Notes: Penei Sewell is PFF’s 4th-highest graded first-round rookie

Earlier in the day, I asked you, the Detroit Lions fandom, whether you were still in favor of Detroit’s selection of Penei Sewell with the seventh overall pick. Well, we’re nearly 12 hours into the poll, and you’ve all answered with a resounding, “YES.” After over 2,000 votes, 95 percent of you approve of the pick.

And that’s easy to understand why, whether you’re talking about the eye test or using whatever metric you’d like to base your argument. Sewell was pretty darn good at left tackle to start the year, and he’s been downright dominant since moving to right tackle in Week 10.

As Kellie Rowe mentioned in Monday’s Notes, Sewell was the highest-graded offensive tackle in all of football for Week 14. But now let’s look at his overall season because he’s starting to develop something special for a rookie year.

PFF put out season-long grades for all 32 first-round picks on Tuesday, and Sewell’s numbers stand out from the rest. The Lions offensive tackle now has a 79.1 PFF grade for the season, which is only behind three players on the list:

• Cowboys LB Micah Parsons (83.9)
• Chargers OT Rashawn Slater (79.9)
• Patriots QB Mac Jones (83.0)

“Sewell is quietly starting to dominate on the offensive line — not just play well ‘for a rookie’” PFF’s Sam Monson wrote. “Against Denver, he posted a 91.0 overall PFF grade and allowed just two hurries across 42 pass-blocking snaps. He dominated in the run game and sports the highest overall PFF grade of any tackle in the league outside of Trent Williams since Week 6. Sewell has allowed just one sack all season and boasts an 88.7 PFF run-blocking grade. He’s earned two game grades of at least 93.0 in that area across the past three weeks.”

Note: I think Monson means Sewell has only allowed one sack since Week 6. He allowed two sacks in both Weeks 4 and 5, but he has only allowed one sack in the other 11 games combined.

• The Detroit News’ Justin Rogers has another really nice film breakdown ($) of why Detroit’s run defense completely collapsed against the Denver Broncos to the tune of 184 rushing yards and 4.7 yards per carry.

• Walter Payton Man of the Year candidate and SUPERBACK Jason Cabinda continues to do awesome work in the community on the Lions’ day off:

• Similar to what our own Mike Payton wrote on Monday, Chris Burke of The Athletic pointed to the Lions’ rushing attack as something that has improved and provides some serious optimism going forward ($). Lots of love to the offensive line here.

• Your broadcasting pairing for Sunday:

• Dan Campbell’s aggressiveness has been a hot topic all year when it comes to going for it on fourth down. EdjSports has been a big fan of the decisions. Per the site, Campbell’s decision to go for it on fourth-and-1 trailing 14-7 in the second quarter was the third-best coaching decision of Week 14, adding 2.9 percent to their game win probability. The Lions converted that play and would end up scoring a field goal on the drive. Campbell also made the top-five decisions twice last week.

• Amon-Ra St. Brown got a little bit of love for his eight-catch, 73-yard performance against the Broncos: