Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi is out of his mind to think that Golden Tate isn’t one of his top two weapons on every single play.
The Lions haven’t won a game yet in 2015, and Lombardi’s offense has sputtered out of the gates. Not coincidentally, last year’s star Golden Tate has been almost invisible at times, sometimes by design as a spectator on the sidelines.
According to Pro Football Focus (subscription required), Tate has participated in 230 plays through four games, while quarterback Matthew Stafford has taken 259 snaps. This means Tate has been off the field for 29 plays, which averages out to just over seven plays per game.
Kyle Meinke of Mlive.com asked the coordinator about why Tate isn’t being featured as much and received a head-scratcher of a reply from Lombardi.
Asked Lombardi why he takes Tate out of the game so much. Said its a package thing. Sometimes there's another player better suited than Tate
— kyle meinke (@kmeinke) October 8, 2015
Taking a look at Detroit’s depth chart, it’s difficult to make sense of Lombardi’s comment. Lance Moore, T.J. Jones and Correy Fuller are all clearly a notch or five down from Tate on the measuring stick. And tight end Eric Ebron is as much of a liability to blow an assignment or earn a penalty flag as he is a threat to make a big play.
Whether it’s blocking his man on a running play, going into the middle to make a tough play on third down or going long for a big play down the field, Tate is second to nobody on Detroit’s roster besides Calvin Johnson.
With just 18 catches for 190 yards and no touchdowns, Tate is almost a non-factor right now, especially when you consider he had racked up 24 passes for 317 yards during the first four games last year.
Not surprisingly, Tate’s frustration finally reached a boiling point after Monday’s controversial loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“Like I’ve said, they call the plays, I run the plays to the best of my ability, and that’s the only thing I can do,” Tate said, via the Detroit Free Press. “We are just going to go in, let (the coaches) design some plays, and I run them the best I can and I try to give the team the best chance I can at winning.”
Lombardi is not living in reality to think somehow there’s a winning combination on the field that doesn’t include Tate. Perhaps this is why Detroit’s offense — loaded at every position — is ranked as the fourth-worst offense in the NFL, right ahead of the lowly San Francisco 49ers in terms of total yards.
There are more things wrong with Detroit’s offense than a misuse of Tate’s talents. The offensive line is an abject disaster, despite featuring some promising young players. It’s hard to say Lombardi is the biggest problem, but at the least he’s not helped the team find a solution to this point.
The Lions host the Arizona Cardinals this weekend, and Cardinals defensive back Tyrann Mathieu is as shocked as anyone about the lack of production for Detroit.
“You talk about their personnel, and it’s not like those guys have a bad quarterback,” Mathieu said, per Meinke. “I mean, they have Matthew Stafford back there. They have some pretty good running backs, and they have some pretty good wide receivers. For me, they just look like they don’t quite understand the system yet.”
Either everybody on Detroit’s offense is slow to understand the system, or the system is broken. A couple more stinkers in the coming weeks might prompt head coach Jim Caldwell to strongly consider taking over for his young coordinator, and perhaps to get back to basics.