Prior to the start of the season I was worried our OL would cost us the division and possibly a playoff run. I knew our playoff hopes would fall on how quickly our OL got up to speed. I had faith in Hank Fraley but sometimes you just never know how quickly guys will learn.
Being forced to make 3 changes on the IOL. Starting two inexperienced guards and forced to start GG at center…. Especially after GG just had a bad season…..needless to say I was concerned.
We almost lost Hank to SEA as they interviewed him for an OC position. This showed he was viewed highly enough as an OL coach that a team with continued OL issues was willing to make him an OC.
The OL showed to be a concern week one and was a large reason we lost that game. So I started breaking down OL film from week one on and I was greatly impressed with how Hank addressed the issues in week two and how he’s schemed to help his OL get through that rough start. VS Cle we started getting more aggressive with the blocking assignments and the IOL handled it fairly well. Which to me was amazing because CLE has one of the best DL fronts in football and we won more matchups than we lost.
I think Lions fans do not appreciate the magnitude of the situation and how well Hank has done to address it.
So I’m starting a Hank Fraley appreciation thread. I’m going to post some pictures or videos of what good blocking (Lions) looks like and Bad blocking (Other teams) looks like just for fun. I am hoping you can all join me with posting some examples.
I’ll start with this bad example from Houston. Gawd is this bad.
You can add the Cincy clip as well, where Denver rushes 3, and 2 get home around the edge.
I am extremely happy with Fraley. The Gb game was rough, but it also did get a little better as the game wore on. When I watched it back, I was mostly seeing simple mistakes causing big breakdowns. The good news with that is, simple mistakes can be fixed quickly. The Lions have gotten better each week, and more importantly, the lineman are now starting to execute the more complicated blocks more consistently. That’s just going to increase the amount of things we can do. On Jamyr’s big run up the middle, Decker and Mahogany execute a very high level switch with Decker looping inside and getting to the LB level to get a big block. That was not something that would’ve worked at the start of the season.
We had the number one ranked OL in Week 4. We were up against the top rated run defense in the league and we still put up over 100 yards on the ground.
What fans may not realize is in week one the Lions OL had a lot of missed assignments, they allowed 15 pressures, Jared Goff was sacked 4 times, and the run game was nonexistent. The biggest takeaway from that game, besides the whole “the Lions aren’t able to survive without Ben Johnson” thing, was that the Lions weren’t going to be able to overcome the losses of Ragnow and Zeitler.
Now look at them. From worst OL in the league week one to the best in week 4.
My Chiefs buddy mentioned this to me years ago, and I never really got it. I thought he was just being a bit of a football snob, but it’s true. When you see your team become an elite team, then watch other games, your eyes just keep finding guys missing their jobs. You realize it’s ugly football.
That’s what the past few seasons have really shown me as a Lions fan. We used to be the ugly team that watched other teams play and you realize, those elite teams play a different game. Now, we are the elite team playing a different game, and other football games may be entertaining, but they aren’t the level of football we are playing.
I shared that video above but your post is the exact reason I wanted to start this thread.
The Lions have drastically improved in just a few weeks.
How we addressed the problems in Week two was genius and then to execute in a similar design week 3 was awesome to see. Then week 4 Hank switches things up and executes a near flawless game plan to beat the best DL in football.
From week twi to week 4 our blocking assignments have become more aggressive and complicated and defenses are struggling to figure out what we’re doing next.
I’ll eat a whopping plate full of crow, when Ratledge arrived here, I automatically assumed he’d be a bust. I meant it. I gave him no chance, and to watch his growth exploding onto the scene and making a name here is just flat Awesome. I was wrong about the guy in a BIG way. loving my dish of crow.