3. Where would Fipp like to see some improvement from his special teams units? One area he talked about Thursday was their long net punting average when Jack Fox is asked to put a full leg into one when they are backed up. Fipp wants to see a little higher net average on those punts. The Lions rank 15th in net punting average (42.0) this season.
4. Sheppard did a deep dive over the bye and identified a couple areas where he wants to see improvement moving forward. The first is Detroit’s red zone defense. Teams are scoring a touchdown 63.6 percent of the time they reach the red zone against Detroit’s defense which puts Detroit 23rd in the NFL in that category. He also mentioned being better in third-and-long situations. On third and 11-plus situations, Detroit ranks 28th allowing a conversion 29.2 percent of the time (7-for-24).
5. The Lions haven’t been as good as usual on third down this season. Detroit’s 37.7 conversion percentage on third down ranks 22nd in the NFL. Morton said he went over every third down play this season over the bye week and every third down play from last season. He said after watching them all, it really boils down to execution on Detroit’s part – either a missed assignment here, someone gets beat there, a dropped ball or a bad play call. He thinks it’s something correctable on their part if they focus in on the details.
