Drew Pitzing’s imprint on the Detroit Lions showed up in Week 1, when their run game against the New Orleans Saints got a cleaner edge and a sharper purpose. The setup was not a full fix. It was a strong start, and for a team that wants its ground game to carry real weight, that matters.
The reason readers keep coming back to this is simple: the Lions need the run game to be better if they want to reestablish themselves as Super Bowl contenders, and this was one of the first signs that the structure can work. The film breakdown centers on a concept built on cross-blocks, with the CRUNCH idea using trap and belly roots to force defenders to sort through movement instead of reading the play cleanly.
On the featured snap, the design is built to hit the strong-side C gap between Blake Miller and Brock Wright. Miller kicks out the wide-9 edge defender. Wright traps the inside 3-technique defensive tackle. Juice Scruggs and Penei Sewell glide up to the second level, and the whole point is to create false reads for linebackers who are usually taught to follow pulling guards. Here, both guards show pull action to their left while the actual run is going to the right, which is exactly the kind of misdirection the scheme is built to create.
That matters because the defenders do what the play asks them not to do. Linebacker No. 55 points toward the pulling guards and hesitates, while No. 20 is already moving hard to fill that false path. The concept breaks the keys before they settle, and that split second is enough to open the lane the offense wants.
The next play in the breakdown uses slightly similar action, but in a zone-blocking scheme. Miller again kicks out the edge defender, and Sam LaPorta slides inside with a lead fold block into the play-side zone look. The details are different, but the idea is the same: make the defense react before it can diagnose. For Detroit, that is the point of the film, and the reason the Week 1 showing felt encouraging without pretending the job is finished.
That is the real takeaway from the Saints game. The Lions did not solve everything in one afternoon, but they did show a run game with enough structure and deception to point toward something better. If that carryover stays in place, the scheme will matter even more than the single result of Week 1.
