The Good, the Bad, and the Playoff Picture

Going into Sunday's game I was only as worried as any Lions fan might be when going into a game that they should absolutely win. In other words, I was a little worried. The Lions pulled off a scoreboard win at 34-17, but the Lions looked both good and bad at times. Instead of breaking down the whole game, I'm going to just concentrate on those good/bad aspects.

The GOOD

I can't find a video or GIF of this play, which is a shame, so let this picture and my inadequate explanation suffice. Eric Ebron had his best game as a Lion, in my opinion. The numbers look nearly identical to practically every other game in which he's caught a pass, so don't go by those. The difference is in this game he looked the most like the athletic, matchup nightmare he was purported to be. He had 2 "leap over the defender plays," the 2nd of which looked REALLY impressive. I'm not yet convinced he was a better draft pick than an OLB, a DB or Odell Beckham Jr would have been, but I'm starting to believe in Eric Ebron.

Joique Bell had a HELL of a game for the 2nd week in a row. Most of his rushes didn't go very far, but he had a 57-yd run that set this up when Tampa KNEW we were running, and his rushing TD in the 2nd quarter was a classic example of manball.

Dat D Line! Suh had another hit a couple plays earlier just like this that was flagged because he was a step late and went a little high (speculation is he'll be fined for it). This one was a legal hit and it HURT. Suh landed on McCown after the hit, and when McCown got up he looked like Apollo Creed after 1 round with Ivan Drago. Suh ended up with a sack, Levy had  2, and Fluellen, George Johnson & Ansah all had 1. The Lions defense was credited with 14 QB hits and 6 sacks, which is a LOT. McCown had his worst game of the season, not counting the game vs. ATL he wasn't able to finish due to a thumb injury. The QB pressure is back at it against the weak competition, after struggling a bit with some pretty strong competition.

Oh, and Andre Fluellen's Street Fighter "Hadouken" sack dance was pretty sweet, unlike Big Joe Fauria's "pop, lock & drop it" TD dance.

The BAD

The Lions had 9 penalties for 122 years, their worst total of the season. Against competition of this level, there's no excuse for that. Suh had his first roughing penalty of the year, but I wasn't that mad at that. There were a TON of pass interference calls, which is where most of that yardage is coming from. Darius Slay had his worst game in a while, getting called for 2 pass interference penalties for 24 & 38 yards. I had just finished saying "They aren't throwing it to Slay's side" when Vincent Jackson burned him on a drag/square-in route (what 'A' is running in this diagram) for 12 yards, then Slay was called for the PI the next play. The following series he failed to locate an underthrown ball and committed one of the dumber PI penalties you'll see. There were several uncalled pass interferences as well, most notably one by Rasheen Mathis (hard to see, but he took one of Mike Evans' hands away) on Glover Quinn's tip INT.

17 points isn't much to give up, but Detroit's D should've been able to keep it in to 10 or less. The first TD was aided by Ihedigbo fumbling his INT back over to the Bucs. Their 2nd TD was aided by Slay's PI penalty, their 2nd longest play of that drive. This game should've been 45-0.

The Lions' run blocking is HORRIBLE. I don't know how much of it is Lombardi's fault and how much of it is on the line, but Joique Bell averaged 1.5 yards per carry if you take away his 57 yard run. Taking away Reggie Bush's longest run (12 yards), he averaged 2 yards per carry. The Lions regularly get stuffed on 3rd or 4th & short. I expected a LOT better with both Warford & Reiff returning, and facing a team like Tampa.

Checkdowns. Stafford had a REALLY good game, going by the stats. Zero turnovers (even saved one by fielding & chucking Raiola's crappy snap), 300+ yards, 76.5 COMP%. So this is going to sound like nitpicking (because it is), but he settles for checkdown passes a LOT. The RB position had 11 targets vs. 15 to the WR postition. I get some of those were screen passes designed to go to Bell or Bush, but it often seems like Stafford is just dumping it off if CJ isn't open. Again, this is REALLY nitpicky, but I wish Stafford would develop more rapport with Ebron, Tate, and one of the #3 WRs (Fuller/Ross).

The PLAYOFF PICTURE
This could change dramatically if GB loses on MNF (GB is NOT losing on MNF), but currently the Lions are in the 6th spot (last Wild Card) and should remain there at least if they win their next 2 games and Eagles-Cowboys don't tie. They could move up to the #2 in the NFC if GB loses tonight. That's a big shift.

Most likely Detroit will win their next 2 (but don't ever count this team out when it comes to disappointments), Philly will beat Dallas, and the Packers win tonight. This gets interesting if Detroit loses one of their next games or if they happen to be the Packers in Green Bay on week 17. That's probably not going to happen because this team beats bad teams on the road, not good teams, but the NFL can be crazy sometimes. 

Right now the Lions have an 82.52% shot of making the playoffs, which is great, but all year I've said I don't trust this team to get in until that number is at 100%. If feels different this year, but they're still the Lions. So root for Atlanta tonight. If GB loses and Detroit beats MIN next week, they'd be over 93%. Unfortunately there is no scenario in which Detroit can lock anything up until week 16, and most likely they'd be waiting until week 17 for all the chips to fall, even if they take care of their own business.

Please Lions, take care of your own business.