Lions - 5 scores on 5 chance (4 touchdowns, 1 field goal)

The Lions did an exceptional job of not only creating red zone opportunities against Washington, but converting them into touchdowns. All but one of the Lions' trips inside the red zone resulted in a touchdown, and the one time they had to settle for a field goal was when they were trying to run out the clock.

The interesting thing about the five opportunities is that four of them were in the second half. The Lions' lone first half red zone trip was after Stefan Logan returned a punt 71 yards, putting Detroit in the red zone to begin the drive. The Lions turned the great field position into a Calvin Johnson touchdown a few plays later.

In the second half, the Lions worked their way down the field and scored red zone touchdowns on a pass to Brandon Pettigrew and two passes to Calvin Johnson. As mentioned before, the lone red zone appearance where the Lions settled for a field goal was because they were just trying to run out the clock. When they were actually trying to score, Washington didn't have an answer to the Lions' red zone offense.

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Each week during the 2009 season I took a look at the Lions' red zone performance, which proved to reveal some interesting trends.  Quite often it was evident that the Lions' defense had problems keeping teams out of the red zone, but once inside the 20-yard line they played quite well.  On the flip side, the Lions' offense seemed to have problems getting into the red zone at all.  There were many games where they had only a single trip inside the 20-yard line, which was a big reason why the Lions struggled to score points so often during the course of the season.

Although just from doing the weekly post about how the Lions fared inside the red zone I could sense what trends there were, I figured the best way to recap the entire season would be by plugging the stats into graphs and analyzing the evidence from there.  One thing I will note is that for this breakdown of red zone performances I only took into account when touchdowns were scored as opposed to touchdowns and field goals.  The reason for that is I figured it would give us a better sense of how the Lions performed.  Although I did place an emphasis on just getting points during the season, I think looking at only touchdowns will be a bit more interesting.

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Lions - 3 scores on 3 chances (2 touchdowns, 1 field goal)

For the first time since the Steelers game, a Daunte Culpepper-led Lions team scored more than just a field goal.  Actually, the offense managed to get into the red zone three times this past Sunday, which is a big improvement over the recent trend of only one appearance a game.  What's even better, the Lions converted two of their red zone trips into touchdowns, with both going to a receiver named Johnson. 

The Lions were actually given a fourth red zone attempt because they got inside the 20 at the very end of the game, but only two plays were run before the clock ran out and the game ended.  As a result, I didn't count it because of the situation.  The Lions didn't really get a solid chance to do anything and it wasn't exactly a typical red zone appearance, though they did manage to get down to the 2-yard line.

Bears - 6 scores on 6 chances (4 touchdowns, 2 field goals)

The Lions' defense really did not play very well in the red zone against Chicago.  On four of the Bears' six red zone trips Chicago ended up with a touchdown.  What's more, one attempt that resulted in a field goal was late in the game when Chicago was simply trying to run out the clock.  They didn't need to go for the end zone at that point, so although the Lions made a stop, I have a hard time believing they would have if Jay Cutler was able to air it out.

Overall

For this game specifically, the offense outperformed the defense in the red zone.  That has been a rare occurrence this season.  Usually it is the offense that struggles by either not getting into the red zone enough or simply not scoring touchdowns inside the 20.  On the other hand, the defense, for the most part, seemed to do pretty well this season in the red zone.  Typically it felt like the defense would let teams get into the red zone way too often but make up for it by keeping them out of the end zone.  In the latter part of the season that wasn't necessarily always the case, but earlier in the season it seemed like that was a strength for the defense. 

I will further examine the Lions in the red zone sometime next week to take a full look back at the stats from the 2009 season.

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Lions - 1 score on 1 chance (1 field goal)

The Lions' offense, after having a nice second half against the Cardinals, reverted back to its old ways and only managed to make one trip to the red zone against the 49ers.  That red zone trip came on the first drive of the game and ended with a field goal.  After that, nearly every time the Lions even came close to the red zone there was an interception that derailed the drive.  The Lions did nearly get inside the 20 when Daunte Culpepper entered the game, but that drive stalled and ended with a field goal just short of red zone territory.

49ers - 3 scores on 4 chances (2 touchdowns, 1 field goal, 1 blocked field goal)

Detroit did a good job keeping the 49ers out of the end zone in the first half, holding them to a field goal on their first red zone trip and blocking a field goal on their second one.  The second half did not go so well, though.  For some reason the defense always seems to struggle in the second half, especially the third quarter.  In this game, San Francisco ended up with a pair of red zone trips and a pair of touchdowns in the third quarter.  The Lions came close to making a stop both times, but the 49ers twice managed to score a touchdown on third down.

Overall

I feel like I'm repeating myself each week because most of the time things don't change.  Like usual, the offense needs to get the ball inside the red zone more often and convert those opportunities into touchdowns rather than field goals.  On defense, the Lions need to play strong in the red zone for a full game, not just the first half.  I don't know if the Lions just don't make as good adjustments as the other team or what, but coming out of halftime is when the defense is most vulnerable in the red zone.  If it can play like it did against Arizona rather than like against San Francisco, however, Detroit might actually have a shot at beating Chicago on Sunday.

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Lions - 2 scores on 3 chances (1 touchdown, 1 field goal, 1 turnover on downs)

The Lions didn't even have a single red zone appearance until late in the third quarter, but they ended up with three over the course of the final 20 or so minutes of the game.  The first was barely even a trip to the red zone and produced a field goal.  The second, much like one of Arizona's appearances, was the direct result of a muffed punt.  The Lions unfortunately couldn't take advantage of the mistake, though, and came up short on 4th and 1.  The final appearance did result in a touchdown, as Drew Stanton got into the end zone on a QB sneak from a yard out.

