Ben Johnson’s first season as the Lions offensive coordinator ended with the team scoring the fifth-most points in the league and he landed on head coaching interview lists, so there will be a lot of people to see what he does for an encore in 2023.
Johnson shared some of his plans this week. Johnson said he felt the team could run the same plays as last year and find even more success because they can execute better than they did a year ago. Johnson said that’s why “the emphasis has been on the basics” during OTAs.
“Let’s get really good at the fundamentals, because that is what helped us win games at the end last year,” Johnson said, via Kyle Meinke of MLive.com. “The fact that we led the league in ball security. We didn’t turn the ball over the second half of the season, that equated into wins for us. So, I think just the recognition of the little things all adding up and paying big dividends for us in offense, that’s really the point of it. We will still push the envelope. We’ll still be innovative and creative on offense, don’t get me wrong. But I just came away saying, ‘Shoot man, we left a lot of meat on the bone in a lot of ways.’”
The Lions’ run from 1-6 to 9-8 last year left them just outside the playoffs in the NFC. If the offense can rise even higher this fall, chances are good that the result will be a long-awaited playoff berth in Detroit.