Lions Report Card: Trenches Thrive, Boundaries Struggle Vs. Saints

After the Detroit Lions’ nail-biting win over the New Orleans Saints, let’s go position by position and hand out some grades for how Detroit performed in their Week 1 contest.

Quarterback: B+

It was a strong day from Jared Goff, and while it was only modest statistically, it would look a lot better had he not dealt with some drops. He also deserves some credit for avoiding negative plays (zero turnovers, one sack). Even his sack fumble that never was, he deserves credit for having enough grip strength to endure the hit and still begin his throwing motion, which was crucial to the official’s ruling.

However, some of the aforementioned drops were also the result of less-than-ideal ball placement. Two of Jameson Williams’ “drops” were outside routes, and Goff placed the ball too high and outside for each. Those were both drive-killing third down plays.

Still, hard to complain about his day.

Running back: A-

After a couple of plays where I thought Jahmyr Gibbs tried to do a little too much (including his fumble), I thought he was outstanding on Sunday. Whether it was his explosiveness on the outside, vision on the inside, or the 12 missed tackles he forced (career-high), Gibbs proved fully worthy of the increased workload on Sunday.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t as promising of a debut for Sione Vaki. While I thought he was fine with the ball in his hands, his pass protection—which was supposed to be his calling card—was not at its best.

Wide receivers: C

Let’s talk about Jameson Williams. While Goff deserves some blame for his drops, Williams deserves the bulk of the blame—particularly on the early deep shot that could’ve swung the game in Detroit’s favor early. Goff took the blame on the end around fumble, but that feels like covering for his wide receiver publicly.

It was a disappointing step back for Williams after what was very clearly his best training camp. Worst of all, Williams’ mistakes seemed to happen in the worst moments. One (contested) drop set up a third-and-15, two drops happened on third down, and the fumble essentially ended that drive.

But it wasn’t even all bad for Williams. He converted a third-and-8 in the red zone to set up Detroit’s first touchdown, and his 22-yard gain in overtime set up the game-winning score.

Meanwhile, Amon-Ra St. Brown continued to be fantastic—10 catches on 14 targets for 67 yards and two touchdowns. His overtime touchdown was incredible, holding the ball tight through contact and bouncing off for the score.

I will say I was a bit disappointed by the YAC from this group, though. The Saints deserve credit for strong tackling efforts, but St. Brown and Williams combined for just 29 yards after the catch.

Tight ends: B+

Sam LaPorta put a decent showing in the passing game, hauling in five of eight targets for 48 yards. And he looked pretty impressive as a blocker, too. Just take a look at him on the goal line here:

It was a pretty ho-hum day beyond that, which is certainly not a bad thing.

Offensive line: A-

The Lions produced a 51.5% rushing success rate, which was second-best in the NFL in Week 1. The Lions also averaged 2.18 yards before contact (seventh-best), showing that the offensive line was producing a ton of holes for Gibbs and company.

Pass protection was a little more up-and-down, but still pretty darn good. PFF only credited the Lions’ offensive line as responsible for four total pressures, and no single player allowed more than one (Tate Ratledge had a clean sheet).

Compared to expectation, I don’t think there was a unit who performed better on Sunday.

Defensive line: B

There were so many moving parts on the Lions’ defensive lineup that I’m not entirely confident in my live-watch assessment of how the defensive line played. I do know this: Aidan Hutchinson was still disruptive, I am continuing to be impressed by Skyler Gill-Howard, and the run defense looks about as good as it was in 2024.

I’m not as confident in Detroit having an edge defender who can win one-on-ones opposite Hutchinson, and I’d like to see what happened toward the end of the game, when Tyler Shough appeared to have more time.

But more often than not, I thought the Lions played pretty well up front, and when it came to the game-deciding play, it was Tyleik Williams’ pressure that forced Shough into a low-percentage throw:

Linebackers: A-

Let’s start with the only bad play that I can remember from the game from the linebacker unit: Jack Campbell got beat pretty handily on Saints tight end Juwan Johnson’s touchdown catch.

