A couple of additional thoughts on the Detroit Lions, now that I’ve had a chance to watch their game start to end. Initially, I’m seeing highlights, looking at boxscores and play-by-plays. We need to get out a lot of material. Now that there’s a lull on Wednesday and Thursday, I get a chance to speed through games in their entirety, and the context is different.
With Detroit, I notice that Zach Zenner is more than just an afterthought. He was in there, carrying the ball, on two of their first half possessions. He’s definitely part of their running back rotation. A bigger part than Theo Riddick (who’s the No. 4, in my opinion). Previously, I was of the school of thought that Joique Bell would score the vast majority of the 1- and 2-yard touchdowns. I will now revise that. I think Zenner (a big guy) will probably get maybe 20 percent of those.
On the kid Ameer Abdullah, he’s definitely a quick, playmaker back. We all saw the three big plays he had on Sunday – the 48-yard kickoff return, the 36-yard catch, and the 24-yard touchdown run, where he left Eric Weddle standing in the open field, looking like a junior college player. But Abdullah, now that I’ve seen the game as a whole, definitely looks more like a Darren Sproles type player, rather than a featured back. He’s not going to be used extensively. He’ll make a whole bunch of big plays, but they’re not going to feed him the ball a ton.
And let me dial back Eric Ebron. In the preseason, I decided he wasn’t going to be a breakout guy. I lost track of him on Sunday, and he ended up with the nice stat line – 4 catches for 53 yards and a touchdown. So I moved him up on the Tuesday (overall product). Now that I’ve had a chance to study him more thoroughly, let me move that back down a bunch. He’ll be out there, and he’s a receiver-type tight end, so he’s like their No. 3 guys. But I don’t see difference maker. I don’t see him creating matchup problems. First ball they threw to him on Sunday was a drop. A bad drop. Then there was the touchdown, where Eric Weddle (not helping his contract situation in this game) got lost and Ebron was left uncovered. Easy touchdown (but no greatness from Ebron). And that was pretty much it for the game. His other 3 receptions all came in a garbage time drive with about 2 minutes left. Looked pretty ordinary to me.
And on Eric Weddle (since he looked bad on the two touchdowns) I should add that he had a butt-kicking interception in the final two minutes. Golden Tate caught the ball on the goal line and was pulling it in for about a 20-yard touchdown. Weddle went through Tate, and pulled the ball into his own arms for about as cool of an interception as you will see. It was overturned upon inspection (ball moved on the ground as he fell to the ground) but a really nice play. So a big check in the positive column for Weddle, and Stafford easily could have had 3 interceptions instead of just 2.
—Ian Allan