The Detroit Lions' defense tied for 10th in the NFL last season with 41 sacks, nine behind the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings. The year before, the Lions' 44 sacks ranked sixth, just four behind the Pittsburgh Steelers.
According to defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch, if the Lions do not lead the NFL in that category this season, they're underachieving.
"If we're not the most dominant defensive line in the league, I feel like we're not doing our job," Vanden Bosch said, via Justin Rogers of MLive.com. "I feel like we have the people, I feel like we have the weapons, so if we're not doing it, we're underachieving."
From an advanced metrics standpoint, the Lions' pass rush ranked outside the Top 15 in Football Outsiders' "Adjusted Sack Rate" in 2011, (which gives sacks and intentional grounding penalties per pass attempt adjusted for down, distance and opponent) after tying for fifth in the same category in 2010.
The player who could hold the key in the Lions' improvement is Ndamukong Suh, who saw his production dropped from a team-high 10 sacks in 2010 to four in 2011. Suh had just one sack in a suspension-shortened second half of the season and saw his number of "quarterback hits" drop from 17 in 2010 to nine last season. With the talent the Lions have at defensive end, the Lions should rank near the top of the NFL in sacks this season if Suh returns to his rookie form.
Follow Brian McIntyre on Twitter _@brianmcintyre_.
