Four weeks ago in their only win of the season, the Lions made life hard for Carson Wentz. They swarmed Washington's quarterback and racked up five sacks, their highest single-game total in three years. Aidan Hutchinson had three by himself. Charles Harris had a strip-sack that resulted in a safety. Ford Field went nuts. It felt like a coming-out party for the Lions' pass rush. The party is over: they have one sack in three games since.
Five games into the season, the Lions are back in familiar territory: last in the NFC North and last in the NFL in sacks.
It's hard to grasp the dormancy of Detroit's pass rush, because it's hard for anything to be dormant for this long. Imagine a bear dozing off after the 2015 season for its winter nap. Now imagine that bear still sleeping. Players have come and gone. General managers have been hired and fired. Coaches and coordinators have been spit out like gum. And all is quiet on the defensive front.
It's been seven years since the Lions finished among the NFL's top 10 teams in sacks. Over that same span, their NFC North rivals have all finished in the top 10 at least three times. Worse, the Lions are headed for their fourth straight bottom-10 finish. The Falcons are the only other NFL team that can sadly say the same.
It shouldn't be this hard for an NFL team to generate a respectable pass rush. The closest the Lions have come over the past seven years to ranking in the top 10 in sacks is 2018 when they finished 11th. Otherwise, they've ranked 32nd, 30th, 27th, 31st, 20th and 31st. They ranked seventh in 2015 when Ziggy Ansah's 14.5 sacks led the NFC.
Things do change. Defenses do get better. The Eagles were one of only two teams with fewer sacks than the Lions last season. Now only five teams have more than the Eagles. They returned the same head coach, same defensive coordinator and mostly the same front seven and haven't let that stop them from harassing the quarterback. Only three of the NFL's bottom 10 teams in sacks last season were back in the bottom 10 entering play last weekend.
Of course, this is what teams do in the offseason. They address their flaws. They dedicate dollars and draft capital to plugging their holes. The Lions have been trying to plug this hole since finishing second to last in sacks in 2016. They've spent seven Day 1 or Day 2 picks on front-seven players over the last six drafts. They've acquired six front-seven players for $10-plus million over the last five years. And that hole is wider than ever.
Things were supposed to change this season. The defense was supposed to get better. At the very least, the Lions were supposed to have a semblance of a pass rush after re-signing Harris for $13 million, drafting Hutchinson second overall and Josh Paschal one round later and then overhauling their scheme to wreak more havoc up front.
They've sent havoc, alright. It just hasn't gotten home. Through five games, Aaron Glenn's defense had the third highest blitz rate in the NFL and, per ESPN, the second lowest pass-rush win rate. The Lions haven't been quick enough, strong enough or smart enough to make their blitzes matter. How many times in Week 1 did they blow past Eagles QB Jalen Hurts like the parting seas? How many times in Week 4 and 5 did they barrel into a wall against the Seahawks and Patriots?
The Lions have missed Romeo Okwara. Their best one-on-one pass rusher earned a $37 million deal after producing 10 sacks in 2020 and hasn't played since Week 4 of last season due to a torn Achilles. They could use a boost from Paschal, especially with the news that fellow second-round pick Levi Onwuzurike is done for the year. And they could use something, anything, from, let's face it, one of the worst linebacker corps in the NFL.
There is plenty of time this season for the Lions to fix this. Hutchinson, a relative non-factor other than one half against Washington, should improve with more experience. Harris should starting beating more blocks. Paschal should provide more push up the middle. And the return of John Cominsky, Detroit's most disruptive defensive lineman before injuring his hand in Week 2, shouldn't be overlooked. Who knew how badly the Lions would miss a player who spent most of last season on the Falcons practice squad.
The bye came at the proverbial 'right time' for Dan Campbell and the Lions, who aren't going anywhere this season if they don't fix their defense. Which will remain in shambles if they don't start getting after the quarterback.
"That's one of the areas we're looking at," Campbell said entering the bye. How do we help our guys generate more pressure? Certainly, we need more rush."
Things are not meant to be static in the NFL. Anywhere on the field, year-over-year ineptitude is not the norm. We are in year seven of searching for a pass rush in Detroit. Will someone please poke the sleeping bear?
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