Detroit Lions: Dubious Coaching and Poor Officiating the Theme Sunday

The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time for the Detroit Lions. After beating the Chargers & Eagles then playing toe-to-toe with the Kansas City Chiefs, the bye will allow the Lions to heal some wounds. It will also allow the coaching staff to regroup.

The Detroit Lions played an exciting game at home against the Chiefs this past Sunday.  Despite a couple of lousy coaching decisions from Matt Patricia, a couple of terrible fumbles and some questionable officiating, Detroit nearly still won the football game.  The difference in the football game proved to be KC converting on a 4th and 8.  Detroit couldn’t get that final stop.

But before that, with the Lions driving, Patricia didn’t throw the challenge flag on what looked like a very conclusive pass interference call by Anthony Hitchens.

The play wasn’t flagged on the field, but the replay showed Hitchens hit Kerryon Johnson before the ball arrived.  Faceguarding is allowed in the NFL, but grabbing a player’s facemask with two hands impeding his ability to make a catch isn’t.

Patrica explained his reasoning for not challenging the play in an article published by Mlive.com;

"“We saw it live. We saw it on the replay. (There) was nothing there that ‘significantly hindered’ (the receiver), which is the phrase we’re all looking for,” Patricia said. “No different than maybe the week before with Danny Amendola — similar situation, similar look. Nothing really there that we thought the risk would have been worth it.”"

Matt Patricia has forgotten way more football than I will ever know, but I respectfully disagree with his assessment of the play.  Hitchens clearly hit Johnson before the ball arrived not even attempting to look for the football.

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It was deja vu for many Lions fans.  If you remember, it was Anthony Hitchens in the 2014 Wild Card game who made a very similar play while guarding tight end Brandon Pettigrew.  The circumstances far worse in ’14 being a playoff game and the fact that the officials flagged the play and then decided to pick it up after a discussion. It’s fair to say I never want to see Anthony Hitchens play against the Detroit Lions again.

Not to continue to pile on Matt Patricia but his lack of clock management skills is becoming very alarming.  At times last season, he left me to question some of his decisions, but at the time, I felt that there were a few wrinkles left to be ironed out for the first-year head coach.  In the Philadelphia game, he decided to let the clock expire after his defense made a stop just before the half.  I felt he had an opportunity to try and force a punt, or at the very least, make the Eagles defend a Hail Mary.

This past Sunday Matt Patricia decided to start taking his time-outs with the Chiefs driving deep into Lions territory bleeding the clock to well under the two-minute warning.  He didn’t do Matthew Stafford any favors by handing him the ball trailing with under a minute to try and score a touchdown.  As the Chiefs were driving late, he should have been using his timeouts just after the two-minute warning.

Before you freak out, I’m not saying the entire loss is because of Matt Patricia.  The clock management is, but the official should have thrown a flag on the Hitchens play.  If a flag were thrown, the Lions wouldn’t have been in a position to decide whether they should challenge the play or not.

The Lions also need to protect the football better.  I do believe on the Johnson fumble at the one-yard line the replay shows the officials running in to blow the play dead, but they allowed it to continue.  The officials are encouraged to let the play go; in this instance, it worked against Detroit.  Although Stafford bested the reigning MVP Patrick Mahomes, he also had a critical lost fumble in the RedZone.

As an insult to injury, the fumble came on the very next play after the officials deemed Kenny Golladay didn’t maintain complete control of the ball in the back of the endzone.  It was called a TD on the field and didn’t appear to have the proper evidence to overturn the call, yet it was.

All in all, it was a perfect storm, some self-inflicted errors mixed with questionable coaching decisions and at times, awful officiating.  The bye week couldn’t have come at a better time for the Detroit Lions.  Plus they need to get a host of players healthy before locking up with the Green Bay Packers in week six.