This aspect of the Detroit Lions’ offensive model could work for the New York Jets
The Detroit Lions have successfully done what the New York Jets are trying to do: rise from the ashes of NFL irrelevancy to become one of the sport’s premier title contenders.
And they’ve done it almost solely through the cultivation of an elite offense. Detroit’s defense deserves little credit for the franchise’s turnaround, as the Lions ranked bottom-10 in scoring defense in each of the past two seasons. It’s their back-to-back No. 5 finishes in points per game that have catapulted them into the spotlight.
There are a plethora of reasons this offense is so difficult to stop. Personally, when I watch them, what impresses me the most is how offensive coordinator Ben Johnson spreads the football around in the passing game. I think Nathaniel Hackett and the Jets can take a page out of the Lions’ playbook in this department.
How the Lions built an elite passing game through their non-star weapons
Detroit has one dominant superstar leading the way: wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who was third in the NFL with 1,515 receiving yards last season. After him, though, their next-leading wide receiver was Josh Reynolds (now with the Broncos), who ranked 54th among wide receivers with 608 receiving yards. Yet, the Lions finished with the second-most passing yards in the NFL. They were efficient, too, ranking third in net yards per pass attempt.
It helped that Detroit had one of the league’s top tight ends in Sam LaPorta, who was second on the team with 889 receiving yards (5th among TE). Still, the Lions only had one of the league’s top 50 wide receivers (based on yards), and even the running back unit only provided modest contributions – their leading receiver at running back, Jahmyr Gibbs, ranked 16th at the position with 316 yards, which was sixth on the team.
While St. Brown and LaPorta are enough for this to sound like the makeup of at least a solid passing attack, it doesn’t really sound like it’s deep enough to be a top-three unit in the NFL. So, how did they pull it off with apparently lackluster production behind their top two weapons?
It’s simple: The Lions were outstanding at generating efficient results from the wide receiver position beyond St. Brown.
St. Brown is an incredible player, but having one superstar wideout isn’t enough on its own to field an elite passing game. For instance, A.J. Brown was fifth in receiving yards, just two spots behind St. Brown, but the Eagles were only 16th in passing yards (12th per attempt). D.J. Moore was sixth in receiving yards, but the Bears finished 27th in passing yards (25th per attempt).
What sets the Lions apart is how they use the threat of their top wide receiver to cook up favorable opportunities for the rest of the unit.
These were the Lions’ next three leading wide receivers after St. Brown:
- Josh Reynolds: 40 catches, 64 targets, 608 yards, 5 TD
- Kalif Raymond: 35 catches, 44 targets, 489 yards, 1 TD
- Jameson Williams: 24 catches, 42 targets, 354 yards, 2 TD
While the Lions didn’t complement St. Brown with a second star wide receiver, they created a second star wide receiver in the aggregate using their second-through-fourth wide receivers. Reynolds, Raymond, and Williams combined for 99 catches on 150 targets for 1,451 yards and eight touchdowns. That looks like the line of a top-five wide receiver. For example, it is very similar to A.J. Brown’s 2023 stat line (106/158/1456/7).
Sure, it might seem easy to combine any three players’ stats to get the production of one star. But that’s not exactly the case. What makes this trio unique is its efficiency. They used fewer targets than A.J. Brown to get about the same number of yards and one more touchdown. It’s not as if we’re taking three random backups who needed 200 targets to match the yards and touchdowns that a superstar could produce with 150.
In fact, the Lions’ production when targeting this trio was hardly different than their production when targeting Amon-Ra St. Brown:
- St. Brown: 1,515 yards, 75 first downs, and 10 TD on 164 targets (9.2 yards per target, 45.7% first down rate, 6.1% TD rate)
- Reynolds/Raymond/Williams: 1,456 yards, 66 first downs, and 8 TD on 150 targets (9.7 yards per target, 44% first down rate, 5.3% TD rate)
It’s extremely rare to see such a minimal difference between a team’s efficiency when targeting their WR1 versus their WR2-WR4 – especially when the WR1 in question was one of the top three receivers in the NFL.
