It took a complete defensive team effort to shut down the Lions offense on Sunday. Thankfully, John Pagano and his players were up to the task. Just how did they do it?
I counted 11 missed tackles, 6 blown coverages, and 2 penalties. Generally speaking, that's going to get you blown out by a team that has the weapons Detroit has. This time was different, though; John Pagano adjusted. He didn't bring pressure — the Chargers only blitzed 6 times — but he gave the illusion quite often that pressure was coming. That was more than enough to get Matthew Stafford to play at a faster place than he wanted to.