Dan Campbell took over the Lions' offense, and Detroit suddenly looks unstoppable with the Eagles up next

The Detroit Lions made a change last Sunday, with head coach Dan Campbell taking over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator John Morton. 

"It was just, let's try something a little different," Campbell said in his postgame press conference, and in both process and results, things were indeed a little different for the Lions.

First, the results: Detroit piled up 546 total yards, 30 first downs and 44 points against Washington. Those totals rank first, first and second, respectively, for the Lions this season. Beyond that, Detroit played the most efficient game in terms of EPA (expected points added) per play not just in any game it has played this season, via Tru Media, but in any game that any team has played so far this season. (The Lions now account for two of the top five EPA/play games so far this year.)

It was one of the best performances not just of this season, but of the entire Campbell era. 

It was, for example, the second-best game of the 77-game Campbell era by EPA per play and the sixth-best in terms of success rate. It was tied for fifth in terms of total first downs and was one of just four games where the Lions did not go three-and-out on any of their drives and one of five where they never punted at all. It ranked second in both yards and points per drive. It ranked sixth in the share of plays that gained zero or negative yards and second in the share of plays that gained 10 yards or more.

Everything they wanted to do, they did, and at an extremely high level. And they did it by doing things a little bit differently than they had previously done during this season. 

So what actually changed when Campbell took over?

They got back to being an under-center team. The Lions were in shotgun for just 35.3% of their snaps, via Tru Media, which was their second-lowest rate of the year. They used motion more often. They had a player in motion before or at the snap on 65.2% of their plays, which was their highest rate of the season. They used play-action when dropping back to pass more often, faking a run before 18 of Jared Goff's 35 pass attempts, good for a 51.4% rate that was the highest of their season to date. 

They also blocked up the run better than in almost any game this year, creating an average of 2.27 yards before contact per attempt, which was their third-best mark of the season. And they helped David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs get to the second level of the defense, unblocked, several times, and it led to a few huge gains. 

Gibbs and Montgomery (mostly Gibbs) also created a season-high 4.58 yards after contact per attempt by breaking tackles at a 27.3% rate, via Tru Media, but getting untouched to the second level is obviously a massive help when it comes to creating breakaway rushing gains, of which the Lions had five against the Commanders.

In the passing game, there was more good stuff, whether out of play-action or on straight dropbacks. There were several throws where Jared Goff just had wide-open free runners for easy completions. Gibbs matched up on a linebacker in the red zone, Amon-Ra St. Brown running a slant against a backed-off corner, Sam LaPorta leaking out over the middle after a play fake, Kalif Raymond sprinting into open space after feigning a block on what looks like an insert run -- all of this stuff is way too easy.

The most encouraging sign, though, might have been the way Jameson Williams was incorporated into the offense. A few weeks after Morton said he had "failed" Williams by not getting him the ball more often, Campbell dialed up a way to do exactly that: by getting him running more in-breaking routes like crossers and digs, rather than continually running vertical routes up the field.

According to NFL Pro, Williams ran 13 in-breaking routes on Sunday, catching four passes for 83 yards and a touchdown on his four in-breaking targets. He had just nine such targets all year heading into the game against the Commanders. Using a player with Williams' speed to get him the ball in space rather than just having him run up the field to create space for others puts the defense in an even more conflicted state, and the Lions were smart to take advantage of his skill set in that way. 

Of course, they also did still have him run straight up the field, but not just to run defenders off the line. They actually threw him a pair of deep comeback routes, so that when he did run one of those "take the top off the defense to create space" type of routes, it actually created the space it was designed to create.

Everything just looked more put together, more in sync for the Lions against the Commanders than it had at any previous time this season -- perhaps with the exception of their game against the Bears -- even while the Lions were still racking up yards and points in several other games. 

Of course, the Commanders and Bears are among the most vulnerable defenses in the NFL. The idea is to be able to replicate those results against the better defenses, one of which the Lions will face this coming weekend when they take on the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles on "Sunday Night Football."

Campbell will have his hands full with a defense that just slowed the Green Bay Packers' offense to a crawl on Monday night. The Lions are a different animal than the Packers -- especially in Green Bay's current, injury-diminished state on offense -- but that doesn't make it any less daunting of a challenge to confront. If Campbell continues to dial up plays that get his playmakers in open space like he did last weekend, the Lions have a chance to put on another show.