I had a chance to go back and watch the entire game today and had a number of impressions I thought I would share.

First, the defensive side of the ball:

I didn't notice him on first watching the game, but on my second viewing I was really impressed by the play of Coleman. He frequently came up to make plays in the box, and even when he didn't make the tackle it seems like he was around the ball on a number of plays. Wendling was a bit more invisible, but I also think he was covering the deep part of the field more, so that was cut off on the TV broadcast.

The linebackers were solid, but not flashy. It seemed like they did a good job filling the gaps and getting to the sideline on plays to the outside. Rarely did run plays make it to the secondary.

We had a blitz sighting! In the middle of the third quarter the Lions brought pressure with 6, rushing Levy and Coleman in addition to the 4 down linemen. The play was successful, Bradford threw an incompletion and Lo Jack was able to lay a pretty good hit on him just after he released the ball due to the extra pressure.

The interior defensive line was in beast mode. All 4 DTs were making plays, but on second viewing Corey Williams really jumped out at me. I didn't notice him much the first time through, but he was impressive, especially in the second half.

Speaking of the D-Line, it seemed like they were doing a much better job of staying disciplined to stop the run. Kyle Vanden Bosch had a couple nice pursuits toward the sideline and made a couple tackles by staying with the play after the opposing RBs had made it into the linebackers. Avril did seem a bit flat to me.

Offense:

I thought I heard Titus Young was benched after the Personal Foul penalty. That was definitely not the case, he played the entire 3rd quarter. He didn't do much in that time, so they didn't use him on the final 2 drives (the personnel was primarily Calvin, Burleson, Pettigrew, Scheffler, and either Smith or Heller). I hope he makes a bigger impact from here on out.

The offensive line was solid. The sack given up by Jeff Backus was probably the worst play I saw. Heller got a good piece of the guy coming off the line and Backus never got back far enough to cut off the corner. Pressure was also coming from the other side on that play.

Peterman seemed to do an excellent job in the run game, either getting to the second level or pulling. Raiola was good too.

Matthew Stafford looked frustrated when the refs blew a neutral zone infraction dead, he really wanted the free play. Chris Long jumped and the protection looked good, I don't blame Stafford for being annoyed.

Other:

Laurinitis was a punk, I will assume he was trying to get a reaction out of the Lions due to their reputation. If he plays that way all the time I won''t feel bad about anything that happens to him. He tried to instigate after nearly every play.