Lions Quarterly: Week 1 - Lions vs. Giants [BLOG]
By: Dan Hasty
@DanHasty34
The Lions took control of their season with a 35–14 win over the New York Giants. Rather than giving you a huge mumbo-jumbo running down each play, let's simply look at each quarter and the biggest takeaway from each.
1st - Perfect Start
You couldn't of asked much more from the Lions to start Monday's game. Finding Calvin Johnson as open as a Vegas buffet seemed to open the floodgates, and show everyone that this offense can be the real deal. Stafford began the season a perfect 3/3 on his opening drive for 85 yards and that 67-yard touchdown. Stafford followed up by repeating the act on his next drive, finding Megatron from 16 yards out on 3rd and 13 for another score. Just like that: 14-0 Lions.
2nd - Defense exposed - Bentley injury
If there was a downside to this game, the second quarter was it. After building a 14–0 lead through the team's first two drives, the offense got stagnant and had huge trouble establishing the run. More importantly, the defense found themselves vulnerable when safety Jerome Couplin was hit with a 15 yard personal foul for roughing Giants punter Steve Weatherford, and cornerback Darius Slay received a pass interference penalty to put the ball at Detroit's 1 yard line. Eli Manning then found Larry Donnell for his first NFL touchdown, which seemed to steal the momentum for the time being. Make matters worse, cornerback Bill Bentley left clutching his knee, with the team holding out hope that he didn't suffer a season-ending ACL injury.
Penalties hurt the Lions in the second, as fans were disappointed being up only a touchdown at halftime despite dominating the Giants in nearly every statistical category.
3rd - Calming down the penalties
The most important take away from the third-quarter was after a very undisciplined first half, the Lions found themselves playing refocused and disciplined football. After committing eight penalties for 85 yards in the first half, the Lions buckled down, not committing a penalty the rest of the game. Erasing the penalties made the Lions an effective, ball-control offense, making life nearly impossible for Eli Manning when its defense was on the field.
4th - Putting the game away
To begin the fourth quarter, the Giants were the beneficiaries to some cramping of safety Glover Quin, leaving Isa Abdul-Quddus & Couplin as the safeties on the field. The Giants took advantage, feeding RaShad Jennings for a 1 yard touchdown to make the score 27–14 Lions.
The Giants needed to get the ball back, and the result they got was their worst-case scenario. The Lions took an impressive drive 12 plays, and 80 yards, converting three different third-downs to set up a 3-yard touchdown run by Joique Bell, as well as take 7:14 off the clock. Jim Caldwell called this "The most important drive of the game," as the Lions put the exclamation point on their 35–14 win.
