run game is solid but not spectacular. No, the way you take those elite receivers out of the game, is to attack the guy throwing them the ball. That’s the weakness the Lions targeted and exploited.
They knew if they could keep Darnold moving, they could get him off his game. They took away the easy reads. Darnold’s passes last night were very inaccurate. If you watch replays, look at how many times he was throwing mid step, or shuffling away, or falling away. That’s why his passes were all over the map. Darnold plays best when he has an easy read, and when he can set his feet and throw. The Lions made him play more like a scrambler and it took him out of his comfort zone.
Every single opportunity they had, the Lions were hitting Darnold. Those hits add up. On the first goal line stand, the first 2 passes were missed directly due to pressure. On the 3rd down play to Jefferson in the corner, the Vikings actually stoned the pressure. However, Darnold was still impacted and rushed the throw when he didn’t have to. The Lions accelerated Darnold’s internal clock and made him very uncomfortable. Did we get lucky there? Yep. Did the Lions previous plays cause that lucky break? Yep again. You know what else was lucky? Darnold getting away with a near pick when Robertson played Jefferson perfectly on 2nd down and just dropped the pick.
The Lions got equally lucky on the Van Ginkle dropped pick as we talked about in another thread. However, these are the individual plays that determine games. The Lions made more of the plays, and the Vikings missed their opportunities. The Lions kept chipping away and once they got to 17-9, The Vikings were now in catch up mode and the Lions squeezed the life out of them.
Here’s one more example of a team making plays and a team missing plays. Lions defense held the Vikings to a FG as the 2nd quarter was closing. That made the game 7-6. The Vikings then kick the ball out of bounds on the kickoff, an EASY play and terrible mistake. Lions now get the ball on the 40, run 2 plays, kick the FG and go into the half 10-6. The Vikings were getting the ball out of the half. The Vikings could’ve sent the game into the half 7-6, and get the ball out of the half for their first lead of the game. Instead, they made a super silly mistake and cost themselves 3 points.
These kinds of mistakes are made when teams are pressing. How many times did we watch the Lions make a stupid mistake to help the other team, and shoot ourselves in the foot? Well, now the teams we are playing are pressing to beat us, and the pressure is causing them to make those same stupid mistakes.