Detroit had one of the most efficient WR2-WR4 trios in the NFL. The Lions relied on them less often than most teams, but they produced incredible results with the opportunities they received.
I accumulated the production of every team’s WR2-WR4 trio (based on receiving yards) to see where Detroit stacked up. The Reynolds/Raymond/Williams trio was only 24th in targets (150), but they placed 11th in receiving yards (1,451), therefore landing them at No. 2 in yards per target (9.7). Only the Bills (10.0) got more yards per target from their WR2-WR4 trio.
When you have a WR1 like St. Brown who can shoulder a massive workload of targets, you don’t need the rest of the unit to rack up high-volume numbers. You just need them to be efficient with the opportunities they get. Detroit has done this at an elite level, and it’s one of the main reasons why they have an elite offense.
This brings us to the New York Jets.
How the Jets can emulate Detroit’s model
In Garrett Wilson, the Jets have their high-volume WR1. Wilson had even more targets than St. Brown last season, ranking fourth in the league with 168 while St. Brown was one spot behind him with 164 (although Wilson played one more game).
St. Brown’s stat line exemplifies what Wilson’s stat line could look like with competent quarterbacking. While Wilson’s 168 targets turned into just 1,042 yards and three touchdowns, St. Brown’s 164 targets turned into 1,515 yards and 10 touchdowns.
St. Brown reached those numbers by averaging 9.2 yards per target and scoring a touchdown on 6.1% of his targets. Wilson, meanwhile, averaged 6.2 yards per target while scoring on just 1.8% of his targets.
There’s no reason to think Wilson is incapable of either matching or beating St. Brown’s per-target rates. Consider that, in his final two seasons as Aaron Rodgers’ WR1, Davante Adams averaged 9.2 yards per target and scored a touchdown on 9.1% of his targets. Wilson’s QB-independent performance is similarly impressive to that of peak Adams; Wilson just needs a quarterback to capitalize on the opportunities he creates. If Rodgers can do that, we could easily see Wilson match or beat St. Brown’s 1,515 yards and 10 touchdowns on 160-plus targets in 2024.
So, the Jets should have their version of St. Brown in Wilson. The next part of the equation is emulating Detroit’s success with the rest of their wide receiver unit.
Unlike Detroit, the Jets have a wide receiver in Mike Williams who is fully capable of being a high-level WR2 and forming a star tandem with Wilson. Over his last 17 games, Williams has 91 receptions for 1,263 yards and six touchdowns. His ceiling is far higher than any of Detroit’s non-St. Brown receivers, so the situations are different in this regard.
However, if we look at the situation objectively, it seems a little optimistic to expect Williams to replicate that production. Williams will be 30 years old this season and is coming off an ACL tear. He already has a long-standing history of back and neck injuries that have added up over the years. He was cut by a Chargers team that was very thin on weapons. The free agent market determined he is only worth a one-year, $10 million deal.
While we cannot rule out Williams continuing to be a 91/1263/6 type of guy, the safe bet is to say he won’t be that type of player going forward.
Despite this, Williams can still be a valuable player for the Jets in 2024. That brings us back to the Detroit model.
In a reduced role that asks him to carry a lighter workload, Williams is fully capable of producing at an extremely efficient level on a per-target basis. We’ve seen him do it before. Early in his career – before the Chargers began expanding his target volume from 2021 onward – Williams generated numbers that would fit perfectly in Detroit’s WR2-by-committee style model.
From 2018-20, Williams posted per-17-game averages of 52 receptions, 89 targets, 895 receiving yards, and six touchdowns. That’s 10.1 yards per target and a 6.7% touchdown rate.