Other than that, I thought it was a pretty clean day from the linebacking corps. Campbell tallied seven tackles, including one tackle for loss in a strong run game performance.

But perhaps the best defender on the field was Derrick Barnes. He had a teach-tape rep in pass coverage, perfectly dropping into a zone, reading Shough’s eyes, and breaking on the ball for the interception. He also tallied a sack, and his coverage on the final play of the game caused Shough to go through his progressions and hesitate.

And while he didn’t jump off the tape initially, Malcolm Rodriguez actually came out as the second highest-graded defender on the Lions, per PFF.

Defensive backs: D

What a different tale of halves.

In the first half, the Lions defensive backs tallied five pass breakups, an interception, and held Shough to:

• 10-of-22 passing for 85 yards, 0 TDs, 1 INT and a 37.1 passer rating

In the second half and overtime, the Lions DBs had zero pass breakups, and Shough went:

• 25-of-34 passing for 325 yards, 3 TDs, 1 INT, and a 120.3 passer rating

We can’t discount either half, so you do take some good with the bad here, but the biggest frustration was the same from last year: big plays. Detroit allowed six passing plays of 20+ yards, more than all but one team in Week 1. That was a huge focus this offseason after allowing the fourth-most last year. But they only averaged 3.4 passing plays of 20+ yards last year, so they actually took a step back.

Special teams: D+

Jake Bates was fine on his field goals and extra points, but his kickoffs were an issue. He landed one more than 10 yards in front of the landing zone, and sent another a few yards deep for a touchback. That may not seem like much, but it gave the Saints field position at the 40 and 35-yard line, respectively. Admittedly, Bates made up for it with a great kickoff in overtime that put New Orleans at the 20.

Jack Fox, too, had an up-and-down day. While he technically pinned three of his seven punts inside the 20-yard line, he missed on his two easiest opportunities. One punt from Detroit’s 44-yard line went straight into the end zone. Another punt from Detroit’s’ 45-yard line traveled just 31 yards, coming to a rest at the Saint’s 24-yard line. Fox is typically money in those situations, so it was disappointing to see him struggle there.

Elsewhere, Tom Kennedy shook off the opening kickoff muff and had at least one decent punt return. And Tay Martin was such a beast on the coverage teams that he earned a game ball from Dan Campbell.

Coaching: C-

I don’t have any real problems with the way Dan Campbell managed that game. You could nitpick about his decision to punt on the last possession of regulation—facing a fourth-and-long-1 from his own 44-yard line. That was a complete toss up to me, because a missed conversion almost certainly means a loss. And while Campbell doesn’t get official credit for a successful challenge, his throwing of the red flag gave the league time to review and overturn a clear incomplete pass.

As for the coordinators, I thought it was a relatively promising debut from offensive coordinator Drew Petzing. Detroit did some creative things on the offensive line that certainly helped the running game reach its high success rate.

There were also some plays I’m sure he’d want back. Ultimately, I tend to grade play-calling based on critical downs. On one hand, the Lions were 4-of-5 turning red zone opportunities into touchdowns. On the other hand, Detroit converted just 5-of-13 third downs.

I was a little less enthusiastic about Kelvin Sheppard’s day. While the defense got out to an outstanding start, and Sheppard was running circles around Tyler Shough, most of that goodwill was sucked away in the second half. On the money plays, the Saints converted 47% of their third downs, both of their fourth down attempts, and 80% of their red-zone trips. Sheppard HAS to find a way to get the team off the field on third or fourth down, as Detroit had several opportunities on defense to put the game away.

From my amateur eyes, the Lions sent a ton of pressure throughout the game. And when the Saints counterpunched with quick passes, tempo, and over-the-top throws, the Lions didn’t have an answer. That can’t happen. The Lions won’t survive every furious comeback like that.