Lions offensive line looks for consistency
The Detroit Lions’ high-priced offensive line has been very hit and miss this season, but head coach Matt Patricia said last week’s 10-sack letdown against the Minnesota Vikings was more of a blip on the radar than a sign of things to come.
“I like our offensive line a lot,” Patricia said. “Our group works extremely hard every single day to get better and I think if you look at the overall picture of what we’re talking about, this group has been one of the groups of our team that has gotten much better in the course of a year.”
Last year, the Lions started 11 different combinations on their offensive line and struggled to generate any push in the running game or protect Matthew Stafford.
Stafford took a career-high 47 sacks last year, and the Lions ranked last in the league in rushing. This year, the Lions have the league’s 20th-ranked rushing offense, and Stafford is on pace to be sacked another 46 times.
While those numbers don’t constitute a turnaround by any measure, there have been bright spots. Rookie Frank Ragnow has solidified the left guard position and might be the best offensive lineman on the team, and center Graham Glasgow appears more at home at center than he did at guard.
Both Ragnow and Glasgow have played every snap this year.
A bigger issue has been the play of right tackle Rick Wagner, who was victimized by Danielle Hunter (3.5 sacks) last week, and to a lesser extent left tackle Taylor Decker, as well as the health of right guard T.J. Lang.
Lang has been in and out of the lineup with an assortment of injuries, and his replacement, Kenny Wiggins, is below average.
Wagner has struggled against quick edge rushers, and he has another tricky matchup Sunday against Khalil Mack and the Chicago Bears.
“I think we would all agree that this offensive line has gotten a lot better and that’s a positive,” Patricia said. “So, look, no one likes a game that we had on Sunday. Certainly not a good situation for us there. There’s a lot of contributing factors to something like that. But I think again, it’s a full team game, so probably should have done something better all the way around to help everybody because obviously we didn’t win, and that’s the main thing is trying to win.”
SERIES HISTORY: 177th regular-season meeting. Bears lead series, 97-74-5. The Lions have won nine of the last 10 games in the series, with one memorable meeting coming in 2015 when both Calvin Johnson and Lance Moore topped 100 yards receiving and the Lions won on a Matt Prater field goal on the fifth possession of overtime for their first win of the season.