Caldwell Expects Michael Ola To Have Bigger Role Going Forward
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
It's not exactly a state secret that the Lions' offensive line has been the worst unit on the team for most of the season.
Detroit fired two of its offensive line coaches before its Week 8 game against the Chiefs. And the personnel along the line has shuffled constantly, with most players switching positions at least a couple times throughout the season.
But the Lions might have found a bright spot in offensive tackle Michael Ola, who the team claimed off waivers at the end of October. He played a big role in Sunday's win against the Packers in Green Bay, playing the majority of time at right tackle.
LaAdrian Waddle, the incumbent starter at that position, has had a hard time maintaining both consistency and health this season.
Head coach Jim Caldwell said that the team is always looking to shuffle positions based on who provides the most consistent production. That can be especially hard to do in the trenches.
"We're going to keep trying to adjust and make adjustments to see if we can find the best combination of guys, even if we have to do it by packaging, you know," Caldwell said. "It's tough to do on the offensive line because you can't put one guy in there who's better at the run, and the other guy is better at pass protection. It obviously doesn't take very long for the defense to figure out what you're doing."
That certainly has been the case all season, with defenses picking the Lions' offensive line apart, wreaking havoc on quarterback Matthew Stafford.
But in Green Bay on Sunday – where the Lions won at Lambeau Field for the first time since 1991 – the line held up, and Stafford wasn't sacked once. The Lions' new signee, in Ola, was part of that.
"You have to find the guy that is consistently performing the best and so we're always searching, and so yeah, there's a chance that Ola gets a little – he played a lot last week," Caldwell said. "I think it was 60-some-odd plays off the top of my head, but that's a lot of plays, and I would not anticipate that that's going to diminish this week."
