After watching the Lions vs Bills in person, I asked my 16-year-old daughter for her impressions, and she said, “The defense was terrible. They couldn’t do anything.” It’s so wonderful to have confirmation that my daughter is not blind, making the game not a total loss.
I’m back home to Washington state from Buffalo, but not without overcoming multiple flight cancellations and delays and missed connections due to bad weather in Chicago and Denver. It’s ok, my travel turmoil was pleasant in comparison to watching the Lions’ woeful performance on Thursday night.
While on the plane home, I was able to watch almost all of the TV copy of the game, and it tracked well with what I saw in person. From a health standpoint, the outcome was favorable, as Avonte Maddox was the only injury I saw (unless you count Rock Ya-Sin’s testicles, which should be fine).
From a game standpoint, the inability of the Lions to get Jahmyr Gibbs any running space is very concerning, and the multi-year long inability of the defense to stop QB bootlegs is infuriating. I’m fairly certain my 13-year-old son has yet to see the Lions successfully stop a bootleg. I’m also fairly certain my 13-year-old son could have gained 70 yards bootlegging the Lions defense on Thursday.
Coming up in the next few days, I’ll have a full review of the Bills stadium (a bit underwhelming), the food scene (wings and weck for days), and the Buffalo/Niagara experience (epic Falls adventures).
In the meantime, here’s the pleasantly-short postgame injury report from Lions vs Bills:
🔴Bad news or high concern
🟡Uncertain or moderately concerning
🟢Good news or low concern
🔴Avonte Maddox, S (2q 12:41) - Left foot
The TV copy did not show any replays of Maddox’s injury. What I saw in-person was he appeared to run into Chuck Clark and go down. When medical came onto the field, the orthopedist’s initial exam was to the left midfoot area. This immediately made me concerned for a Lisfranc injury. Here was my vantage point…
As this reader accurately added, a plantar fascia injury is in that area of the foot also…
Other possibilities for the foot include a Jones fracture or turf toe. Any of these possibilities could be a multi-week recovery or more, depending on severity.
The on-field exam continued to the ankle and lower leg, but fortunately there did not seem to be any concern for the Achilles.
Maddox certainly had X-rays in stadium to check for a fracture. There is even an MRI machine at the Bills stadium, but it’s uncertain if this was utilized or not. After the game, he was reportedly in a boot and on crutches - certainly not a good sign, but not necessarily a sign of a long-term injury. Better to play it safe and avoid aggravation if there is any doubt.
After the game, Dan Campbell stated:
I don’t know. Maddox is pretty tough so when he didn’t come back, that makes me nervous. But I won’t know til tomorrow for sure.
Maddox has been banged up a lot over the past few seasons, which was why I gave him a moderate 5/10 medical concern level as a free agent this past offseason. Here was my medical report on Maddox from April, which includes pec surgery, toe surgery, neck injury, and more…
One of the concerns with Maddox was his age of 30. The advanced age of the secondary was one of my top 3 concerns heading into the season.
So far, Maddox already is worrisome for a significant injury, and the 30-year-old Rock Ya-Sin doesn’t look as good as he did last season. With age comes an increased risk of falling-off-a-cliff in performance and health at any time. The Lions have many young defensive backs (Ennis Rakestraw, Keith Abney, Nick Whiteside, Aamaris Brown) who might be worth trying to develop out there.
NOTABLES
🟢Christian Mahogany (LG) was on IR-watch heading into the game for hip & knee injuries, and ended up not going on IR - great news that signals he may be available within 1-2 weeks. Ben Bartch has had some glaring mistakes in the first two weeks, so it could help a lot to get Mahogany back.
My Lions Player Injury Tracker is updated for Mahogany and more, so check it out.
🟢DJ Reed (CB) was “questionable” for the game after a foot injury just two days prior. He ended up playing 96% of snaps and looked good. While there are no details on the foot injury, it must have been something very minor like getting stepped on causing a contusion or laceration. If you’re scoring at home, that’s 1 of 2 “questionables” that have played this year. Last year, the Lions’ “questionable play rate was 78%…
🟡Brian Branch (S) and Kerby Joseph (S), who are on PUP, are now eligible to open their 21-day practice window and can play as early as Game 5. I think there is a decent chance that Branch opens his window. Joseph’s status is uncertain and probably unrelated to his health at this point. The knee isn’t getting any better after 11 months of rest, so it just depends on when the Lions want to start testing it. I’m guessing the team will wait until November to do so.
Lions Week 2 Snap Count Analysis
OFFENSE
🔴Sam LaPorta (98%) - This is a very high snap count, but not unprecedented for LaPorta, who hit 100% in Week 9 last season. If the Lions are just letting him play out this final year of his contract, then the high snap count might make sense from a team standpoint - use him before you lose him. If the Lions plan on extending him, some load-management would be wise for his disc issue.
🔴Jahmyr Gibbs (83%) - Sione Vaki got just 17% and Jacob Saylors 0% (again). This is the second straight week of a very heavy workload for Gibbs. I know the Lions want to win games, but this game against an AFC opponent on a short week seemed like an ideal time to spread out the snaps.
DEFENSE
🟡Aidan Hutchinson (85%, 63 total) - So far, Hutch is getting a little more rest than last year, when he averaged 91%. Last game, he was at 83%. He appears to be winded often during the first two games, so his decreased percentage may be due to fatigue more than anything.
🟢Christian Izien (35%) - After missing one game with his groin, he played a good number of snaps. With his thick frame, tree-trunk legs, and #5 jersey, I thought David Montgomery had somehow snuck back onto the team…
Hopefully, Izien can provide an upgrade to the secondary the rest of the season. The Lions could really use it.
The Lions hoping to base their attack on a running offense have thus announced their plans to the other 31 NFL teams. It looks to me going back to last year and starting this year that defenses are keying on Gibbs a bit. This is too obvious. While he is very good, he is no Barry Sanders.
So where is Jamo? All preseason we heard about the great strides he was making during camp. Maybe they need some imagination and start with the passing game to help open the running game. JMHO...just my humble observation.
My fears were confirmed and our secondary got shredded (again). It's too bad the game got off to such a rough start, but those are some awesome seats, dude! Definitely worth the trip regardless of the outcome.
As for Maddox, his PFF grade of 38.9 after a game and a quarter of play currently has him as the fifth-worst rated safety in the NFL (out of a total of 72 safeties). You never want to see a guy go down, but whomever we start until Branch (and hopefully Joseph) come back probably can't do a whole lot worse.