Detroit Lions Week 7 snap counts, personnel usage vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Detroit Lions continue to find new ways to win football games. Their victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 7 brought both teams’ records to 5-2, but the manner in which the Lions pulled off the win was in a way nobody saw coming.

Let’s take a look at this week’s snap counts to see how the Lions adjusted their personnel for the Buccaneers game.

The Bucs brought the heat all night, making things difficult for Goff. And while he surely would’ve liked to have his interception back, beyond that, he followed the YAC game plan to a tee and got the ball into his skill players’ hands quickly and let them go to work. Of Goff’s 241 yards passing, 187 came after the catch.

It was the Jahmyr Gibbs show on Monday. On the night, he accounted for 136 yards rushing (8.0 per carry average) and two touchdowns, as well as three receptions for another 82 receiving yards (27.3 average). While Gibbs was carving the defense up with his speed, Montgomery was used to wear them down with his bruising play. Montgomery ended the night with 13 carries and two receptions, but a third of those touches came on the final two possessions, when the Lions ran into an overstacked box and were just trying to run out the clock.

Reynolds injured his hamstring on special teams and was limited in the second half.

With Raymond getting in a full week of practice, he jumped back into the WR3 role this week. While that meant a step back in opportunities, Goff did throw a fade pass to TeSlaa on fourth down, showing that the trust between them is growing.

These splits are becoming very close to routine for the tight ends group. The tight ends were mainly kept in as blockers or used in short passing situations, leading to six receptions for 38 yards for the group.

With Decker back in the lineup, and Skipper healthy for two weeks now, the Lions look like they have their preferred starting group available—with Skipper operating as the sixth offensive lineman. Ratledge needed his shoulder looked at near the end of the first half, but the trainers got their work completed during the two-minute warning break, and he never missed a snap. Awosika was ready to fill in if Ratledge didn’t return.

For most of the season, we’ve seen the Lions deploy Hutchinson over 90% of snaps, while opposite him, leaning on Lacy/O’Connor to occupy blockers via the 4i and Muhammad in pass rushing situations. Recently, the Lions have favored the size of Lacy and O’Connor to help shut down the run, leaving Muhammad in more of a specialty role. But Muhammad has been thriving this season, and many wondered if he was being used enough.

On Monday, the Lions switched up their approach and favored speed and athleticism over size/power, and Muhammed saw his highest usage of the season, rewarding the Lions for the confidence by producing nine pressures (per PFF, Next Gen credited him with eight) and a half-sack.

Muhammad split his sack with Wheat, who also collected a solo sack in the game, an impressive stat line for a player who played less than 10 snaps. Hutchinson didn’t have a sack, but he led the team with 12 pressures (per PFF) and a 26.5% pass rush win rate, which is remarkable considering the stat accounts for that level of production over 52 pass rush reps.

According to coach Dan Campbell, the plan was to work McNeill back into game action slowly and give him between 20 and 25 snaps in his first game since last December. In the locker room after the game, McNeill estimated that he probably played “double that,” and sure enough, he led the interior defensive line with 44 snaps. His impact was immediate, and he drove the Bucs’ offensive linemen off the ball and collapsed the pocket on a regular basis. It was a terrific showing, and the best part is, he’s not even in football shape yet.

“His presence was big early,” Campbell said of McNeill. “And he’s not even in great football shape yet. He was ready to play in this game for the snaps he did, but you could just feel what he looked like in practice is what he looked like here. His ability to get an edge, push the pocket, I just thought he was a force in there. It was great to have him back.”

Like on the edge, the Lions favored speed and athleticism over power, and as a result, the rookie Williams had the second most opportunities in this group, with the two pure nose tackles getting in lighter work than what they’ve been accustomed to.

Nothing overly surprising from this group as Campbell and Anzalone played every snap, with Barnes operating between 80-90% of snaps. Cunningham did see the field for three snaps—which was a bit unusual, as they were non-goal-line snaps—but an unfortunate hamstring injury pulled him from the game.

The Lions opened the game with Robertson and Ya-Sin on the outside, with Maulet inside at nickel. With replacements all over the secondary, the young/new group of players turned to Amik Robertson to help lead them, and with all of them seemingly adapting his junkyard dog mentality, the group turned out one of the most impressive showings we’ve seen in a long time.

Ya-Sin was forced from the game—twice—due to cramping, opening the door for local prospect Nick Whiteside to assume the second-most snaps of the group. Whiteside was remarkable, only allowing one reception on five passes thrown at his man in coverage, while also recording three pass breakups.

Maulet also needed to exit the field for a handful of snaps due to cramping, but he was able to return and made an aggressive interception, attacking the tight end and wrestling the ball away from him in mid-air. When Maulet needed time off, the Lions shifted defensive back Erick Hallett into the slot for coverage.

Hallett ended up playing all but five snaps on defense, with 25% of them coming in the slot when Maulet was out, and the other 75% in the Brian Branch role. That positional flexibility is a significant reason the Lions have kept Hallett on the roster, including leading to his start in this game.

When Hallett took a breather near halftime, it was Flowers—typically a corner in the NFL, but with safety experience in college—who stepped in for three snaps at safety. But when Hallett needed to shift into the slot for Maulet, Strickland found the field in the Branch role for 14 snaps.

Harper started in the Kerby Joseph role, and was tasked with not only manning centerfield, but also being responsible for a significant portion of the team’s communication; a difficult assignment for a player who has only been with the team for seven weeks. But Harper told Pride of Detroit after the game that he has been leaning on Joseph for information all season, and really picked his brain all week in preparation for what ended up being his first start as a Lion. What he was able to do outside of the box score was highly impressive.

Bates surprisingly missed a long field goal attempt, but managed to connect on his second attempt, banking it off the right upright and across the goal post. Fox smashed the ball all night, averaging 51.2 yards on five punts, including a 66-yarder.