Detroit Lions EXPANDING Offense To DEPLOY BOMBS On Defenses!

The Lions are going to be opening up their offense ALOT in 2025!

#detroitlions #onepride #lions

Welcome to Detroit. Doesn’t matter if you have one ass cheek and three toes. I will beat your ass. You can drown them. And that’s what we got to be. That’s who we have to be cuz that’s our domain. That is our domain because we’ll tread water as long as it takes to bury you. Takes the snap, turns, gives to Montgomery right side zone. Touchdown Detroit Lions. We are driven by Detroit. Hello Detroit Lions friends, fans, and family members. Welcome on back to yet another episode of MCM Motor City Mania. I’m your host, David T. Pike, and as always, we’re diving on in. So folks, for this episode here, what we’re going to be talking about are bombs. We’re gonna be talking about deep passing. We’re going to be talking about the long ball. Yes, we are going to be talking about how it appears from Detroit Lions training camp as far as, you know, reports that we’re hearing, as far as highlight clips that we’re seeing that the Detroit Lions are wanting to continue to further expanding their offense to to, you know, to continue to open up the deep passing game. Now, anybody who’s been a Lions fan for the last couple of years knows that this has been somewhat somewhat of a sore spot when it comes to the whole conversation as far as the Lions offense. Because for the longest time, the Lions offense has been known kind of like this dink and dunk offense. An offense where they don’t really push the ball down the field. An offense where it’s like, hey, you know what? very systematically, very methodically follows within that traditional understanding of what a West Coast offense is, which is in essence an extension of the run game through the pass game. And a lot of other things have kind of fed into this whole thing as well, which primarily when we talk about the deep passing game, we’re talking about the quarterback. And when we’re talking about the quarterback, we’re talking about Jared Goff. And again, one of the largest misconceptions about the Detroit Lions, especially about Jared Goff, is that they can’t throw the deep ball. Jared Goff apparently is a noodle arm quarterback. Doesn’t have the ability to push the ball down the field. Even if he does have the ability, he doesn’t want to push the ball down the field. And this was a misconception that Long was in, you know, the NFL kind of like, you know, narrative for, I would say, at least the first two, two and a half years that the Lions, you know, were under, you know, Jared Goff being quarterback. But over the last couple of years, that narrative has started to quietly change. It’s not completely gone, but the one thing that when it comes to the Detroit Lions as of late is that when you take a look at what’s been going in training camp, when you take a look at the reports, the highlight clips, like I’ve said, you’re seeing a lot more deep ball throwing. You’re seeing a lot more deep ball completions. You’re seeing the Lions wanting to further expand upon and further want to build upon their deep passing routes, their deep passing game. And the funny thing about it is is that like I said, this misconception that golf can’t throw the ball deep is one that’s been around for a long, long time. But the funny thing about it is is that if you actually take a look at the information, you actually take a look at what’s been out there since, you know, golf has been in the league back in 200, if I recall correctly, it was 2016 was when he got drafted. Jared Goff is actually a very accomplished deep ball thrower. Just because he doesn’t do it a whole hell of a lot or that he hasn’t done it as prolifically as some other quarterbacks does not mean that he can’t do it does not mean that he won’t do it. He’s just selective about it. He is smart about it. There is a very huge difference between a guy that won’t do it versus a guy who is smart and selective about, hey, you know what? This is when we’re going to do it. And again, if you’ve also paid attention to what G has said in the past, he actually likes throwing the ball deep. And in fact, one of his uh favorite times to throw the ball deep trying to look for a big play is off of playaction, you know, routes, off of playaction passes because that for him is where, okay, you know what, there’s the best opportunity to find those types of plays. The defense is caught off guard. You’ll be able to find wide receivers and tight ends. They’ll be running all over the field wide open. That’s when he wants to do it. Again, there is a huge difference, as I said, between a guy that won’t do it at all versus a guy who is smart and selective about it