Ten New York Giants that will test the Detroit Lions
By Ash Thompson
Every preseason game offers its own opportunities to evaluate the Detroit Lions. These are the matchups that will offer the most insight against the New York Giants.
The Detroit Lions lost their preseason debut against the Oakland Raiders. You can throw away everything that happened in that game. Matthew Stafford didn’t even play. That tells you everything you need to know about how important the result was to the coaching staff. Week two is a different story.
The value to fans in preseason games is in matchups against the opposing team’s legitimate roster players. Giving up 60 yards rushing in the fourth quarter to the opposing offense tells you nothing about the Lions or their opponent. Nobody on the field is going to make either team.
It is during the second week that the curtain begins to be drawn back. The story of the season begins here with the first quarter of the game. Most teams will have their starters on the field for the entire quarter. The second quarter will tell us about the team’s depth relative to the Giants, but that’s about it.
Here are the player and schematic matchups that are most interesting about the upcoming joint practices and the game between the Lions and the Giants on Friday night.
The three-man front
The Giants had one of the better interior defensive lines at making tackles in 2017. Damon Harrison and Dalvin Tomlinson both finished a lot of plays at or near the line of scrimmage. Both players excel at clogging up space and shedding blockers. This will be an entirely different kind of test for the Lions offensive line.
Lions line has historically had severe issues dealing with three-man base fronts playing a two-gap style. The entire tenure of Jim Caldwell was plagued with an inability to block a defense that two division opponents run. It is incredibly important that Jeff Davidson get this problem fixed ASAP. Part of the problem has been the basis of the scheme the Lions were running.
Zone schemes that execute poorly tend to have a problem with two gap defenses. This is because the defensive and offensive lineman are both more interested in occupying space than creating a gap conceptually. Both are creating a wall of human flesh, nobody is trying to crack a hole in that wall.
The Lions running game against Oakland involved a lot more gap based rushing, which is infinitely more effective against a two-gap defense. The Lions still run zone concepts, but prior to the coaching change, they ran them almost exclusively.
The early downs of the Giants game will be an interesting test for the Lions offensive line. Rookie Frank Ragnow will be put in a difficult spot against these incredibly strong and effective linemen.