Getty Jared Goff throws a pass against the Cardinals in 2021.
During the first half of the 2021 season, the Detroit Lions were a team feared by nobody in terms of their passing attack. Far too often, Detroit’s offense bogged down and fell behind in games. As a result, the team struggled to put together wins.
Perhaps surprisingly, that has not continued over the second half of the season at all. In the month of December, the Lions have not only gotten themselves on a winning streak, but they have managed to look better in the process as well, putting up points and sustaining more drives than before.
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In fact, if the Detroit offense looked much better in December to fans, their eyes were hardly deceiving them. As Chris Burke of The Athletic showed in a tweet, the team actually had the best first-half offense in games during the month in the entire NFL.
So, for the month of December the Lions had the most efficient first-half passing offense in the NFL.
Through the game, the progress drops a little bit, but the team remains one of the top groups in the league in December in terms of passing the ball.
Full game … still pretty good!
Factors that may have helped this include Dan Campbell taking over play calling, the resurgent play of quarterback Jared Goff and the development of pass caching threats. Additionally, the team’s offensive line has gotten a bit healthier, allowing Goff more time to make accurate throws.
Add it all up and the team deserves credit for being able to hang tough and put up some numbers that nobody expected were possible for this month.
Lions Offense Making Statiscial Gains, Helped By Josh Reynolds
Whereas the Detroit passing offense was lagging behind, it has climbed up the ladder from one of the worst units in the league to a middling group, which has been quite the turnaround. Buoyed by December’s resurgence, the Lions now have the 24th rated passing offense in the league and are putting up 201 yards per-game through the air to go with 18 touchdowns. While those numbers might not seem like much, they are far and away better than what the team was trending toward in early November when completing a pass looked difficult.
Wide receiver Josh Reynolds has been a breath of fresh air for the Lions since he joined the team and deserves a ton of credit for helping to unlock things for Detroit. In Week 15, he managed to score his second touchdown with the Lions. In total, he’s put up 295 yards with Detroit and has been arguably the biggest reason the team is moving the ball better over this span along with Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jared Goff.
With Reynolds and St. Brown, Goff is looking like a new quarterback. He is making confident decisions and can scan the field and hit open wideouts. Reynolds has been able to expand the field deeper so that others might operate. It’s been a great pairing for the Lions, and since Reynolds came along, the team has been much better on the offensive side. Given his addition and what he has done, it might not be a coincidence the team is rising with regard to stats.
Goff Enjoying Own Resurgence Within Lions’ Offense
obviously, none of this would be possible without the improved play of Goff at quarterback. In spite of all the struggles early on, Goff is finding a way to finish the 2021 season strong. Since Thanksgiving, Goff has been on relative fire as statistics go at quarterback. He’s thrown 9 touchdowns to just 2 interceptions while going off for 898 yards. Goff has also claimed elusive awards for a Lions quarterback such as NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors as well as FedEx Air Player of the Week award for his work in recent weeks.
Perhaps better than that, Goff is comparing with some of the elite quarterbacks in the league in terms of QBR. Over the last four weeks, Goff is neck and neck with some obvious NFL studs of the game as MLive.com’s Kyle Meinke pointed out with a Tweet:
Since coming back from the oblique injury 4 weeks ago, Jared Goff has 9 TDs, 2 picks and a passer rating of 105.1.
The complete list of starting QBs with a better rating than Goff in that stretch:
Aaron Rodgers (121.4)
Matthew Stafford (116.2)
Russell Wilson (108.8)
For a player who many have accused of lacking talent, these statistics show that Goff might offer the Lions a lot in 2022. He could also be one of the biggest reasons the Detroit offense is seeing a late-season statistical resurgence that could lead to hope for the future.
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