Detroit Lions Week 3 snap counts: Linebacker success allows heavy use of base defense

The Detroit Lions are leaving Baltimore with a convincing 38-30 win over the Ravens in a game that didn’t look as close as the score might indicate. Let’s take a closer look at the Lions’ snap counts to see what we can divulge from their personnel usage that may have led to this impressive showing in Primetime.

Goff only threw for 202 yards and one touchdown in the Lions’ victory, but he didn’t turn the ball over and didn’t take a sack, tipping the odds in Detroit’s favor.

The Lions continue to favor Gibbs in their running back splits, but this was Montgomery’s night to shine. Montgomery had a career night, registering 151 rushing yards, two touchdowns, and a reception for 13 yards—touching the ball on 13 of his 25 snaps. Gibbs also touched the ball on roughly half his snaps, accounting for 67 rushing yards, two touchdowns, and five receptions for 32 yards.

Vaki returned to the lineup after missing the first two weeks with a hamstring injury, but on his seventh special teams snap, he injured his groin and was forced out of the game. Soft tissues often lead to other soft tissue injuries, and if Vaki misses time, the Lions will count themselves lucky to have Reynolds available to them.

These are almost exactly the splits we saw with the Lions receiver group in Week 2 and indicates a clear preference in usage. Williams continues to threaten the defense with deep shots, leading to his high usage, while St. Brown is right behind him, tearing apart secondaries. Raymond also continues to get more usage over TeSlaa, but the rookie is still getting his feet wet in the NFL, and his snaps will likely increase as the year progresses. Lovett’s only snap came during the Lions’ victory formation snap to end the game.

The Lions have used 12 personnel on roughly 30% of their snaps through the first two games, but that number increased to closer to 40% against the Ravens, as the Lions wanted to bully them in the trenches. The Lions’ tight ends played significant roles in the run game, often being asked to block a Ravens edge rusher one-on-one so that the offensive line could execute double teams against the Ravens’ interior.

The double teams the Lions executed were slightly different from what we’ve traditionally seen. Instead of using two interior players (like Ratledge and Glasgow) to double a nose tackle, the Lions leaned on Sewell and Ratledge to move bodies. It was wildly effective.

The Sewell Ratledge combo blocks cleared Jones out of his gap—a player known as a near-immovable nose tackle—and when Sewell gained his leverage, Ratledge would peel off and target MIKE linebacker Roquan Smith: one of the best run-stuffing linebackers in the NFL. The Ravens had no answer for the Lions’ power, and they gashed Baltimore up the middle more and more as the game progressed.

Early in this game, the Lions were leaning on SAM linebacker Derrick Barnes to work opposite Hutchinson, but it wasn’t long before Muhammad seized his opportunities and earned more playing time. Muhammad benefited from the Ravens’ double-teaming of Hutchinson, but once Baltimore realized Muhammad was a problem, they adjusted their pass blocking to balance it out, and that opened things up for Hutchinson. Of the Lions’ seven sacks, Muhammad accounted for 2.5 and Hutchinson got one of his own, along with a forced fumble.

O’Connor continues to see snaps at the 4i, but we did see Tyler Lacy start to eat into those numbers. Wheat saw two pass-rushing snaps late in the game.

After shifting to more of an athletic approach against the Bears, the Lions leaned on their bigger bodies against the Ravens, as things looked more like what we’ve come to expect from this front. They leaned on their run stuffers in the middle of the line, and as the game wore on, the strength of the front showed up. The Lions only allowed the Ravens to rush for 19 yards in the second half of that game.

The Lions’ game plan called for a heavy usage of linebackers and, man, did they deliver. Detroit uses their base defense more than any other team in the NFL, and coming into this game, they knew they wanted to use it as much as possible against the Ravens’ terrific offense. With the linebackers playing at a high level in this game, the Lions could attack the Ravens’ rushing attack with bigger bodies at the second level, while also bringing extra pressure on Lamar Jackson when he was in obvious passing situations—registering 3.5 sacks as a group.

Starters Campbell and Anzalone never left the field, while Barnes pass rushed, got a sack, stopped the run, and dropped into coverage. However, what really elevated this group was the play of their reserves. Nowaske was deployed as a spy, and while he only had eight snaps, he made the most of it by registering a sack. Meanwhile, Cunningham only played two snaps, both in goal-line defense, and made critical tackles on both opportunities, keeping the Ravens’ Derrick Henry out of the end zone on second and third-down runs.

With the Lions using a lot of base defense, there weren’t a ton of opportunities to shift to subpackages, but they did do a nice job of getting Robertson some time and their starters some rest. Arnold had a very difficult first half, when the Lions were leaning on a lot of man-coverage concepts, but when they shifted into Cover-3 more in the second half, the entire secondary did a much better job of limiting the Ravens’ passing game, while also helping the front-seven collect six of their seven sacks.

Now, the pure stats are going to say the opposite, as they allowed 190 of their 288 passing yards in the second half, but 65 of those came with the Lions in prevent defense, and Jackson also had to throw twice as many passing attempts in the second half as they were playing from behind.

A little quieter night from the Lions safeties, but Cover-3 only operates effectively if they’re doing their job in the part of the field you don’t see on the broadcast.

Bates made a heck of a touchdown-saving tackle, but he also put a kickoff out of bounds. Special teams overall needs more work.