Three things the Lions must do to beat the Vikings

The Lions roll into Minnesota this week to finish off their back-to-back road games to start the 2015 season.

Both teams are coming off poor performances on the west coast with the Vikings playing a game in which their fans wondered if they even got off the plane in San Francisco.

Meanwhile the Lions simply choked and got out coached in San Diego.

The advantage for Minnesota this week is they get to play at home. However neither of these teams what to start the season 0-2 in which case if you do and the Packers win, you pretty much kiss your chances for the division good-bye in week two. Plus it’s a divisional matchup making it worth another half game swing.

So here’s three things the Lions must do if they want to win in Minnesota.

It was totally unacceptable last week against the Chargers that Calvin Johnson was targeted four times while Ameer Abdullah only sees the ball 11 times. I’m all for spreading the ball out but Golden Tate wasn’t used properly either. Enough with this New Orleans Saints ideology of “opponents never know where it’s going to come from”. Wake up Lions, it hasn’t been coming from anywhere consistently on offense under this coaching staff.

You have horses, use them.

The Lions coaching staff failed its players and fans last Sunday. San Diego was able to see Detroit’s defense and adjusted in a quarter. Detroit never countered and saw a game slip away.

The Same goes for the offense.

The o-line looked confused on assignments and not calling for plays to get Megatron and Abdullah eventually did them in.

Detroit is going to have to be aware of Adrian Peterson at all times and not miss assignments filling gaps.

Teddy Bridgewater is also not Phillip Rivers, if you want to bring the heat on a 2nd year quarterback that’s fine, but if the Vikings start chipping away with Kyle Rudolph and Charles Johnson, Teryl Austin is going to have to fall back.

This is a game Detroit should see their defensive line dominate. Minnesota is missing their starting center and blindside protector in John Sullivan and Phil Loadholt. There’s no reason Ziggy Ansah and Tyrunn Walker don’t meet in the backfield for a couple high fives over Bridgewater. Additionally Haloti Ngata should be able to plug most of the middle pushing A.P. to run outside.

Unfortunately DeAndre Levy and Darius Slay could both be out.