Lions Have Deep Well of Trick Plays

Lions are not worried about saving trick plays for key moments of the season.

Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson calls a play against Tampa Bay Buccaneers / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Detroit Lions are not concerning themselves with saving plays for later in the 2024 season.

With a vast array of plays in their arsenal, Detroit's talented offensive coordinator Ben Johnson has the capability of not running the same play twice in the same NFL season.

Detroit has caught the attention of the NFL world with the amount of trick plays called the past several weeks.

Heading into each week, Johnson has at his disposal more trick plays than can be called. It just so happens the team has gotten the correct looks from opposing defenses to be able to call and execute many of them.

Recall, Johnson shared he wanted the offensive identity to be creative, explosive and detailed.

Detroit Lions tight end Sam LaPorta (87) catches a pass on a flea flicker for a touchdown. / Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Part of the reason the team's offense has been successful has been the detailed work that occurs each week at practice.

"This game's been around for a long time, and our challenge as a coaching staff, I say it to the offensive staff quite a bit, we can run a million different types of plays. Because of that, I don't like to run the same one twice. I don't like to do it within a game, I don't like to do it within a season," said Johnson. "We certainly do have some staples that I will repeat at times, but we're charged with -- let's have a little creativity. Defenses are doing their film study, they're looking at things. We try to mix it up. From that regard, I'm not worried about putting things on tape, if anything it's just gonna help set up the next thing down the road and the well is deep."

The demand the coaches put on players to be detailed and understand the nuances of the offense helps in more creative plays being called and actually working.

"It's one of the things we talked about last week, what is our identity? And one of them is being detailed," Johnson explained. "That's something where, spring time, training camp, up until now we are very demanding of our players at really every position group. When we are like that, you get into a game week where we have more volume or we have nuances that we don't get a ton of reps on, they have to decipher it and handle it and they do a great job of it. That, combined with some of them are for premier looks and if we don't get that look, we get out of it."

Dan Campbell indicated the team is always seeking to push the limits of what can be accomplished on offense.

“No, I think for that we had gone in saying, ‘Man, we’re using everything in our arsenal.’ We had told the players that, that’s the way we worked all week, and we were using it, and we were playing football and we were pedal to the metal. That was the whole mindset," Campbell said. "And them, our job is to, every week, come back up with something more creative and find a way to continue to push the limits here. Ben does a great job and the offensive staff. And so, now it’s, ‘Let’s go find something else.’”

Despite scoring more than 40 points in consecutive weeks, Johnson noted the penalties in the red zone negatively impacting the team.

Quarterback Jared Goff noted he did not execute some passes against Dallas he normally expects to connect on.

“Man, a ton of places. I thought I did miss a couple things in that game," said Goff. "I was able to hit some of the big ones, but missed a couple guys you normally feel like you do hit and sometimes that happens. "But, I was able to hit the big ones and make up for it. So yeah, just continuing to get sharp and more and more on the same page, especially with these new guys and feel good.”