The Lions are getting Green Bay at a tricky moment. The Packers have already shaken off their rough start, and after back-to-back blowouts of the Bears and Cowboys, they’re rolling into this week on a three-game winning streak.
After watching Green Bay’s win over Dallas twice, a few things stood out that matter for Detroit.
Start with the run game, or really the lack of one. The Packers never fully put the Cowboys away, and part of that was their inability to lean on the ground attack.
In the second half, with two Jordan Love kneel-downs removed, Green Bay managed only 42 rushing yards on 17 carries, good for 2.57 yards per carry. That came against a Dallas defense that still ranks dead last in rushing yards allowed at 149.8 per game and sits 25th in DVOA.
The season-long numbers are even uglier. Green Bay is last in rushing yards per game at 59.8, last in yards per carry at 2.9, last in rush EPA at -0.299, and 31st in rushing success rate at 32.5%.
Josh Jacobs is expected back this week, which should help some, but the bigger issue looks structural. The offensive line has real problems, and if newly added guard Kevin Zeitler gets on the field, that may matter even more than Jacobs’ return.
What does travel well for Green Bay is its safety play. Xavier McKinney and Evan Williams are being used in smart, creative ways, and the versatility jumps off the tape.
Jonathan Gannon has found all kinds of ways to move them around, including hiding Williams near the line before he bails out and jumps a route for an interception on Dak Prescott. Between them, the Packers’ safeties have five interceptions, 2.0 sacks, six quarterback hits and 73 tackles.
That kind of back-end flexibility is a real issue for Detroit. It makes it harder to attack deep, where Green Bay is 11th in EPA per pass against deep balls, and it also makes life miserable in the middle of the field, where the Packers are first in EPA per pass against slot targets. That puts more pressure on the Lions’ boundary receivers to win against a cornerback group that is, as a whole, pretty mediocre.
The deep ball is still a huge part of Green Bay’s offensive identity, even if the efficiency doesn’t always match the volume. Jordan Love didn’t hit a big shot against Dallas, but the Packers still picked up 37 yards on a pass interference call on a deep target to Bo Melton. Through six games, no team has benefited more from defensive pass interference than Green Bay, which has already gained a league-leading 135 yards that way.
The Packers also lead the league in passing attempts of 20-plus air yards at 5.3 per game. The production on those throws has been more middle of the pack, though, with their +0.32 EPA per deep shot ranking 19th.
Even so, that’s a dangerous area for Detroit. The Lions have been brutal against deep passes this season, sitting last in EPA per pass allowed at +1.41 and giving up the second-most yards per game on those throws at 80.6.
Brian Branch’s return this week is supposed to help steady the back end, but this looks like the toughest deep-ball test Detroit has faced so far.
If the Lions decide to heat up Love, they’ll need to be smart about it. Dallas tried to test Green Bay’s shaky line with extra pressure and did get home at times, posting a 53.8% pressure rate on blitzes.
Love still handled it well. Against the blitz, he went 8-for-12 for 100 yards and one sack.
In Week 6, he also posted the sixth-highest yards per attempt against the blitz at 8.4 and the second-highest EPA per dropback at +0.43.
Over the full season, his blitz numbers are still solid: 13th in EPA per dropback at +0.03, 12th in yards per attempt at 8.1 and 11th in passer rating at 104.2. But there’s a better path for Detroit. Love has been less effective without the blitz, ranking 23rd in passer rating at 84.4, 17th in yards per attempt at 7.1 and 17th in EPA per dropback at +0.05.
That lines up with what the Lions do well. They’re producing the seventh-highest pressure rate without blitzing at 35.5%, while the Packers are giving up the sixth-highest pressure rate on non-blitz plays at 36.2%. The numbers point in the same direction.
Green Bay can also blitz with purpose. Against Dallas, the Packers mixed up their pressure looks well enough to keep the Cowboys from ever really threatening a comeback.
They blitzed on 35.7% of plays, 11th-highest in the league that week, and turned that into a 45.0% pressure rate, which ranked 13th. Dak Prescott had no answers, finishing 12-of-20 for 79 yards against the blitz, a miserable 4.0 yards per attempt that ranked 28th out of 29 qualifying quarterbacks in Week 6.
Detroit’s offensive line has been better than expected, but the reshuffled group is still working through blitz pickups. The Lions have allowed the third-highest time to pressure against the blitz at 2.21 seconds.
The good news for Detroit is that Jared Goff usually solves that problem by getting the ball out fast and avoiding damage. Even with the heat coming, the Lions still rank second in EPA per pass against the blitz at +0.33.
In Other News...
Lions Bye Week Just Raised The Stakes For Packers Showdown
The Lions spent Week 6 on the sideline along with Minnesota, but the rest of the NFC North kept moving and only tightened the race. Green Bay and Chicago both took care of business, with the Bears leaning on Caleb Williams and their defense to beat Atlanta, while the Packers handled Dallas behind a defense that kept the Cowboys run game in check. With all four division teams still sitting above .500, every result around Detroit carries a little more weight than it did a few weeks ago.
What makes the next stretch even more interesting is the timing. Detroit comes out of the bye as one of the leagues highest-scoring teams and heads straight into a matchup with Green Bay, where the Packers now have another notable option available for that showdown. The division picture is still crowded, and the bye week may have given the Lions rest, but it also handed the Packers and Bears a chance to keep pace and turn the head-to-head games into even bigger swing points. [Read more 🡒]
Lions May Have Found The Real Key To Containing Packers Deep Shots
The deeper Detroit digs into Green Bays passing tendencies, the clearer it becomes that the Packers shot plays are as much about game state as they are about route concepts. Their explosive throws downfield have tended to show up in more comfortable moments, when the offense can afford to press the issue, while the Lions have not shown the same kind of situational split in how they attack vertically. For a matchup that could swing on just a few big plays, that makes the opening stages of the game feel especially important.
For Detroit, the lesson is pretty simple: make the Packers chase. If the Lions can get on the board early and force Green Bay out of its preferred script, it could blunt one of the biggest risks in the passing game and keep the deep ball from becoming the kind of backbreaker that changes the whole afternoon. The challenge, of course, is getting the game to that point before those downfield chances start piling up. [Read more 🡒]
Why The Lions Contender Hype Suddenly Looks A Lot More Real
Through six weeks, the Lions have started to look less like a team leaning on preseason optimism and more like one with the underlying numbers to back it up. Their offense has been efficient, their defense has shown real bite, and the overall profile in advanced metrics suggests this start is not just a hot streak. Even the remaining schedule helps the argument, giving Detroit a path to keep building on what it has already shown.
The broader point is that the gap between interesting and legitimate feels smaller than it did a month ago. Detroit still has to prove it can sustain this level, but the returns of Cade Mays and Brian Branch after the bye could sharpen both sides of the ball at the right time. If those reinforcements land the way the Lions expect, the conversation around this team is going to keep shifting fast. [Read more 🡒]