The Lions tried to simulate Bears' quarterback Caleb Williams in an interesting way at practice

There is no doubt that one of the biggest concerns that Detroit Lions fans have had for a long time is trying to get to the quarterback. Right after that is the concern with trying to stop a mobile quarterback. The Lions are going to face a pretty good one in Caleb Williams on Sunday when the Chicago Bears come to town. How do you stop a guy who gets mobile?

Last Lions head coach Dan Campbell sort of alluded to the idea that you can't.

“I know this, running quarterbacks are hard. They’re hard to defend, and it’s like, somebody tells you that, ‘We don’t handle running quarterbacks very well.’ Well, tell me the team that does. … When you’re trying to deal with (Ravens QB) Lamar (Jackson) and … (Bills QB) Josh Allen, there are a lot of teams that struggle against those guys. They’re not easy to stop, and there’s a reason for that.”

So what can you do? The hope is simply that you can contain that running as much as possible. The Lions had a plan this week, and it was an interesting one. That plan was to have backup quarterback Kyle Allen just run all over the place and have the defense practice trying to stop him.

"...He's so dangerous when he gets out of the pocket, and so if you're not careful, you'll paralyze your guys. You'll just stand there, right, and now he buys time in the pocket. And then if you just rip and roar and you're gone, and you open lanes up while he's going there too. So there is a fine balance we've tried to emphasize that. I thought our guys did a really good job yesterday. Kyle Allen gave us some looks, some really good looks, a lot of scramble looks, just, you know, working it and trying to simulate him as much as possible."

Campbell laughingly said that he's not saying Allen's legs have some Caleb Williams ability, but it's as close as they can get to it with what they have right now.

The reason it's interesting is that we haven't really heard Campbell say that the Lions have tried to do this kind of thing before. It would have made a lot of sense that Hendon Hooker would have been in that role in the past, since he does have more of that ability. But this is notable. The Lions are trying things. We'll see how it turns out. Detroit has Williams this week and then Lamar Jackson next week.