When John Morton reviewed the Lions' loss last Sunday to the Vikings, the worst part of the film was "the protection," he said.
"We can draw up all these plays we want, it doesn’t matter. Winning our one-on-one matchups, that was big. That set us back, second and long, third and long, we had a lot of third and longs. But when we did things right, we did really well. That was the biggest thing. It’s just clogging the middle up, protection. You can’t do a lot of stuff (without) that. We all had our hand in the game plan, and we’ll do things differently next time," Morton said Thursday.
The Lions offensive coordinator had a slightly different view on things than their head coach. Immediately after the game, Dan Campbell was asked about the problems presented by the Vikings' aggressive, blitzing defense and said, "Listen, we did not handle some of the communication well. Not well enough, where we all need to be on the same page. That’s the bottom line."
Campbell reiterated that Monday, calling on the coaching staff to do "a better job" at practice "of really making our point about the communication and how it’s going to go down" on the offensive line. He said the Lions have "been pretty good" in that regard this season, but "it caught us a couple of times yesterday."
Goff was sacked five times and pressured a season-high 18 times, while the ground game averaged just 3.3 yards per carry. Running back Jahmyr Gibbs was asked to pass-block a season-high 15 times, per PFF, against various blitzes by the Vikings and was charged with seven pressures and a sack.
The breakdowns in Morton's view were due to one player missing a block here, a receiver running the wrong route there -- and certainly Campbell saw some of those issues, too. Indeed, some of them were glaring. Morton acknowledged the Vikings caused issues with "their movement up front," but said the Lions "had things for it, we had chances." He believes that "when you watch it in detail ... We had a good scheme." All 11 players just didn't execute it in concert frequently enough for the Lions to win.
The identifications of the defense by center Graham Glasgow and Jared Goff "have been good," said Morton. The communication, he said, "has been really good ever since the Green Bay game."
"It’s just a matter of some guys getting beat," Morton said. "That’s all it is, man. I’m just telling you. When you look at it over and over and over, it’s one or two guys that are just breaking down. We’ve got young guys, they’re still learning, and really they shouldn’t be because, man, we’re halfway through the season. Everybody’s a vet. And we’ve addressed it."
Whether the problems were mental or physical against the Vikings, they won't get any easier to fix with left guard Christian Mahogany out until at least late December with a knee injury and left tackle Taylor Decker nursing shoulder and knee injuries. Morton reiterated that his main concern with the offense is that if the quarterback doesn't have time to "throw the ball, it doesn’t matter" which plays are on the call sheet.
"We gotta fix this up front and protecting the quarterback, and we will. We’ve addressed it. Working on it yesterday and today. We have to do it, because if you don’t address it, teams are going to keep doing what they've seen on tape. That’s the important thing: make the corrections, go on and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. If it does, then you gotta make some changes," Morton said.
The Lions aren't considering any such moves at this point, because they believe in what their offensive players have put on film for the bulk of this season -- and because they already have one offensive lineman to replace in Mahogany. They just need more consistent execution up front.
"Guys, listen, this is fixable. That’s the beauty of it," Morton said. "This is all fixable."