Detroit Lions pulled out a dramatic win, but areas of concern could hurt them later
The Detroit Lions are 8-2 for the first time in 61 years, and around here that’s definitely cause for celebration.
But amid the happy scene at Ford Field after a dramatic 31-26 comeback victory over the Chicago Bears, it might serve the team and its supports well to consider the possibility that the Lions have been fortunate to win their last two games by narrow margins.
The defense nearly cost the Lions in a 41-38 win over the Los Angeles Chargers. On Sunday, it was the offense’s turn to stumble.
If all you care about is wins, regardless of how they come, then the past two games have been your kind of games. A W is a W. Now let’s party!
But if you care to look in the uncomfortable places and examine the areas of concern that could hurt the Lions in the playoffs, or even against decent teams that may not be looking for new head coaches this offseason, you will find that Sunday was about more than simple rah-rah resilience.
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I don’t want to take anything away from this victory, or the last one, because the Lions earned them for a franchise that usually has found a way to lose these kinds of games. In fact, watching the Bears let a 26-14 lead slip away in the final 4 minutes by going conservative reminded me of what most Lions teams would have done in the past.
So congrats, Lions. You beat your past selves. Break out the Tito’s and Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid!
But the defense remains a concern, having given up 64 points in the past two games and struggling again against a mobile quarterback. The offense’s turnovers have mostly come from the hands of Jared Goff, the usually reliably accurate quarterback who threw three picks (and almost two more) and now has five picks in the past four games.
Yet the Lions somehow found themselves leading at halftime, 14-10, even though they weren’t getting pressure on Justin Fields and were losing the time of possession battle badly: 19:41 to 10:19.
At halftime, I turned to a colleague and said, “It sure doesn’t feel like they’re winning.”
Soon enough, they weren’t. The Bears took a 20-14 lead in the third quarter after Craig Reynolds’ kickoff fumble, then pushed that to 23-14 after Goff’s third pick of the game, when his ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage. They went up, 26-14, after a field goal with 4:15 left in the fourth quarter.
But Dan Campbell said he never lost his patience, never wavered through all the problems. He told his guys as much.
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“I say this all the time,” he said, “I’m like, ‘Guys, as long as we have the ability to get a stop and we got three timeouts, we can do anything.’
“And we held the three timeouts and we were close and, you know, they’re sitting there with a lead. They’re going to do what they need to do to hold that and not do something too aggressive.”
Like a fine poker player who knows how to read the guy sitting across the table, Campbell knew Bears coach Matt Eberflus, like most NFL coaches, would do the conservative thing and probably try to run down the clock. He did, and snatching defeat from the jaws of victory Sunday will be one reason he’ll soon get his walking papers.
The Lions’ salvation came from their willingness to be bold, but also with an assist from the Bears, who decided to play not to lose instead of playing to win. The Lions pounced. A touchdown drive that lasted 1:16 was followed by one that lasted 2:04.
And just like that, the Lions found salvation in the final minutes for a second straight week.
“Yeah, it’s a lot easier to play bad and win than it is to play bad and lose,” Goff happily chirped afterward. “Kind of what we did today, we played not our best ball, and not my best ball for about 3½ quarters and found a way to make it work there at the end.”
Goff has been on good and bad teams during his eight years in the NFL. He knows what kind of team he’s on right now.
“And you tend to figure that the good teams are the ones that kind of win those games late,” he said, “and it’s like you don’t really know why or how but you always make the right play in the fourth quarter.”
Then he harkened back to the Chargers game.
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“And last week was no different,” he said, “winning on that field goal, being able to convert on that fourth down, kick a field goal.
“But yeah, it’s a sign of a good team and ultimately reflects itself in the record. But it feels good to win another close one and validate what we’ve been working on.”
Winning these two games is a testament to how well the Lions have been built and coached. But four of their final seven games will be against teams that are in the playoff hunt. In those games, the Lions won’t have the luxury of falling behind by two scores so late or requiring half the team to carry the other half.
If they think they do, they might want to check in with all those other Lions teams over the past 61 years that found out the hard way what cost them so many victories.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions should be concerned with how they've won past two games
