Caldwell Explains Why Game Planning For Orton Presents Challenge
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
CBS DETROIT - Detroit Lions head coach Jim Caldwell has zero interest in projecting whether the Lions can finish the season strong after winning three of their first four games.
"I'm not worried about the season. I'm worried about one game. I'm worried about Buffalo," Caldwell told Karsch and Anderson of 97.1 The Ticket. "The minute you start looking ahead and looking around the corner and all that, that's when you get slammed. That's when you start to have problems. You start counting victories and all those kinds of things and looking toward the end of the year, you're going to have some huge problems."
Sunday the Lions face the Buffalo Bills, the new team of former Lions head coach Jim Schwartz, whom the organization fired following last season. At quarterback for the Bills will be Kyle Orton, who is in his first year with Buffalo, which is his fifth team since he was drafted in 2005.
The Bills had been using EJ Manuel as their starter, but they benched him following last week's game against Houston, a game in which Manuel threw two interceptions.
Caldwell said Orton presents a challenge for the Lions because there is no film to study of him playing in the Buffalo system.
"There is no video evidence of him playing this year within this scheme and how he operates with it, what patterns he likes best, how does he like to throw, right side, left side, all the different things you look at," Caldwell said. "Where does he like to scramble to when he does try to buy time, things that we would typically do with our quarterback, what's he growing through in terms of protection, what's our best stunts to use against him, all those kinds of things we'd have to look at also. We don't get a chance to do that with him, so he's coming in with kind of a clean slate. We don't know what he's going to pick out of the grouping of plays that they've been using that he likes or that suits his sort of body type and abilities.
"But we go back and we study film where he's played before, we look at what he liked before," Caldwell continued, "and often times, if you look at any of the quarterbacks that have been in the league a long time, there are going to be certain plays that they really like because they do them well, so we watch him when he was with the Cowboys and things like that to try to get a little bit of a tip on it, but it's no guarantee, so a lot of it we're going to have to adjust on the run and rely strictly on our fundamentals and techniques."
The Detroit defense has fared well so far this season, ranking first in the NFL in yards allowed per game (267.3) and fourth in points per game (15.5). As for what has made that defense so good, Caldwell credits everyone, from each position group to each coach of each position group. The unit he mentioned first, however, was the defensive line.
"Let's not be naive. We have talent," Caldwell said. "One of the things that I noticed in preparing against this team is the fact that that was front was incredible. Suh, everybody knows about and understands how well he plays, how tough he is, how dominant he can be, he requires that teams pay attention to him and not single block him, and then Nick Fairley is playing extremely well. It's rare to have two guys inside like those guys that are big, strong, athletic disrupters."
The Lions rank third nationally in sacks (7) and fourth in forced fumbles (5).