The NFL might have figured out Ben Johnson and that's not good for the Lions, but they're one fix away from getting back on track

One of the biggest things the Detroit Lions did this offseason was retain offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. It was absolutely huge for them to do that. Johnson had been one of the best OC's in the game and a the hottest head coaching candidate of the last two cycles. Now after two games it's fair to wonder if the NFL has simply figured him out now.

Here's why we say that. In Week 1 it seemed like the Rams knew everything that Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta were going to do. They were completely taken out of the gameplan. The Lions got by on targeting the the unknown guy in Jameson Williams. We say unknown because nobody really knew if he was about to breakout or not.

Against Tampa the Bucs had the Lions offense stifled the entire day. They couldn't get anything to work out. St. Brown got by on shear will and force, but LaPorta was absent again and Williams was pretty quiet outside of his 50-yard catch early in the game.

The biggest thing to look at here is in two weeks the Lions have gone 3-11 in the red zone. That's eight possible touchdowns just left on the field. If that one thing gets fixed, then maybe this idea of the league figuring out Johnson is dumb and it can go away.

The problem is that the team needs to change what they like to do in that area. The Lions were the second best team in the league in the red zone last year and it seems opponents have spent much of their time trying to figure out how to stop that.

It's really not that hard when you look at it. The Lions targeted St. Brown 23 times there last year and LaPorta 15 times. If they weren't throwing the ball they were going with David Montgomery who ran the ball 50 times in the red zone last year. That was the fourth most red zone rushing attempts in the NFL in 2023.

It makes sense that you would want to go to your best players, but Johnson and the Lions need to start coming up with new ways to do that and they need to work in some extra guys that can be specialties in the end zone. That's a spot where the Lions could really use Tim Patrick. This team kind of needs Patrick to be good now.

It's just Week 2. There's a lot of season left, but the Lions really need to open things up more. If they do, they will be unstoppable. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but the Lions defense has been really good.

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