Lions Report 09/13/2026

Lions Report:  Today was Christmas morning for most NFL fans.  We get to open our presents and see what we got for the season.  Today, it was a bit of a downer.  Instead of a BB gun and an XBox, we got pajamas, underwear and a tie.  That was a painful game to watch, both in person and on TV.  It was Jekyll (good) and Hide (evil).

Lions Defense Overall (First Half) - Jekyll.  The Lions held New Orleans to zero first half points.  It wasn’t pretty but they got the job done.  An interception, a sack by Aiden Hutchinson and some timely stops stymied the Saints in the first 30 minutes.

Lions Defense Overall (Second Half) - Hyde.  They started out showing a continuation from the first half, with Derrick Barnes intercepting Tyler Shough on the first play in the first series.  The Lions followed that with a fumble recovery in the next series.  After that, bupkus.  The Saints rattled off four straight scoring drives, which included key defensive penalties in a few of them.

Lions Offense - Jekyll and Hyde.  They only scored 7 points in the first half against a Saints scoring defense that was middle of the road last year.  They then scored 14 straight points to take a 21-0 lead.  Hey, they’re back.  Hey, no they aren’t.  They followed that by scoring only three points the rest of regulation, including two series that were three and out, and another that was give and out.

Jameson Williams - Hyde.  He signed a big new contract in the offseason after leading the NFL in dropped passes in 2025.  I kept hearing how he showed up at camp with a big jump in his route running.  Today, it looked like he was wearing boxing gloves.  He had a huge dropped pass in the first half that Goff dropped right in his hands.  He also had at least one other by my count, and another that was overthrown by Goff but he should have caught.  He did make a key play in overtime to put us at first and goal, so I’ll give him that.

Kelvin Shepherd (Defensive Coordinator) - Jekyll and Hyde.  The first half was solid.  His defense kept us in the game.  However, the second half drove me nuts.  He kept calling defenses that allowed Chris Olave to have a free run off the line of scrimmage.  Every time I watched, they never jammed him.  That was so frustrating.  If you give a guy like a Olave a free run, he’ll carve you up, and that’s what he did.

Jared Goff - Jekyll.  Solid game.  No turnovers and didn’t get rattled by dropped passes or questionable play calling by the Lions Offensive Coordinator, Drew Petzing.

Jahmyr Gibbs - Jekyll.  Twenty carries for 156 yards and two touchdowns.  He had a really good game.  However, I don’t like the pitch outs to him.  They weren’t working and Petzing called them a few times more than I cared for.

Drew Petzing - Jekyll and Hyde.  Overall, it was OK.  I liked what he did with Gibbs, and the dropped passes by Jamo weren’t his fault.  However, there wasn’t a whole lot of creativity to his play calling.  I’m guessing that he’s holding some plays back for the game at the Bills this Thursday.  Let’s see what he does then.

Overall, a win is a win.  I didn’t want to be 0-1 heading into Buffalo.