Dallas Cowboys scouting report: Breaking down the Lions offensive scheme
The Lions offense is going to be very difficult to stop.
This Sunday will see the Lions coming to town for their third straight matchup with the Cowboys in as many years, but it will mark the first contest between Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and new Cowboys defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. T
Johnson has been in Detroit since 2019, one of the rare holdovers from Matt Patricia’s staff. He coached three seasons for the Lions while Zimmer was still in charge of the Vikings, but Johnson didn’t rise to the coordinator position until 2022, the year after Zimmer was fired.
Since then, Johnson has had tremendous success, to the point that he was one of the top head coaching candidates in last year’s hiring cycle. Many believed Johnson to be the top choice for the Commanders vacancy last year, with Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn as their backup. In fact, Quinn was announced as the new head man in Washington just four days after Johnson informed the franchise he was returning to Detroit. So, in a roundabout way, Johnson is the reason why Zimmer is back in Dallas.
That detail will surely be the last thing on Zimmer’s mind this Sunday, though, as Johnson has created an offense so multifaceted that preparing for it is a Herculean task unto its own. At just 38 years old, Johnson has established himself as one of the more creative offensive minds in the league, and he’s done it through a wide variation of experiences.
A former backup quarterback for T.J. Yates at North Carolina, Johnson began his coaching career at Boston College as a gradate assistant. He broke into the NFL as an offensive assistant on Joe Philbin’s inaugural Dolphins staff, which is where he first met Dan Campbell. Johnson went on to assist quarterbacks under Philbin and, when Campbell was promoted from tight ends coach to interim head coach in 2015, Johnson replaced him as the tight ends coach.
Johnson would be retained in Miami by Adam Gase, as he moved to work with receivers. When Gase was fired following the 2018 season, Johnson ventured to Detroit as part of new offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell’s staff overhaul. Then, when Campbell took over in 2021, he kept Johnson around based on their history together. And when Campbell took over offensive playcalling duties during his rookie season, he relied on Johnson as a de facto pass-game coordinator, which in turn led to his promotion to the full time offensive coordinator with playcalling responsibilities.
Johnson’s background is rooted in the West Coast, but he’s been exposed to a long list of different variations. Philbin came from Mike McCarthy’s Packers program; Campbell is a longtime disciple of Sean Payton; Gase and Bevell both trace their roots back to Mike Holmgren and, by extension, Andy Reid. In Detroit, Johnson has combined all of these different variations of the West Coast, in addition to stealing some concepts from the Shanahan coaching tree that’s taken the league by storm.
The result is an offense that can attack, from a scheme standpoint, in a lot of different ways. That marries well with their offensive talent, which enables Johnson to actually attack defenses in a lot of different ways.
The identity of this offense begins with their offensive line, which boasts four Pro Bowl and three All-Pro selections from the last two years. In the time that Johnson has been calling the offense, Detroit has been in the top 10 in rushing attempts and, last year, they finished fifth in yards per carry. They have a lightning and thunder combination at running back, with second year pro Jahmyr Gibbs and downhill thumper David Montgomery.
Behind a talented offensive line and a diverse run scheme that has one of the most even splits between power and zone runs, the Lions control the line of scrimmage more often than not. There is a tendency, though, as they like to get outside and use their athletic tackles in space to block downfield. Detroit is currently seventh in their use of outside runs, and all six teams ahead of them are branches off the Shanahan tree. Johnson has no actual ties to that scheme, but he’s incorporated the principles nicely into this offense.
That also means play-action is king for the passing attack. In fact, no offense is using play-action at a higher rate this year than the Lions. Jared Goff has enjoyed a career revitalization under Campbell and Johnson, and he’s off to another good year. Currently, he’s fifth in completion rate and 11th in EPA/dropback. However, Goff isn’t stretching the field that much, with only five starters averaging fewer air yards per attempt.
Much of that is by design, though. This offense is designed to do the dirty work in the run game and give Goff easy layup attempts, usually where play-action sucks defenders up to the line of scrimmage. The Lions have two intermediate demons, too, in Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta.
St. Brown is 13th in the league in receptions, with just over a third of those being caught between 10 and 19 yards past the line of scrimmage. He has yet to drop a pass, and St. Brown also has yet to even see a target more than 20 yards downfield. Meanwhile, LaPorta took the league by storm last year as a rookie. Injuries have hampered him so far this year, but LaPorta remains a dangerous receiving threat in the middle of the field.
And then there’s Jameson Williams, one of the fastest players in the NFL who has almost exclusively been used as a deep threat for Detroit. He’s averaging 14.2 yards of depth per target, ninth among receivers with at least 20 targets, and his 22.2 receiving yards per catch is second in the league. He presents a similar challenge in coverage to Rashid Shaheed, who torched the Cowboys back in Week 2.
All of these weapons perfectly fit into what Johnson likes to do on offense, and he’s developed a natural instinct on how to utilize all his players. Pair that with an aggressive head coach - no team has correctly gone for it on fourth down more often than Campbell since he was hired in 2021 - and it’s very hard to keep these Lions off the field.
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