Notes: Taylor Decker makes PFF Team of the Week for second straight week

There hasn’t been a lot of good things to take from the play of the Detroit Lions’ offensive line through nine games. The run game is as dead as it has ever been, Matthew Stafford suffered yet another injury—though he certainly takes some of the blame there—and fans are wondering if Detroit will blow up the offensive line again next season.

But there is some good news. Left tackle Taylor Decker has quietly put together two solid performances in a row. And not just “solid,” but best-in-the-league worthy.

Last week, Decker made the PFF Week 9 Team of the Week for his performance against the Oakland Raiders. He was particularly stout as a run blocker, but his overall 78.8 grade showed a well-rounded performance.

Against a mediocre Raiders defensive line, that alone wouldn’t mean a whole lot. But facing an elite defensive front in Chicago, Decker repeated his performance in Week 10 and landed on PFF’s Team of the Week list yet again. Here’s what they had to say about his performance:

“Decker earned a 74.3 overall grade and an 82.9 pass-blocking grade against Chicago on Sunday, allowing zero total pressures across 59 pass-blocking snaps in the process.”

Mind you, this is a performance against Khalil Mack and company. Decker was a big reason Mack was kept off the sack scoreboard, and he certainly made life a lot easier for backup quarterback Jeff Driskel.

This past offseason, the Lions decided to exercise Decker’s fifth-year option for 2020. If he continues to play like this, he could make an argument for an extension beyond that.

• If you’re still in the mood to remember the life of Charles Rogers, Nick Baumgardner of The Athletic has a fantastic piece on how phenomenal of an athlete Rogers was, according to the friends who grew up around him.

• Chris Spielman and Mike O’Hara did a good job breaking down three key plays from Lions vs. Bears, including their evaluation of the Detroit debut from Jeff Driskel.

• Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press has more on Driskel’s debut, including a film breakdown of his play from Sunday.

• Quandre Diggs made his Seahawks debut on Monday night and it didn’t take long for him to nab his first interception:

• If you want to try and pull some satisfaction from the Bears’ failures, here’s an in-depth piece on some of their front-office dysfunction that led to drafting Mitchell Trubisky over Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes.

• All 32 teams have been invited to a private workout for former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick this Saturday. It will be interesting to see which teams attend and if anyone finally makes a play for the 32-year-old quarterback who has not been on a team since 2016: