Detroit Lions confident quarterback Tim Boyle can handle the whole playbook
Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff missed a second day of practice Thursday as he continues to deal with a strained oblique muscle; his status for Sunday’s road game against the Cleveland Browns remains uncertain.
But the Lions seem to have full confidence in Tim Boyle, Goff’s backup who has missed the entire regular season since he broke the thumb on his throwing hand in an exhibition loss to the Indianapolis Colts.
“Even though he couldn’t go out and practice physically, he’s been in it mentally,” offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn said Thursday. “He’s a pretty sharp kid. He threw well yesterday and if he has to go, then we have full confidence in him that he gets the job done.”
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Boyle completed just 56.4% of his passes in the preseason, but he looked good in training camp, and he has the strongest arm of the four quarterbacks on the Lions’ roster. He appeared in 11 games with the Green Bay Packers in 2019-20.
Even though he hasn’t played in three months, Boyle has stayed involved enough with the offense to keep his coaches from having to cut down the playbook if he starts Sunday.
“It definitely doesn’t close any of the playbook,” Lynn said. “He can handle it all. He’s just been out for a while. He saw some rush yesterday, but don’t expect to see those today and if we have to go with him, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
Lions on Mayfield: 'A pretty good player'
A day after Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield was roughed up in a 45-7 loss at New England, ESPN analyst and former NFL head coach Rex Ryan piled on with criticism of the 2018 No. 1 overall draft pick.
“When I said Baker Mayfield was overrated as hell, I got ripped for it,” Ryan said Monday on ESPN’s “Get Up!” “I told the truth. It’s only based on 30 years of coaching experience. I know what an elite quarterback is, and I know what one isn’t. Baker Mayfield is not an elite quarterback.”
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn didn’t address Ryan’s criticism specifically Thursday , but he has his own take on Mayfield’s ability.
“In regards to Baker, well he was the No. 1 pick in the draft, right?” Glenn said. “So he’s a pretty good player. It just so happened that things didn’t work (Sunday). Again, another team that ran into a buzzsaw. You saw the Patriots got their butts whipped earlier in the year, and no one would say anything about that. So, again, it’s a week-to-week league, you know?
“Our chance is coming for us to have that situation where we beat somebody and then that will be contagious for us. So it is what it is. I don’t know what happened with Rex and all that. I just know that Baker’s a pretty good player. We’re going to do everything we can to stop him.”
One of Ryan’s criticisms of Mayfield from Sunday’s game was the way the Patriots exposed his weakness against man-to-man coverage. Glenn was asked if the Lions could adopt some of New England’s concepts to thwart Mayfield.
“It is a copycat league,” Glenn said. “But schematically, everyone has a philosophy for how they want to play defense, they feel it’s the best way to play defense. So we’re going to go out there and we’re going to out there and we’re going to play the way we feel is the best way to play.”
Here’s the kicker
The Lions are breaking in their sixth and seven kickers of the season after they cut Ryan Santoso following his missed extra point and a winning field goal attempt from 48 yards in overtime at Pittsburgh.
The Lions signed Riley Patterson off New England’s practice squad and added Aldrick Rosas, a 2018 Pro Bowler with the New York Giants, to their practice squad.
Special teams coordinator Dave Fipp was familiar with each kicker. He did predraft evaluation work on Patterson when he came out of Memphis last season; when Fipp was with the Philadelphia Eagles, he faced Rosas twice a year.
Fipp said the mechanics involved in placekicking, including the snap and hold, shouldn’t be an issue. It’s the coverage concepts that take more time to dial in.
“I would say probably the biggest adjustment really actually would be kick-cover,” Fipp said, “because the coverage group is kind of built around what the kicker can do or what he does best. So we’ve just got to kind of figure that out. But other than that it doesn’t take real long for these guys to get up and go.”
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions confident Tim Boyle can handle entire playbook
