Film room: How the Kansas City Chiefs can defeat the Detroit Lions

Let’s look at the film to see how the Kansas City Chiefs can defeat Matt Patricia and the Detroit Lions in Week 4 to remain undefeated.

The Detroit Lions are enjoying the luxury of being able to call themselves undefeated. Will they enjoy it much longer? Can they realistically withstand the Kansas City Chiefs?

The Lions enter the game off of surprising victories over the Los Angeles Chargers and the Philadelphia Eagles. If we are being honest with ourselves, no one would have expected them to have two wins against such formidable opponents. Kansas City is trying to avoid being the third upset of the season.

Here is the full breakdown of how Kansas City can beat up on the Detroit Lions.

Kansas City’s keys to victory:

By Grant Tuttle

Stick to Kenny Golladay like glue:

Matthew Stafford is certainly no push-over. In fact, his lack of success has been somewhat puzzling. After watching some tape, he makes some “wow” type throws. I also learned about what role Kenny Golladay plays for the Detroit Lions. Stafford loves to use him as a safety blanket and is not afraid to sling it to him in tight coverage.

This play showcases how the Lions prefer to use Golladay. Upon the snap, Golladay runs to the middle of the field, makes a quick move inside and squats for an easy gain. The Chargers are playing a very soft zone. If anyone tries this with Golladay, Stafford will go to him every play.

Don’t be afraid to run the ball, particularly stretch plays:

Yes, the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes throwing the football. That being said, the Lions have struggled to move from side to side and the Chiefs can definitely exploit that as the Chargers and Eagles both attempted to do.

Here, we see a typical stretch play. Austin Ekeler takes the handoff and the offensive linemen get to the second level quickly. The linebackers are slow to shift to cut off the run. This is an easy gain for Ekeler. The Chiefs could pick up easy yards running some stretch plays to LeSean McCoy, Darrel Williams, and Darwin Thompson, and I would expect to see that multiple times in this matchup.

Run some out-and-up routes:

The Lions love to run a Cover 1. This means that they like to play man coverage on the outside with only one ranging safety over the top. This is not surprising due to the Patriots defensive success running the Cover 1 and the fact that Matt Patricia was the defensive coordinator in New England before being hired on in Detroit as the head coach. Detroit has a weak spot in this coverage and I expect the Chiefs to try to exploit it over and over again.

In all three games that the Lions have played in this season, they have shown weakness in between their safety and cornerback. If the Chiefs spread them out, this is precisely what can happen. Here, you can see Mike Williams for the Chargers run a quick out and up and Rivers looks for it the whole way. The safety is slow to rotate over and it is an enormous pick up for the Chargers. Expect Patrick Mahomes to look to Mecole Hardman, Sammy Watkins, and Demarcus Robinson on these kinds of routes.