Harrison arrival boosts Lions run defense
The Detroit Lions have as many holes as their 4-7 record would suggest, on offense, defense and special teams.
But as the Lions head down the home stretch looking for building blocks in this disappointing season, one that’s emerged is a run defense that’s miraculously gone from being one of the NFL’s worst to the league’s best in the last three weeks.
The Lions have allowed just 148 yards rushing over their last three games, the fewest in the league, and their turnaround has come despite playing some of the NFL’s best rushing offenses the Chicago Bears (twice) and Carolina Panthers.
“Statistically, we’re doing a good job with the run, which is good to see that consistency,” Lions head coach Matt Patricia said. “I would say even before maybe the last several weeks, I thought the run (defense) was improving. We kind of had those just one really bad run a game, where I thought if we could just eliminate those, it would really get the run game under control. So really, even maybe a couple weeks before the last several weeks, I thought the run game was getting better.”
The Lions allowed five rushes of 40 or more yards in their first eight games, and have not allowed a run longer than 10 yards since.
Defensive lineman Ricky Jean Francois said players are finally starting to take hold of Patricia’s defense and “stop second-guessing” themselves.
“I think that’s what a lot of us was doing, including myself,” he said. “We was second-guessing ourselves thinking like, you’re used to playing defense like this but now when you’ve been in the defense so long, eventually it had to start clicking in people’s heads so now everybody starts trusting each other. That was the biggest thing, to start trusting each other and they start trusting themselves first.”
Along with their improved comfort level in a defense that was new to most this year, the Lions have gotten a boost from defensive tackle Damon Harrison.
Harrison is averaging better than five tackles a game since the Lions acquired him in an October trade from the New York Giants. He has 2.5 sacks in his month in Detroit, tying a career-high for a season he set in 2016, and his presence has had an undeniable impact on games as opposing coaches have had to adjust blocking schemes to account for his presence.
“He makes a difference,” safety Glover Quin said. “He’s a big-time player in the middle, he’s a big-time run-stopper. So when the offense knows that they have to block him a certain way or put a certain amount of guys on him, that frees it up for other guys to get in one-on-ones and different situations.”
SERIES HISTORY: 85th regular-season meeting. Rams lead series, 43-40-1. In one memorable meeting between the teams, the Lions handed the Rams their second of three regular-season losses in 1999, when Gus Frerotte threw the game-winning touchdown pass to Johnnie Morton with 28 seconds to play.