Michael Rothstein, ESPN Staff Writer 11y

Looking at formations: Week 2 vs. Cards

Every week, we'll take a look at what formations the Lions ran during their last game.

Detroit ran a lot fewer plays Sunday than it did a week earlier against Minnesota and some of the byproduct of that came with fewer plays for tight ends Tony Scheffler and Joseph Fauria.

Also, for the second straight week, Detroit's favored formation was a single running back with three wide receivers and one tight end, usually Brandon Pettigrew. This week, I was able to chart 57 of the Lions' 58 listed offensive plays between live game action and watching the television copy of the game again.

The Lions also didn't change much in the second half, even though Reggie Bush was mostly unavailable. They still ran a lot of the same formations with Joique Bell.

Here's what the Lions looked like:

1 running back/3 wide receivers/1 tight end -- 20 plays

Shotgun 1 running back/3 wide receivers/1 tight end  -- 19 plays

Shotgun empty 1 running back/3 wide receivers/1 tight end -- 9 plays

1 running back/2 wide receivers/2 tight ends -- 4 plays

Shotgun empty 1 running back/2 wide receivers/2 tight ends -- 3 plays

Shotgun 2 running backs/3 wide receivers -- 1 play

Pistol 2 running backs (or 1 running back/1 tight end off-set; tough to tell from television copy) /3 wide receivers  -- 1 play

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