Cole Kmet, the Chicago Bears’ tight end, was speaking about the crucial fourth-down convert following the Bears’ 28-13 victory over the Lions on Sunday. He was referring to Aidan Hutchinson’s expensive error and the disastrous chain of events that ensued for Dan Campbell’s team at Soldier Field.
“I thought, ‘No way in hell are they jumping,’” Kmet said, when asked about Hutchinson taking the bait on a fourth-and-13 play that was designed to do exactly that, in drawing a defender offside. “They jumped. I don’t know how you could jump in that situation, but they did.” They did, indeed. And after the way things unfolded — or unraveled — from there, Kmet might as well have been talking to Lions fans, some of whom, no doubt, are ready to jump themselves.
The Lions are 9-4, with a two-game lead on the rest of the NFC North, and a 99% chance of making the postseason, according to the New York Times playoff simulator. Their chances of winning the division are still better than 8 in 10 at this point, and Detroit’s magic number remains three, with four weeks left to play in the regular season.
Yet after a second loss in three weeks, and another mistake-filled, turnover-plagued outing against a sub-.500 division opponent, Campbell knows the narrative about his team has shifted underneath them.
“But, I know this: If you got the right guys, the right coaches, you’ll find your way out of it,” he said Monday, as the Lions’ quickly turned their attention to Saturday’s prime-time game against Denver at Ford Field. “And the most important thing is that we don’t buy into the narrative that is not inside of our building and what the tape says.” Again, Campbell is well aware of what everyone else out there is saying.
The Lions have gone from one of the feel-good stories of the NFL — and a darkhorse Super Bowl contender in the eyes of some national pundits — to a team that’s giving many of its long-suffering supporters that sinking feeling. Sunday’s sloppy effort in blustery conditions against Justin Fields and the Bears only accelerated the seasonal affective disorder for some of you who remember the Lions’ last division title in 1993, but also the ones that slipped away in 2014 and ’16 — the
last two times they wobbled into the playoffs as wild-card entries. And for those that tuned in to Sunday night’s marquee game between Dallas and Philadelphia — two of the teams the Lions are chasing in the NFC — you may have nodded in agreement when NBC studio analyst Chris Simms noted, “It ain’t looking good in Detroit right now.”
That depends on your perspective, I suppose. But, it is no secret the Lions’ defense has largely come undone since Detroit’s midseason bye week, allowing more than 30 points per game and ranking last in the NFL in opponents’ pass efficiency, all while searching for something that had gone missing. As defensive lineman John Cominsky put it Sunday, “I feel like we’ve kind of lost our swagger and our confidence.”
Nor is it a news flash that Goff has started to crack under pressure behind a banged-up offensive line: After committing just five turnovers in the Lions’ first nine games, the veteran quarterback has coughed it up eight times in their last four. Not coincidentally, he has been sacked 10 times over the last month as well, and Goff described Sunday’s offensive showing — which produced 61 total yards on seven second-half possessions — as both “very uncharacteristic” and “extremely frustrating.”
When you throw in key injuries (Frank Ragnow, Alim McNeill), some questionable play-calling and game management by the coaching staff, and the simple fact that there really are no secrets for any team in the NFL by December, none of this should come as any great surprise. I think most of us realized the Lions’ expectations were starting to outpace the collective talent on the roster after that 5-1 start, and now the opposite might be happening.