This level of efficiency and volume would fit nicely into Reynolds’ shoes as the Jets’ second wide receiver. The 89 targets might even be a little high – Reynolds only had 64 in 17 games last year. To fully maximize Williams’ health and effectiveness, the Jets could push him down to that area. Even with 64 targets, he would still produce 646 yards and four touchdowns if he maintained his per-target rates from 2018-20.
In his lone season with a target volume in this neighborhood, Williams was wildly efficient. This was back in 2018, his second year; Williams was targeted just 66 times in 16 games and caught 43 of those passes for 664 yards and 10 touchdowns. I could easily see him having a season like this in 2024 (maybe a little lighter on the touchdowns).
Moving past Williams, the rest of the Jets’ wide receiver depth chart starts to look quite thin in terms of proven talent – similar to Detroit.
Third-round rookie Malachi Corley has plenty of upside, but nobody has an idea of who he will be until he takes the field. Second-year man Xavier Gipson seems to be turning heads in practice, but he is a former UDFA who looked raw in his rookie year. Allen Lazard would seemingly be a perfect fit for the Detroit model, as he was an excellent low-usage/high-efficiency player with Aaron Rodgers in the past, but he was so horrendous in 2023 that it’s hard to expect anything from him until he proves himself again.
But if the Lions could get efficient results out of Josh Reynolds, Kalif Raymond, and Jameson Williams with Jared Goff at quarterback, then the Jets could get efficient results out of Corley, Gipson, and Lazard with Rodgers at quarterback, right?
It’s definitely possible. They just need to learn from what Detroit has done.
The Lions’ key to generating efficiency out of their complementary players is simple: They use them in roles that emphasize their strengths. It sounds obvious, but few teams do it as effectively as Detroit.
Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has an excellent understanding of what his players are good at. He identifies each player’s strengths and asks them to focus on those things rather than trying to push them beyond their limits.
Josh Reynolds’ strength is using his 6-foot-3 frame to snag tough catches in the intermediate part of the field (10-19 air yards). In 2023, he caught 21-of-32 intermediate targets for 380 yards and four touchdowns, generating the fourth-highest targeted passer rating (132.8) among the 33 wide receivers with at least 30 intermediate targets.
So, what did Johnson do with Reynolds? He kept feeding Reynolds in the intermediate range – to an unmatched degree. Reynolds saw 52.5% of his targets in the intermediate range, the highest rate in the NFL among wide receivers with at least 30 total targets.
Lions create more of a high-medium than a high-low, plays out perfectly against the Bucs redzone quarters coverage and ends up in a Josh Reynolds TD. pic.twitter.com/3QNb27IaAk
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) January 21, 2024
Kalif Raymond is an undersized receiver (5-foot-8, 180 pounds) who struggles mightily to make contested catches (26% contested catch rate in his career), but he has elite speed (4.34 forty) and quickness (3.96 shuttle). So, Johnson doesn’t ask Raymond to make plays that would require him to beat tight coverage. He cooks up opportunities for Raymond to just breeze by people and only targets him in those situations.
Just six of Raymond’s 35 receptions in 2023 were against man coverage. Detroit primarily targeted Raymond on screens or on deep shots that were designed to get him open through the holes of a zone coverage. As a result, the Lions had a 127.4 passer rating when targeting Raymond against zone coverage, ranked third-best among wide receivers with at least 20 targets against zone.
I think Kalif Raymond deserves some more love for the year he had.
Came in and just did what was asked of him every game. pic.twitter.com/6uevf0fU8Q
— Lions Daily (@CatchLikeCalvin) February 2, 2024
Jameson Williams has not lived up to his first-round billing, but he still possesses elite top-end speed and has proven to be a solid deep threat. Instead of pushing Williams too far to try and justify the draft pick, Detroit just asks him to do what they know he’s good at. It’s fine to admit that a player isn’t quite who you thought he’d be, but can still help you in a certain role.
