Once again the “San Diego Lions” make for fun NFL viewing, as you’d expect when the surf meets Motown.
Part of it’s the surreal prospect of Detroit reaching a Super Bowl, much less winning one.
Part of it’s the San Diego connection, and that’s not mere sentiment.
Former La Jolla High School pole vault champion Dave Fipp stands as one of the NFL’s better special teams coaches. He helped to effect the only Super Bowl victory by a Philadelphia team and has enabled some of Lions head coach Dan Campbell’s daring fake-punt calls that succeed.
Four assistant coaches on the offensive side have ties to San Diego. How are they doing? The Lions finished fifth in points the past two years and now stand second at 30.2 points per game.
The team’s best unit? An enjoyable-to-watch blocking front coached by former University of San Diego assistants Hank Fraley and Steve Oliver, the latter a former Toreros lineman, with an assist from tight ends coach Steve Heiden, a former San Diego Chargers tight end who learned from Norv Turner and Joe Bugel.
The ing game coordinator, Tanner Engstrand, played quarterback with Grossmont College and San Diego State and coached under Dale Lindsey, the linebackers coach for the only San Diego team to reach a Super Bowl.
These guys seem to know what they’re doing.
Hence a franchise that annoyed viewers for decades now rewards them.
ing the early season’s toughest test Sunday, the Lions solved — yet sometimes barely survived — the disguises of Brian Flores’ highly ranked Minnesota Vikings defense.
By overcoming the din made by horn-blowing, Vikings-costumed fanatics inside Minnesota’s dome, a Lions offense playing all the right notes outpointed Kevin O’Connell’s unbeaten team to win, 31-29.
Rare turnaround
Aside from the entertaining football the Lions put out, their core storyline grabs me.
It’s a familiar one of mutual salvaging.
A franchise that seldom reached the playoffs in the Super Bowl era and never got to the big game, the Lions needed someone who could excel at the roster’s most important position. He would team up with a newly formed brain trust headed by Campbell, whose authentic leadership and physical presence call to mind baseball’s Bruce Bochy, and former Rams scout Brad Holmes, the general manager.
Rams castoff Jared Goff, in return, needed the tools to extricate his game from the trash bin.
Done and done.
Two seasons after getting pummeled with a low-talent Lions team, Goff led last year’s club to the franchise’s first divisional title in 30 years and first NFC championship game in 32 years.
Making a title defense daunting, the North has evolved into the NFL’s best division.
But Goff and the offense have improved, too.
Goff, availing himself of the Penei Sewell-led offensive line’s broad skill range and Johnson’s rare knack for creating effective spacing, leads the league in average yards per attempt (9.3) and er rating (111.5).
Just 22, Jahmyr Gibbs has averaged 5.7 yards per carry and caught 18 es, diluting criticism of Holmes for investing a first-round pick in him two years ago. Agile and smooth like Alvin Kamara was in his best years, the 5-foot-9 back fires into traffic despite weighing only 200 pounds entering the NFL Scouting Combine.
Speedster Jameson Williams, who’s a young third-year pro at 23, has gone for 21.2 yards per catch on 18 receptions in a much-needed breakout season. Maturing at the details, he crack-blocked a Vikings edge rusher Sunday, triggering a big play.
Once again, Amon St. Brown best personifies the whole team.
The receiver makes much-needed catches while knowing he’ll get clobbered.
Like Campbell, who famously quipped at his introductory news conference his Lions would bite the kneecaps of opponents, St. Brown is not a generic personality. Fluent in German (his mother, Miriam, is from ) and French (he lived in Paris as a fourth grader) the USC alum is a quick study. Dubable so far at 5-11 and 202 pounds, he’s also the son of John Brown, a bodybuilder who won two Mr. Universe and three Mr. World titles.
These Lions (5-1) are off to an encouraging start. They’ve improved more than the 49ers, who rallied to beat them in the NFC title game. But with the Vikings (5-1) and a few others also rising in the NFC, they may need Holmes to make a trade to blunt the recent leg fracture to edge rusher Aiden Hutchinson, the defense’s best player.
The happy ending would be for Goff and the Lions leaders who’ve embraced him to lead a Super Bowl-winning run, rewarding one of league’s most loyal — or masochistic? — fan bases.
The historical precedent is a familiar one.
Go back to 2006. Drew Brees, a San Diego Chargers castoff, teamed up with Saints leaders headed by former SDSU assistant Sean Payton. Three years later, they guided New Orleans to its first Super Bowl, which they won.
