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Short-yardage offense and porous defense put Lions near NFL's bottom

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  • Originally published November 7, 2009 at 3:01 p.m., updated November 7, 2009 at 3:04 p.m.

By Nicholas J. Cotsonika

Detroit Free Press

(MCT)

On offense, the Lions rank 29th in the NFL in yards per play (4.4). On defense, the Lions are last (6.2). That drives home the point that they aren't making enough big plays on offense and are allowing too many big plays on defense.

"That's one thing we need to become is a team that can get chunks on offense," offensive coordinator Scott Linehan said. " Our two longest runs this year have come from your quarterbacks. That's going to affect yards per play."

The Lions' longest run by a running back is 20 yards. The passing game has struggled to make big plays, too, while quarterback Matthew Stafford and wide receiver Calvin Johnson each have missed two games with right knee injuries.

"Whoever else is playing has to come up with the yardage," Linehan said. "Calvin's certainly a guy that gives us a big playmaker, but that doesn't give you an excuse to not get them when he's not in the game. Someone's going to have to step up and become the other explosive-type player or two. The more the better, as far as I'm concerned."

Coach Jim Schwartz said he didn't worry much about yards per play. Yards don't matter to him. Points do.

"It's scoring and scoring defense," Schwartz said. "We haven't been good enough on either one of those."

That's true, too. The Lions rank 25th in scoring offense (16.1). Scoring defense? Second-worst (29.3).

___

(c) 2009, Detroit Free Press.

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Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.


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