The Arizona Cardinals are coming off a tough loss at home to the St. Louis Rams, but at least one member of their team is not all that concerned about his upcoming opponent.
On Wednesday, Cardinals defensive back Tyrann Mathieu told reporters he is “very surprised” at how ineffective the Detroit Lions have been on offense this season.
“Obviously, like you said, you look at those guys’ personnel on offense, along with Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate, I think those two guys alone have you raising your eyebrows as to wondering why they haven’t (been) putting up a lot of points this season,” Mathieu said, per Kyle Meinke of MLive.com. “It’s one of those teams, man, that they look out of sync right now. But they’ll find their rhythm at some point during the season.”
The Lions rank 29th in the NFL so far with 16.5 points per game. They are last in the league in rushing and even Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson seem to be out of sync. Poor offensive line play hasn’t helped, as Stafford has taken a beating and is clearly banged up.
Offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi has been with the Lions since last season, but Mathieu wonders if the team still isn’t grasping his offensive system.
“You talk about their personnel, and it’s not like those guys have a bad quarterback,” he said. “I mean, they have Matthew Stafford back there. They have some pretty good running backs, and they have some pretty good wide receivers. For me, they just look like they don’t quite understand the system yet.
“You think about it, those guys, they could easily put up 30 points a game.”
The ironic thing about that is there have been indications opponents know what plays the Lions are going to run before they run them, so perhaps the system is too simple.
Whatever the case, the 0-4 Lions are staring 0-5 in the face. It’s hard to imagine this season resulting in anything but major disappointment.