like Jared Goff is. And again, one of the things that I want to point out here is that Goff has been one of those guys that has been hugely underrated when it comes to the whole deep passing component over the entire course of his career, but especially ever since he got here to Detroit. And the reason I know this is because again, a lot of people last year again kind of looked at the whole offense that the Lions had and they were like, “Oh, you know what? It’s pretty much just building upon what they did last year.” Yeah, sure you guys have Jamos. Sure, we’re seeing some more, but again, it’s not really a deep ball passing offense. Well, the point of the matter is is if you actually take a look at the statistics, if you actually take a look at the analytics, you get a very different picture. First and foremost here, when you take a look at PFF’s particular analytics in terms of their deep ball passing, which according to them, their deep ball passing analytic is 20 yards or more out. This is what they had to say for Jared Goff last year. Jared Goff last year was 18 of 43 which was for 41.9% which was ranked ninth best out of all quarterbacks actually with 50 or more% of their attempts going over you know the deep ball completion percentage. He had 644 yards which was ranked 16th. 15 in average of throw in terms of that which was ranked fourth. Seven passing touchdowns which was tied eighth. 16.3 touchdown percentage. Three interceptions for seven interception percentage. Had a 99.6 passer rating which was ranked 12th. And his time to throw when doing these types of throws was tied seventh best with a 3.05 time to throw. What does that all tell you? What does that all convey? What is the message there? Well, what the message there ought to clearly tell you is that Jared Goff is a top 10 deep ball passer. At least based off of the statistics from last year. Yes, the completion percentage is not over 50%. But you know what? But if you go back and you take a look at the actual statistics and the analytics, I think out of all the quarterbacks that were in that 50% or more of their passes going over that, um, only two of them were over 50%. It is extremely hard to have a high completion percentage throwing the ball deep down the field. So, the fact that golf is in the 40th percentile is actually pretty damn good. Now, the fact that Jared Golf doesn’t have as many yards compared to everybody, again, that’s not something anybody should sweat. again, selective, smart about when doing it. Because here’s the thing. Oh, when Jared Golf did do it, his pass average on completions for throws of that nature was through the damn roof. Top five touchdowns, top 10 freaking his pass rating was just a smidge outside of the top 10. But again, going back to other things that I’ve talked about with Jared Goff, his processing speed is one of the fastest in those cases. again top 10 in that as well. So when you start taking a look at what Jared Golf was able to do last year when they were really starting to open it up a little bit more, not as much as what they’re doing it right now in terms of camp, but when they were starting to open it up more, Jared G already proved last year that he can throw the ball down the field pretty damn well. And again, the best example that I can show from last year is the throw. And again, it’s in my freaking um you know, intro video is when Jared Goff absolutely unccorked that, you know, freaking 60 yard airbomb which went for like 80 plus yards in Chicago late in the season to Jameson Williams. Absolutely a beautiful throw, which oh, not only was it a deep ball pass, but it was in cold weather. It was in a windy environment because oh that’s right, we were playing in Chicago known as the windy city. And again, Jameson Williams didn’t have to break stride at all for that throw. And as you just saw when I had it up there, that ought to be the perfect piece of evidence that shows that Jergo is more than capable of being a guy that can facilitate the deep ball passing in the NFL. But again, that’s from last year. If you actually take a look at some of the training camp highlights that have been coming out this year, you’re already seeing that it’s not just golf that’s doing it very well, but it’s the entire Detroit Lions offense in terms of, okay, you know what, we’re using all these different ways to potentially get the ball down the field deep. I’m going to show you some highlight clips cuz I know fans love to see those. I know fans love to actually get their ability to take a look at that. Not everybody has the ability to scroll around on Twitter all day. Let’s take a look at this first one. This one, what we’re going to see is Jir Gibbs running a route against