–T.J. Lang might have played his last game as a Lion.
The Lions placed Lang on injured reserve Wednesday because of a neck injury he suffered in a Week 9 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Lang made the Pro Bowl as an alternate last season and has generally played well when he’s been on the field, but he’s battled an assortment of injuries that will have forced him to miss 13 of a possible 32 games by season’s end.
Lang, 31, has one year left on the three-year contract he signed with the Lions as a free agent last spring, but the team can save about $9 million in cap space by releasing him this offseason. He has a $500,000 roster bonus due on the fourth day of the 2019 league year.
–One reason for the Lions’ recent defensive struggles: They’ve had no pass rush to speak of during their three-game losing streak.
The Lions averaged 3.5 sacks over the season’s first six games, but have just four sacks in the last three weeks combined.
“I mean on every single pass play it would be great if we could just sack the quarterback,” Lions head coach Matt Patricia said. “That’s my goal, 100 percent. It hasn’t really worked out that way so we’re going to try to do a better job with the pass rush.”
–Ziggy Ansah, who led the Lions with 12 sacks a season ago, continues to play in a part-time role since returning to the lineup from a shoulder injury.
Ansah played 15 of a possible 57 defensive snaps last week against the Bears and has played just 27 snaps the last two games.
He has two sacks on the season.
“I think he’s starting to get back into feeling good and feeling like he wants to feel, and that’s a work in progress,” defensive coordinator Paul Pasqualoni said. “He’s making progress each day, each week, so as I said last week we’re giving him as many reps as we can in practice and we’re evaluating it on a daily basis as we work through the week. I would say this, that Ziggy’s headed in a good direction.”
BY THE NUMBERS: 15 – The Lions have lost yards on just 15 of their 210 rushing plays this season, tied for second fewest in the NFL. The Lions haven’t run the ball great of late, gaining less than 80 yards on the ground in each of their last three games, but they continue to rank in the top half of the NFL in yards per carry (4.3).
