Amon-Ra St. Brown has been a focal point of the Detroit Lions offense since his rookie campaign, with his consistency week-by-week, season-by-season well known throughout the league.
That consistency, however, has eluded the Detroit Lions offense lately. After practice on Thursday afternoon, the former USC star spoke on the struggles in the first year with John Morton as the helm.
St. Brown was not pointing fingers, instead, the veteran held a strong belief in his teammates, but cited the lack of production due to a lack of cohesion, or “flow,” in the offense as a whole.
“I think for us, as an offense, the word that sticks out to me is ‘flawed.’ I feel like we haven’t been in a flow all year,” the All-Pro receiver revealed. “There’s been a few games where we had a flow, the Bears, we were in a flow, you can save the Ravens too. But I feel like that flow is missing, whatever you want to call flow, rhythm, execution, just everything as a whole. I feel like we’ve been missing that flow.”
That lack of flow, however, does not daunt the receiver. The three-time Pro Bowler sees the work the staff and team are putting in at practice, and has a strong belief in the offense getting back to their days with massive outputs.
“So, if we get that back, I should say, when we get that back, we’ll be just fine,” St. Brown said. “I think everyone, staff, players included, we are all working towards that, and I think we’ll get there.”
The next step for St. Brown is clear. The communication and execution needed to sustain a drive, no matter the length, is what needs to fall in line next. Once those small mental errors are erased, the Lions will be making plays again.
For us, it’s just communication, execution, you know, whether it’s scoring in five plays, scoring in 18 plays, as long as we’re on track, taking care of the football, doing all the little stuff: details, fundamentals. I think we’re a pretty good offense,” St. Brown said. “We got guys that can make plays everywhere. We just got to get back in that flow.”
Offensive coordinator John Morton had spoken to the media earlier in the week, and he also spoke on the lack of execution. The coordinator jumped straight into a few areas of execution that he wanted to see better.
The lack of winning matchups in protection, or matchups in the run game, sunk the Lions. It kept the Lions away from advantageous situations. However, when the execution was there, Morton could see the positives in the film. He also was not blind to criticism, citing that there would be differences in the gameplan next time.
“The protection, that was the biggest thing,” Morton emphasized. “I mean we draw up all these plays we want, doesn’t matter. That was the biggest thing. Winning our one-on-one matchups, that was big. That set us back – second-and-long, third-and-long. We had a lot of third-and-longs. But when we did things right, we did really well. That was the biggest thing. It just – clogging the middle up, protection. You can’t do a lot of stuff with that. And we all have our hand in that gameplan, and we would do things differently next time.”
Jared Goff laments struggles, expresses belief in the future
Lions passing game coordinator David Shaw weighed in on the struggles, comparing it to basketball when a team struggles to establish a midrange jump shot. Quarterback Jared Goff agreed with this analysis, citing the fundamentals are sometimes lagging behind, much in the same way a basketball player can lose their shooting form or focus when shooting a jumper.
“That’s a good way to put it. It’s kind of like the fundamentals,” Goff cited. “We are getting explosive at times, and we are getting some of the dinks and dunks here and there, but it’s the fundamentals of some of the middle of the road stuff that has been lacking.”
On the surface, this may seem overwhelming. There is not one area that Goff, Morton, St. Brown, or any of the staff and players can point to as an obvious struggle.
For the Lions’ star signal caller, however, he disagrees with the notion of it being overwhelming. There are always elements and fundamentals of the game each player is trying to work at to execute better, and facing those challenges is the hidden story between each Sunday.
Goff also pointed out the irony of all the praise a few weeks ago, compared to now. The Lions are still at work, and they are not hiding from their problems. Goff believes the team will get it turned around.
“I don’t think it’s very difficult,” Goff disagreed. “I think it’s just everybody to themselves doing their job the way they’re supposed to do it. Every one of us has our hand in it, getting a little bit better every week trying to solve those issues, and I think a season, there are ebbs and flows. It comes and goes. You fight adversity, you get over adversity. A few weeks ago we were the greatest thing since sliced bread, and now we are a horrible offense apparently. It comes and goes. We try to get better, and we try to fix it, certainly there are things to fix in this game. I can go back a few weeks where there’s been things we need to get better at. Yeah, it’s not missing us. We know that, we’re not naïve to it, and planning to get things fixed.”
