Detroit Lions at New York Giants: What to watch for in week 2

The Detroit Lions play the New York Giants on Monday Night Football in week 2. Let’s go over some key things to keep an eye on.

This week, the Detroit Lions are featured on Monday Night Football, playing against the New York Giants. The Lions managed to start the season with a win, while the Giants didn’t play their best. So let’s look at some key things for this week’s matchup.

1. Odell’s return

Odell Beckham Jr. is arguably the best wide receiver in the NFL. What’s not arguable is that he’s a game-changer. Without Odell last week the Giants had a horrible game offensively, only managing three points against the Dallas Cowboys.

Odell is basically a guarantee for a touchdown, but when he’s healthy. I’m not sure that he’ll be 100% this week, both due to health and this being his first real game of the season.

That doesn’t mean I’m not scared of him. His breakaway speed is killer, and as we have seen in the past, all he needs is the ball to make something amazing happen. It would be smart to have Darius Slay shadow him all game, as his speed would assist greatly in coverage.

Just like the Lions needed to stop David Johnson to stall the Cardinals last week, they’ll need to do the same with Odell on Monday.

2. Will the running game show up?

I was super excited about the Lions having a healthy backfield last week. I thought Ameer Abdullah and Theo Riddick were going to be a stellar one-two punch. And after an outing consisting of 30 rushing yards between the two, I was not impressed.

Yes, the Lions are a passing team first. But at the same time, we all know how important having a decent running game is to complement the pass. The Lions needs to figure it out sooner rather than later because if this team wants a playoff shot they can’t be one-dimensional.

The Giants have a tough defense, but I think having a game under their belts will help the Lions. The run game wasn’t noticeably bad last week, and I give a lot of credit to Dwayne Washington who came up with some clutch runs. Maybe the only way this works is if it’s a three prong attack by adding Washington in full-time. Either way, I just want anything to work.

3. New punter alert

Last week, Kasey Redfern had a play that was almost as bad as the infamous Orlovsky play. He muffled the snap on a punt and decided to run it out instead of just pooching the thing. There’s a lot of wrong things he could have done there and he basically did them all.

This led to him tearing his ACL and MCL, thus ending his season. This also gave us a game of Matt Prater punting and looking like he hated his life every time he was out there.

Next: 10 keys for a Lions win in week 2

Earlier this week, Detroit signed veteran Jeff Locke until Sam Martin finally returns. Locke was drafted the same year as Martin and has been with the Vikings the last four years. The fact that he’s a veteran might help a little more, as I expect that he would know what to do if he didn’t get a clean snap. (Hint: Don’t run it.)