Alex Analone who’s in coverage. Put it up on the screen here. What you’re going to notice almost instantaneously right off from the bat is that Gibbs speed is on full display. Like I’m sorry for Alex Angelone. He has no chance whatsoever against Gibbs. Gibbs absolutely burns him. But what you notice here, other than the fact that Gibbs’s, you know, speed is just fully on pure display here, is that the ball to Gibbs is thrown perfectly. The ball is led in a perfect position to where all Gibbs has to do is really just run underneath it and it’s going into the end zone. It’s for a touchdown. What this ought to show you is a couple of things. Uh number one, as we’ve heard all throughout training camp, the Lions are wanting to get Gibbs more involved in the passing game. And it’s not just little dink and dunks. It’s not just slants, quick outs, you know, zigs, zags, whatever the hell you want to call it. They’re trying to get him involved in a number of ways, including in the deep passing game. And what that clip ought to definitely tell you is that, okay, yeah, Gibbs is more than capable of facilitating in that. And that right there is an exciting thing. Again, once again, I’, as I’ve talked about before, when you have another weapon coming out of the back field, especially one like Gibbs who can take it all the way or is a deep threat as well, not just a short threat as far as, you know, in the passing game, that opens up the offense even more. Let’s move on to the next one, which again also features Alex Anelonian coverage, but this time it’s against tight end Sam Leaporta. In this particular play, what you’re going to notice is that actually, contrary to the last one, Alex Analone is in actually pretty damn good coverage. He’s in tight coverage, which I mean, let’s call it for what it is. Sam Leaport is a pretty fast tight end, but uh he doesn’t have 4443 speed like, you know, Gibbs does. But what you notice is that an Anelone is in tight coverage on Leaporta. It’s a pretty good job on his part, but Leaporta actually makes a really good job of jumping up, going and getting the ball, securing the catch. And, you know, again, based upon what I was able to infer from the field position, this would have easily had been, you know, about a 20, 25, maybe 30 yard drop in the bucket. And once again, the Lions offense, had this been a game position or a game situation, they’d have been easily in the red zone. Again, you can’t really tell who the quarterback is throwing the ball here, but what you can tell is that again, the Lions are trying to push the ball further down the field, and they’re looking to do it in as many ways as they possibly can. whether it’s with the running back, whether it’s with the tight end, or as we’re about to see here in these next couple of clips, the old traditional way, which is obviously with the wide receivers. Now, in this next clip, what we’re going to see is actually a wide receiver that again I like a whole hell of a lot, but we don’t really get to hear a whole lot about him. We don’t get to see a whole lot of him because, you know, he’s usually on the practice squad. The Lions don’t really, you know, put him into a game situation unless they’re depleted, which they haven’t had to deal with that in the wide receiver room for a while. That’s wide receiver Tom Kennedy. But what you notice here is that it doesn’t always have to be the starters who can showcase not only one their ability to go down the field deep, but also again continuing to showcase the Lions ability to open up the deep ball to further expand upon it. In this clip here, as I’m about to show you, what you notice is that Tom Kennedy from the get-go, he gets a really good jump on the defender that’s trying to guard him. Tom Kennedy is easily, I would say, you know, two, three steps in front of his man. And what happens here is again, the ball is led perfectly into the end zone. Tom Kennedy, all he has to do is get underneath it. Easy pitching catch for a touchdown. Again, what you’re noticing here is that the Lions are doing everything they can to further hone, to further craft, to further perfect their deep ball passing game. And they’re doing it in a number of ways. It doesn’t always have to be a bomb in terms of like a go or a fade route. You can do this in a number of ways. Whether it’s a dig route, whether it’s a corner post, whether it’s a post route. There’s multiple ways to open up the deep passing game. It’s not just, oh, hey, you know what? just run a vertical line and I’m going to try and get the ball underneath you. So again, you get to see that from Tom Kennedy. Now, perhaps the best example out of camp so far that we have seen of this actually was a clip I think was released