- Admin
- #1
From Detroit’s perspective, the most important play of Sunday’s crucial NFC North championship game happened about four hours before kickoff and 529 miles to the southeast. Kirk Cousins threw a backbreaking interception that snuffed out the Washington Redskins’ last hope for victory, and thus guaranteed the Lions an entry into the 2016 NFL playoffs.
And that’s a good thing, because there was no way Detroit was going to win its way into the playoffs on its own. The Lions lost to Green Bay 31-24 on Sunday night in the year’s final regular-season game, and in so doing tumbled from the division lead all the way to the very precipice of the playoffs.
Three weeks ago, Detroit was sitting at 9-4, coming off a victory against Chicago and two full games ahead of Green Bay for the division lead. Playoffs were a certainty, with the team’s first home playoff game since 1993 all but wrapped. The Lions had come from behind eight times in the fourth quarter, so why wouldn’t they keep on rolling forward into January?
Well, they’re the Lions, for one thing. Detroit lost to New York, got blown out the day after Christmas by Dallas, and then collapsed in the face of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. You could blame Matthew Stafford’s injured birdie finger, you could blame injuries to the backfield, you could blame karma or regression to the mean, but whichever … the Lions have done this to themselves.
Stafford wasn’t terrible; he threw for a Hail Mary-aided 347 yards and two touchdowns. But the Lions were facing Rodgers, who has an ability not just to rise to an occasion, but to claim it as his own. Six games after Rodgers claimed the 4-6 Packers would “run the table,” Green Bay did exactly that, and Rodgers’ ability to throw footballs into coverage like throwing keys into keyholes was the key driver there. Detroit couldn’t cover Rodgers any better than the rest of the NFC North, but to be fair, Rodgers could have probably beaten the entire conference combined, not just individually.
Indeed, the highlight of the night for Detroit came shortly after halftime, when a tee-retrieving kid made the most of his moment on camera:
One must also question the long-term future of Jim Caldwell, who staved off the hot seat earlier this season but saw his margin for error vaporize in the season’s final games. The unspoken dark side of fourth-quarter comebacks is that you have to be in a deficit to come back in the first place, and the Lions’ inability to close out games, or seasons, could well prove their defining trait of this year.
The Lions are opening as a one-touchdown underdog to the Seahawks. If Detroit is going to salvage the remnants of a once-promising season, it will have to come from behind one more time.
Matthew Stafford and the Lions couldn’t get past the Packers. (Getty) ____
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.
And that’s a good thing, because there was no way Detroit was going to win its way into the playoffs on its own. The Lions lost to Green Bay 31-24 on Sunday night in the year’s final regular-season game, and in so doing tumbled from the division lead all the way to the very precipice of the playoffs.
Three weeks ago, Detroit was sitting at 9-4, coming off a victory against Chicago and two full games ahead of Green Bay for the division lead. Playoffs were a certainty, with the team’s first home playoff game since 1993 all but wrapped. The Lions had come from behind eight times in the fourth quarter, so why wouldn’t they keep on rolling forward into January?
Well, they’re the Lions, for one thing. Detroit lost to New York, got blown out the day after Christmas by Dallas, and then collapsed in the face of Aaron Rodgers and the Packers. You could blame Matthew Stafford’s injured birdie finger, you could blame injuries to the backfield, you could blame karma or regression to the mean, but whichever … the Lions have done this to themselves.
Stafford wasn’t terrible; he threw for a Hail Mary-aided 347 yards and two touchdowns. But the Lions were facing Rodgers, who has an ability not just to rise to an occasion, but to claim it as his own. Six games after Rodgers claimed the 4-6 Packers would “run the table,” Green Bay did exactly that, and Rodgers’ ability to throw footballs into coverage like throwing keys into keyholes was the key driver there. Detroit couldn’t cover Rodgers any better than the rest of the NFC North, but to be fair, Rodgers could have probably beaten the entire conference combined, not just individually.
Indeed, the highlight of the night for Detroit came shortly after halftime, when a tee-retrieving kid made the most of his moment on camera:
This kid already won 2017. #goalshttps://t.co/kKFXZMeJKz
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) January 2, 2017
The Lions presumably won’t have that kid with them when they head to Seattle this week for a game six days from now, a game in notoriously visitor-unfriendly CenturyLink Field.— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) January 2, 2017
One must also question the long-term future of Jim Caldwell, who staved off the hot seat earlier this season but saw his margin for error vaporize in the season’s final games. The unspoken dark side of fourth-quarter comebacks is that you have to be in a deficit to come back in the first place, and the Lions’ inability to close out games, or seasons, could well prove their defining trait of this year.
The Lions are opening as a one-touchdown underdog to the Seahawks. If Detroit is going to salvage the remnants of a once-promising season, it will have to come from behind one more time.
Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at [email protected] or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.