Ten days ago, the Lions were 7-2 and facing a pair of home games against the struggling Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers. A pair of victories would have put them in commanding position to win the NFC North and host their first playoff game since moving to Ford Field in 2002.
On Friday, the Lions were glad things didn’t go even worse.
Detroit needed 17 points in the final three minutes to beat the Bears 31-26, then couldn’t pull off another comeback in a 29-22 Thanksgiving Day loss to the Packers.
“I know what it looks like — we haven’t been good enough out there — but I’m not panicked,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “If we don’t play our best game and the other team is perfect, it doesn’t matter who we are facing, things like this are going to happen.
“We’re the type of team that is going to have to fight and scratch and claw for everything. We can’t be on cruise control.”
The Lions have struggled on both sides of the ball, but no one has hurt the team as much as quarterback Jared Goff. After throwing three interceptions against the Bears, he lost three fumbles against the Packers.
“There have certainly been some plays where I need to take better care of the ball,” Goff said. “There’s no rhyme or reason — I’m going to look at all of them individually and figure out what I can fix.”
The Lions don’t play again until visiting the New Orleans Saints on Dec. 3, and Campbell plans to use the time to get things back on track.
“We’re going to clean up some things and then we’ve got six games to go,” he said. “If we turn the ball over three times against everyone we play, the odds of winning are going to be pretty slim, but I don’t see that happening.”
Leave a Reply