Going into their game against the Arizona Cardinals, the chatter was loud amongst Detroit Lions’ fans (and those who cover the team) in regards to the amount of man-to-man coverage Matt Patricia has forced his team to play since taking over as head coach.
http://gty.im/1228513171
Patricia’s weekly game plans, which have almost always included a high percentage of man defense, have been torched on a regular basis by opposing offenses. In fact, it seems like most teams who play a heavy man-to-man defense have been getting dominated.
But on Sunday, Patricia (yes we know Corey Undlin is supposedly calling the defense) changed things up and the Lions played MUCH more zone than they did in the first two weeks of the season.
In fact, the Lions played a zone defense 44.4% of the time on Sunday, compared to just 17.9% in Week 1 and 18.2% in Week 2.
Some people asked, and per ESPN Stats & Information, the Lions did play MUCH more zone in Week 3 than the first two weeks.
Man defense by Lions:
Week 1: 82.1 %
Week 2: 81.8 %
Week 3: 55.6 %Zone defense by Lions:
Week 1: 17.9 %
Week 2: 18.2 %
Week… https://t.co/8rOPeSytPl— Michael Rothstein (@mikerothstein) September 28, 2020
Let’s hope that Patricia finally realized his stubbornness to play a high percentage of man defense was costing the Lions’ wins and that moving forward, we will see a lot more zone coverage.