before the I think it was released the day before yesterday. I could be wrong, but it was very recently. In this particular clip, we have wide receiver Khalif Freeman, which is a guy that typically doesn’t get remembered all that whole much as far as a receiving option. But let’s understand something here. The first two years, while the Lions were still kind of building their receiving court, trying to trying to get it to where it is right now, Khif Raymond actually was, you know, the number two wide receiver in terms of receiving yards on the team. So, it’s not like this guy’s just a special teams ace. This guy actually has the ability to be a pretty damn good receiver as well. And what you’re going to notice here is that this is just an absolute moonball. This is just a rocket shot out of golf because golf is the one that you know, you clearly see in the beginning of the clip. But what you see here is golf just absolutely unccorks an absolute, you know, cannonball here. And this must be about 50 60 yards down the field easily. But what you notice at the very end of the play there is that Khif Raymond, he’s not having to slow down. He’s not really having to do anything. He just has to be underneath it. It’s still pretty good coverage by the defender that’s on him. But again, Khalif Raymond makes a good jump. He makes a good uh uh, you know, go to go after the ball and, you know, secure the catch. And again, it again shows one the Lions attempt to want to again further expand the deep ball passing option, but it also shows that Khalif Raymond is just as good as a receiving element as he is a return element. And on top of that, it’s an absolutely magnificent throw by Jared Goff. Like again, talk about an absolute moon rocket shot. And then the last two that I want to show you, I’m going to just put them all into one here, is Tesla. Isaac Tesla, I I’m telling you this right now. I remember when we drafted him, I didn’t doubt what, you know, Brad Holmes was doing here. I knew exactly when I was like, “Okay, I see the size. I see the speed. I see this guy’s ability to catch the ball with his hands. But I’m telling you this right now, there are a lot of Lions fans that if Tesla continues to expand upon what he’s already done and continues to get better, there’s a lot of Lions fans that are going to owe Brad Holmes a damn big apology because what you’re going to notice is both of these throws, they’re actually pretty good throws by Lions backup quarterback. You know, Kyle Allen. Kyle Allen’s the one that’s throwing the ball here in both of these. But what you’re going to notice here is that Isaac Tesla, because of his size, because of the speed that he has, because he has 44 speed and again 6’4, 210, 215 pound body, absolutely a big body threat for a freaking quarterback to throw the ball to, which gives them an immense amount of confidence. What you’re going to see here is again the the use of his hands to go out and get the ball. He’s not waiting for the ball to come into his body. He’s going out and he’s getting it. And again, when you have a wide receiver that goes out and gets the ball, goes and, you know, makes sure that they catch it, which every single one of these guys pretty much is showing that they’re not waiting for the ball to just drop directly into their lap. They’re going out and they’re grabbing it with their hands. you’re you’re going to see how that deep ball passing game can really further expand upon itself as the Lions want to further, you know, open up that deep ball passing game. And when you’ve got guys like Jameson Williams, you’ve got guys like Isaac Tesla that are big, they’re fast, you’ve got Jir Gibbs who’s also a freaking speed demon, a bat out of hell. Same thing with Khalif Raymond. You obviously still have Aman Ross St. Brown who while not as fast is an absolute, you know, just wizard when it comes to his route running. You absolutely can see very very clearly why the Lions, why Jared Goff, why Johnny Mo want to further, you know, expand upon their deep ball passing game because it’s like, listen, we have the weapons here. We have the tools to make this deep ball passing game be one of the most electric, one of the best in the entirety of the NFL. You’ve got every single type of wide receiver body type and, you know, freaking weapon type that you want. You got the speed demon, you’ve got the the perfect balance wide receiver, you got the bigbodied wide receivers, you’ve got the all can do tight ends, you’ve got the running backs. I mean, you’ve got every single weapon type you could possibly want in this Lions offense. And then on top of that, you’ve got a quarterback. And Jared Goff, as I said, smart, selective, knows when to take a deep