Cardinals - 4 scores on 4 chances (4 touchdowns)

This was one of the Lions' worst red zone performances on the defensive side of the ball in terms of giving up touchdowns.  Usually the Lions will allow the opposing team to get into the red zone an awful lot, but the common theme is not giving up a ton of TDs.  Well, that wasn't the case this past Sunday.  The Cardinals scored a touchdown every time they got into the red zone, though they did turn the ball over twice right as they were about to enter the red zone.  The first turnover came at the 24-yard line when Cliff Avril sacked Kurt Warner and forced a fumble, and the second turnover was Louis Delmas' interception in the end zone.  The Cardinals had the ball on the 20-yard line on the play where Delmas picked off Warner, so although they weren't officially inside the 20, it was a difference of a few feet.  In that sense the Lions' defense did a good job, but still, it would have been nice if just once they could have held the Cardinals to a field goal when the ball was in the red zone.

Overall

The Lions' offense broke the streak of having only one red zone appearance a game, but unfortunately their three trips inside the 20 against Arizona only produced 1 touchdown.  The turnover on downs hurt the most, although the Lions ended up tying the game later on anyways.  Even so, it is always frustrating to watch the Lions struggle in short-yardage situations, and when it is 4th and short inside the 20, it is even harder to stomach a run that goes for no gain.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Lions did not do a good job of keeping Arizona out of the end zone.  I may be just thinking things, but I want to say that a stat was mentioned during the game about Arizona's success in the red zone, so perhaps this was more of a case of the opponent playing well rather than the Lions playing poorly.  After all, the Lions have consistently done a good job of keeping opponents out of the end zone when they are inside the 20, so hopefully this is just an off week combined with facing a good red zone team.

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Lions - 1 score on 1 chance (1 field goal)

The Lions had another lackluster day in the red zone because of a lack of appearances inside the 20.  The score obviously reflected this stat, as the Lions only scored once, which was on a 22-yard field goal.  That was the Lions' lone trip to the red zone, similar to how they only had one trip last week against Cincinnati.

Ravens - 5 scores on 6 chances (4 touchdowns, 1 field goal, 1 fumble)

Baltimore was actually on or inside the 20 on eight occasions during this game, but I only counted six of them.  That is because the Ravens once kicked a field goal from the 20 on fourth down, which I don't really consider a red zone appearance, and they also got into the red zone at the very end of the game but took a knee on the next play, so again, I don't think that is a real appearance.

Even without those two trips to the red zone, the Ravens still managed to get inside the 20 six times.  The first trip didn't go quite so well because Ray Rice fumbled the ball and it went out of the end zone for a touchback, but points were put on the board every time after that.  It basically just took Baltimore some time to heat up, because the Ravens went from turning it over in the red zone to kicking a field goal to eventually scoring nothing but touchdowns.  In the third quarter, for example, the Ravens got into the red zone on three straight drives and scored a touchdown every time.  It was really a bad performance by the Lions' defense after the first couple of trips to the red zone for the Ravens.

Overall

The Lions' offense has got to start finishing drives to get into the red zone more often.  This whole one red zone appearance a week trend of late is extremely frustrating, because it shows that the offense isn't even close to doing much of anything.  Unfortunately I fear that trend will continue this week with Kevin Smith out for the season and Matthew Stafford likely unable to play again because of his shoulder injury.

For the defense, I actually don't think they will give up that many red zone appearances to the Cardinals this week.  I mean that in a negative way, though.  Arizona has so many big-play weapons that I expect most of their scores to be from well beyond 20 yards.  Perhaps that is being a bit too pessimistic, but Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, Steve Breaston, and Beanie Wells seem like they will run circles around the Lions' defense.  Like I said earlier this week, that's good news for one of my fantasy teams, but extremely bad news for the Lions.

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Lions - 1 score on 1 chance (1 touchdown)

I didn't even realize this until I sat down to write this post, but the Lions spent only one play in the red zone against Cincinnati.  That play came at the end of the game when Kevin Smith ran into the end zone for a touchdown.  The TD was set up by a prayer that was brought down by Calvin Johnson.  Had that pass not been completed, chances are the Lions would have gone an entire game without a single red zone appearance.  Obviously that wasn't a big problem when Matthew Stafford threw the touchdown pass to Calvin, but the fact that they barely even got close to the 20 for most of the game says a lot about how much the offense struggled and also how good Cincinnati's defense was.

Bengals - 2 scores on 2 chances (2 field goals)

The defense played an exceptional game when it came to the red zone.  Not only did Cincinnati only get into the red zone twice, but the defense held the Bengals to field goals both times.  One possession for the Bengals produced a 36-yard touchdown pass to Chad Ochocinco, possibly taking away an added red zone appearance, but even so, twice Cincinnati was driving and Detroit forced a turnover.  The first was Will James' interception and the second was when Dewayne White recovered a fumble.  It's not a guarantee that those possessions would have ended somewhere inside the 20, but the fact that the Lions' defense didn't let them get that far is great.

Overall

For the offense, what they need to work on hasn't really changed.  They need more appearances inside the 20 if they want to win games.  Spending all of one play in the red zone is just pathetic, especially when that one play came at the end of the game once things had already basically been decided.

For the defense, all I can say is to keep up the good work.  One of the biggest improvements this season has been the defense's play in the red zone.  Of course, one of the general problems that hasn't completely gone away is letting opposing offenses into the red zone too often, but that wasn't the case against Cincinnati.  It's good to see the defense improve both in keeping opposing teams out of the end zone once they get inside the 20 and more recently keeping them out of the red zone altogether.