The Detroit Lions went 10-6, with a 3-3 mark against fellow NFC North teams, and their first playoff appearance since 1999. This is a recap of this past season:
1.) 5-0 record to start the year.
Only three years removed from an 0-16 season, and with the Lions winning their last 4 games to end the 2010 season, Detroit opened the year with victories over last year’s surprise teams, Tampa Bay and Kansas City. They followed that with an overtime victory over the Vikings, a comeback victory over the Cowboys, and a dominating Monday Night victory over the Chicago Bears.
2.) Matthew Stafford leads the Lions to several comeback wins.
In week 3, the Vikings lead the Lions 20-0 at the half. The Lions would outscore them 26-3 the rest of the way, including overtime. In week 5, Dallas was leading 27-3 with 12:23 left in the 3rd quarter. I’ll even concede I turned the game off at this point. Of course I missed most of the Lions’ 34-30 comeback win that included 2 interception returns for touchdowns. Carolina jumped out to a 27-14 lead at the half. The Lions won that one going away, 49-35. Oakland led this game 27-14 with 7:47 left in the 4th quarter. Not enough time to win, so I turned it off. Wrong again. Missed the 28-27 Lions win.
3.) Lions lose to all 4 NFC playoff teams they faced.
Atlanta beat them 23-16. San Fransico won 25-19 on a late TD run. Green Bay beat them twice, 27-15 on Thanksgiving Day, and 45-41 on the season’s final day.New Orleans beat them 31-17. A variety of reasons were there for the losses. I’ll go with penalties. Against Atlanta, 10 for 84 yards. Against San Fransico, 6-54, stuffing the run was also a problem. On Thanksgiving Day, the Packers would’ve been forced to kick a FG, giving Stafford another opportunity to get a comeback win. Then Suh gets a 15 yard personal foul penalty, giving GB a first down and they promptly score a TD, putting the game away. It was one of 11 penalties for 82 yards. The next week, New Orleans’ defense has trouble stopping the Lions’ offense but the lions help them out by committing 11 more for 107 yards, most of which were backbreaking offensive penalties committed after the whistle. 3 of them were offensive pass interference calls against Nate Burleson. In the season finale, Detroit was called for 11 more for 101 yards. It didn’t help that Matt Flynn, the Packers QB torched the banged up Lions’ secondary for 480 yards and 6 TDs.
4.) The Lions “win” the AFC West.
Not only did they beat Oakland and Kansas City, but they hammered Denver and San Diego. They were the only team to beat all 4 AFC West squads.
5.) As bad as the defense was in some games, it controlled the game in others.
They held Kansas City to 267 yards, a FG, forced 6 turnovers, and sacked Cassel twice. They held Denver to 312 yards, 10 points, sacked Tebow 7 times, and forced 3 turnovers. They gave up 367 yards to San Diego but held them to 10 points, forced two interceptions, and sacked rivers once. In the Monday Night game, they sacked Cutler three times and harassed him the whole game. As Jaworski stated, “it was hard to tell what play Chicago was trying to run” because immediately after the snap, Cutler was running for his life as Lions’ defenders chased him around. Even in the rematch the Bears were held to 216 yards, sacked twice, and another turnover was forced. Sadly, the Lions were done in by 6 interceptions, hence the 37-13 score enhanced by 2 ints for TDs and a Hester return for a TD.
6.) Up 31-14 on the Vikings, the Lions try to allow Joe Webb to return the favor from earlier in the year.
Joe Webb took over as the game was getting out of hand, promptly scores two TDS, one rushing and one passing, accumulating 193 yards in the process, almost as much as the Vikings had when he took over. He was driving for perhaps the winning TD when He fumbled, had his face mask grabbed by Levy, and the whole thing was missed. For once, a call didn’t go against Detroit.
7.) Bad officiating and bad secondary play doom the Lions’ first playoff apearance in 12 years.
I’ve already gotten into my thoughts on the officiating for this game in an article below. But the Lions didn’t help themselves either. They had 7 penalties for 64 yards and their secondary gave up three long TD passes in which there wasn’t a defender within the same area code as the receiver. It looked like a PAC-12 game. (Officiated like one too) The run defense was shredded too as the Saints gashed the Lions for 626 total yards of offense.
In all, it was a successful season that ended in a disappointed fashion. That the team known for the two longest road losing streaks in NFL history also had an identical home and road record was surprising as well. considering the talent the Lions have accumulated of late, this team should be one to watch for years to come.
Stats were from the game box scores provided by http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/scoreboard