ALLEN PARK >> When the Lions and Eagles last met on Thanksgiving last year, Detroit emerged the winner in a blowout. It was the Lions’ fourth win of the season.
The question now is whether the Lions can pull off another upset over the Eagles.
They meet at 1 p.m. on Sunday at Ford Field.
The Eagles defense, under coordinator Jim Schwartz, is ranked third in the NFL. They have yet to give up a passing touchdown thanks to the secondary and pass rushers.
“I believe they rush the passer extremely well. Fletcher Cox I think is leading that group in terms of sacks. He’s a powerful rusher, disrupts the interior of the pocket quite often. (Vinny) Curry’s doing a very nice job with him as well, I mean just all across the board. This is a team that can really get, Connor Barwin will harass you,” coach Jim Caldwell said. “… They make certain you can’t hold that ball in your hand very long against this group so it has to come out pretty quickly, so I think they both kind of work together in that regard.”
This could be a challenge for the Lions’ young offensive line in protecting quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Five things to watch:
1. Tight ends have found success against the Lions defense week in and week out. In Chicago Bears tight end Zach Miller could not have been more wide open in the end zone for a third-quarter touchdown catch. “It’s like everything, we’ve got a lot of issues we’ve got to clean up, we’ve got to get better at,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “We just got to make sure that we do our job and being sound, and what we do coverage-wise. I’ve got to make sure I’m calling the right calls. Sometimes we put them in a stressful situation, and if we don’t make the play then it does become a big play. We’ve got some areas we’ve got to get better. They’ve got some good tight ends this week as we know, so we’ve got to do a better job of covering them, and so we’ll do a better job.”
2. First Ameer Abdullah went down and now Dwayne Washington is doubtful for Sunday with a bum ankle. That leaves the run game to Theo Riddick and Zach Zenner. Expect Zenner to get more work after he had a good showing at Chicago in his first offensive action so far this season. Zenner had one catch for 22 yards and three carries for a dozen yards including a 10-yard gain. “One of the things we realized is that every time (Zenner) touches it, he typically makes something positive happen,” coach Jim Caldwell said.
3. Golden Tate has not been a big contributor to the offense so far and had his worst week with the Lions with just one catch for one yard last Sunday. Offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter went out on a limb saying Tate would have a “huge” game. Tate has worked harder this week, acknowledging that his issue is “between his ears.”
4. Once again the defensive will try to pressure Eagles rookie quarterback Carson Wentz who hasn’t thrown an interception yet and has been sacked just four times. Without Ziggy Ansah, the pass rush has not been effective. “They’ve done a great job protecting the football, so it’s obviously going to be a challenge. We’re challenged getting it out right now, so I think we have to do some things, just stay with our game plan,” Austin said. “Continue to do the things that we think coaching-wise to get our guys in position to try to create a turnover. It’ll come, nobody goes the season, the entire season, with zero turnovers. I think hopefully it would be a great time for us to get it this week.”
5. Look for a better start by the Lions offense early. The slow starts are killing the Lions. Cooter said it’s something they’ve been working on. “Something we’ve been trying to figure out ourselves. We put together a really strong week of practice last week. I know coaches say that every week, but it was true last week. I mean we had a really strong week of practice. We did a good job, we were ready to go and for whatever reason it just didn’t happen,” Cooter said. “It’s something we’re evaluating, it’s something we’re trying to make sure doesn’t happen again and doesn’t happen as often as it has.” The Lions scored just 3 points in the first half in the loss at the Bears.
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– PHOTOS FROM LIONS LOSS AT PACKERS
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