In a span of two games, the Lions have gone from the highest-scoring team in the NFL to the ninth highest. But offensive coordinator Ben Johnson isn't worried about opposing defenses catching up.
Johnson said Thursday that while Detroit's offense has slowed down of late, it's not due to predictability or anything happening on the other side of the ball.
"We take a lot of pride in scouting ourselves and taking a look at what the defense is doing and potentially looking to exploit on us. We mix it up," said Johnson. "It would be difficult to say that any defense we’ve faced so far has actually practiced a play that we ran in the game, certainly not identical to how we’ve ran it in the game. We have a lot of variety, we’re very multiple. That’s at our core and we want to continue doing that.
"So I don’t believe that defenses are being able to catch up to us. For us offensively, it comes down to execution.”
Recently, it's come down to ball security. The Lions have scored six total points over their last two games, over which time they've committed seven turnovers -- five of them in last week's loss to the Cowboys. They had committed just four turnovers over their first four games when they had the No. 1 offense in the NFL.
"The turnovers were the biggest story of the game for us last week," Johnson said. "It really comes down to formulating our game plan and executing it at the end of the day. We haven’t changed our process, we haven’t changed our week of preparation. We had been consistent with that. Just because we’ve had some stumbling blocks along the way, we’re really not going to change what we do."
One thing they are trying to change: Jared Goff's pocket awareness. Goff is responsible for six turnovers himself the last two games, thanks to poor decisions with the ball and a lack of composure in the pocket. He's thrown three picks and lost three fumbles while subjecting himself to pressure by backpedaling behind his strong offensive line. Goff admitted to the issue himself this week, which Johnson says is the first step toward correcting it.
"He acknowledges that he’s turned the ball over too many times," Johnson said. "He acknowledges that his pocket presence can be better. Once that happens, now we can work on finding solutions. And it starts with practice, putting him in situations that are tough, challenging looks, so that his reaction on gameday is what we need it to be."
Goff and the Lions offense will try to re-find their rhythm Sunday against a Dolphins defense that's allowed the seventh highest passer rating (98.1) in the NFL.
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