Williams is among the most one-dimensional deep threats at the position. His ADOT (average depth of target) was 16.7 yards in 2023, ranking seventh among 102 qualified wide receivers. More than one-quarter of his targets traveled at least 20 yards downfield, and more than half went at least 10 yards.
But it works just fine. Williams averaged 8.4 yards per target while producing two touchdowns and 14 first downs on 42 targets. For your fourth-best wide receiver, that’s solid efficiency.
Know some have had enough of Jameson Williams. But bull case is easy:
* Just 23 years old
* Another year removed from 1/10/22 ACL tear
* Lions let Josh Reynolds walk in FA, didn’t draft any WRs
* Only Kalif Raymond, DPJ in the way of every-down role pic.twitter.com/FUnfpqDiIY— Adam Levitan (@adamlevitan) May 8, 2024
Not every team has the luxury of being able to squeeze its complementary weapons into such uber-specified roles. But you can do it when you have a superstar WR1 who demands an absurd amount of attention.
Detroit has St. Brown. New York has Garrett Wilson. With a superstar WR1 of their own, the Jets are equipped to maximize their complementary wide receivers to the same level of effectiveness as the Lions.
Mike Williams can take on a role similar to Jameson Williams (with a larger target volume than Jameson; closer to Reynolds/WR2) where he focuses mainly on getting vertical and using his acrobatic-catch skills to win jump balls. Off the threat of his verticality, Williams can diversify his game by feasting on hitch/curl routes, which have been a strength of his.
The threat of Mike Williams' verticality causes him to get a lot of big cushions. For this reason, he feasts on hitch routes. From 2022-23 it was his #1 route in terms of targets (30), receptions (25), and yards (302).
Great example here with an awesome diving catch pic.twitter.com/Otgpj2HG1w
— Michael Nania (@Michael_Nania) March 21, 2024
Corley’s speed and athleticism can be used in a Raymond-type role that allows him to rely on his physical traits while he develops his route running.
Corley is so much fun, great balance/strength to stay in bounds here pic.twitter.com/1N6V2gIN4y
— Joe Blewett (@Joerb31) April 28, 2024
Lazard – if he has his head in the game – can rejuvenate his career in a Reynolds-type role where he focuses on using his size over the middle of the field. In his years with Rodgers, the slant route was Lazard’s bread and butter.
The Packers’ primary answers vs man coverage this season have been targets to slot receiver Allen Lazard and slant routes.
Should be a busy day for Myles Bryant pic.twitter.com/lj8rxnvkJ4
— Taylor Kyles (@tkyles39) September 29, 2022
Even if Lazard flops, there could be a role for Gipson in there somewhere, who has shown flashes of high-level elusiveness and good short-range route running.
The Jets did a poor job in this department last year. Their WR2-WR4 trio (Allen Lazard, Xavier Gipson, Jason Brownlee) ranked last in total receiving yards (596), 30th in yards per target (6.3), and 30th in receiving touchdowns (2).
While he can be somewhat excused for these rankings due to the difficult circumstances, Nathaniel Hackett must turn this weakness into a strength in 2024. With the additions of Williams and Corley along with a healthy Aaron Rodgers, the Jets are capable of generating tremendous efficiency out of their complementary wide receivers.
It’s on Hackett to take a page out of Ben Johnson’s book and give each player a role that emphasizes their strengths. Hackett didn’t inspire any confidence that he’s capable of doing this in 2023. Can he flip the script in 2024? He’ll need to if the Jets want their passing game to be a well-rounded juggernaut like Detroit’s, rather than just the Rodgers-to-Wilson show.
Elite talent can carry you to a certain point, but to field a truly elite team, the coaching needs to make the whole greater than the sum of the parts. Going into last season, many teams could have claimed to have better pass-catching talent on paper than the Lions, but Detroit outperformed nearly all of them, and it’s mainly because their coaching staff knew how to maximize everybody in the unit—not just the stars.
The Jets have the ingredients to do the same thing. Do they have the right chefs in the kitchen?