shot. And more often than not, he’s going to make it work. Because let me show you something else here about Jared Goff. If you take a look at statistics, and you have to go to different websites to find all this information, but if you take a look at the different types of air distances that Jared Golf threw last year, not saying just completions, I’m just saying in terms of overall amount of air yards that was thrown. You’re going to notice how last year, again, while Jared Goff was selective, he was also still one of those guys that was unccoring the ball quite a damn bit last year. Take a look at this. Jared golf last year in terms of his air distance in terms of yards that were of 20, 30, 40, and 50 yards or more. Every single one of them top five. 20 yards or more had 61 of those ranked number one. 30 yards or more had 20 of those ranked fourth. 40 yards or more. 11 of those ranked third. 50 yards or more had eight of those ranked number one. His completed air yards was ranked 10th most in the NFL last year. And his longest pass of the year, which as I said earlier was that throw to JMO in Chicago late in the year, that was 82 yards. That was ranked ninth best in terms of total actual yardage that was covered in that one play. So again, as I stated, you have a quarterback in Jared Goff that while he doesn’t always throw the ball deep and just goes willy-nilly with it, hey, this is a guy that is smart, he’s selective, he definitely has the capability to do it. Not only in terms of the analytics, but also in terms of the fact that this guy has been literally unccorting the ball quite a damn bit over the last couple of years and especially last year. But here’s one little fact that I don’t think a lot of people realize here. I can guarantee you I know why this is happening in camp other than just the fact, hey, you’ve got a quarterback that can do it. You had the weapons that can do it. Where was Johnny Morton last year, the offensive coordinator of the Detroit Lions? Oh, that’s right. He was in Denver. Did you guys all remember, I don’t remember if it’s number one or number two, but Bo Nicks last year had the longest throw in terms of overall air yardage out of any quarterback last year. Number one or number two. So, even last year, you could already see that the the Broncos offense with a rookie quarterback was wanting to do this. And again, as I talked about in a previous episode, um John Morton showed last year that, hey, you know what? As they tried to get Bo Knicks further and further up to speed, it made a huge difference. Now, he’s working with a veteran quarterback, a guy who’s very good at what he does, one of the best top 10, fringe, top five. Absolutely makes sense why the Lions are wanting to do this. They’re wanting to open the offense as wide as possible, get the ball into as many of their playmakers hands as possible so that way their offense can absolutely just explode and thrive all over the field. They’re trying to terrorize defenses in every single way they possibly can. Whether it’s on the ground, whether it’s through the air short, whether it’s through the air intermediate, whether it’s through the air deep, whether it’s through play action passing, they are trying to absolutely open this offense wide full throttle. And based upon what we’re seeing and hearing out of training camp, they’re absolutely making huge headways into this. And I would not at all be surprised if the Lions become one of the best deep ball passing units in the entirety of the NFL in 2025. Wouldn’t at all be surprised. But anyway, folks, that’s my episode. That’s my evidence. You guys do with it what you will, but I’m telling you this right now. You better get your popcorn ready because every single one of these receivers and weapons, whether it’s JO, St. Brown, Leaporta, Raymond, Tesla, hell, P Patrick, I mean, doesn’t matter. These guys are about to have a lot of damn fun. Absolutely. Just, you know, letting loose with this offense, especially in the deep ball passing game. But anyway, folks, I just want to say thank you all for watching in another episode of MCM Motor City Mania. If you like the content, I hope to gain your subscription. Also hope you’ll watch some more content from me. But if you just subscribe because you like the content or if you’ve subscribed in the past and you forgot to do so at the time, I want to highly encourage you all, please make sure you hit that bell notification icon so that you guys never miss any more content that I push out. Hope everybody out there has something in their life that makes them happy, makes them smile. God bless, my friends. And until the next time we meet, I’ll see you all in the next episode. [Music] [Applause] [Music]