Another week has come and gone where the Detroit Lions failed to play a complete game.
The Lions, which suffered defeat at the hands of the Chicago Bears in Week 14, truly haven’t played a game of complementary football, from start to finish, since returning from their Week 9 bye.
And, it’s not just because of a lackluster defense that has struggled getting to the quarterback and stopping the pass all season long. Instead, it’s also due to the recent poor play of veteran signal-caller Jared Goff.
Over the last four weeks specifically, Goff, more often than not, has fallen short of putting Detroit in position to succeed.
In fact, in this aforementioned span of games, Goff has turned the football over a total of eight times. And, five of those turnovers – all of the interception variety – have come in the Lions’ two meetings this season with the Bears.
It’s a far cry from a winning brand of football and from the kind of football Goff played to start the 2023 campaign.
Through Detroit’s first eight games of the year, he had thrown 12 touchdowns and just five interceptions, while completing a little over 68 percent of his passes.
Meanwhile, in the Lions’ last five games, Goff has been much more turnover-prone. He’s tossed nine touchdowns and five interceptions, while completing about 64.5 percent of his throws. He’s also lost three fumbles, all of which he coughed up in Detroit’s Thanksgiving Day loss to the Green Bay Packers.
The eighth-year pro has seemingly lost his ability to play a clean brand of football. And, because of it, the Lions have looked like anything but a team which is presently on top of its division. Rather, they’ve looked like a very mediocre squad which will have a hard time winning a single game the remainder of this season.
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Detroit’s schedule does not get any easier over the final four weeks of the regular season, either. It’ll square off with three winning teams: the 7-6 Denver Broncos in Week 15, the 7-6 Minnesota Vikings in Weeks 16 and 18 and the 10-3 Dallas Cowboys in Week 17.
Detroit’s schedule does not get any easier over the final four weeks of the regular season, either. It’ll square off with three winning teams: the 7-6 Denver Broncos in Week 15, the 7-6 Minnesota Vikings in Weeks 16 and 18 and the 10-3 Dallas Cowboys in Week 17.
So, yes, if the Lions continue with their carefree and erroneous ways, there is a distinct possibility they lose out and finish the season with five consecutive losses. It would give Dan Campbell’s squad a second straight 9-8 finish and potentially cost the team the NFC North division.
This would be the definition of a doomsday scenario for Detroit.
If you place any stock in the words of Campbell, though, there’s no need to worry about it happening.
“I know that everybody’s trying to grab straws like what are we? What is this?” Campbell said, after his team’s disappointing loss in Chicago. “I’m not worried. I know exactly what we are. We’re a team that’ll fight, and we’ve got to do things right, cause any little mistake, man, it throws us off now. That’s just the type of team we are. But, we got plenty here. We got plenty, and when we do things right, we’re pretty damn good. So, we’ll get it cleaned up, man. We’ll move on.”
Cleaning up things is exactly what the Lions need to do. And, the Campbell-led team would also benefit from playing much more disciplined moving forward.
In its Week 14 loss to the Bears, Detroit, for instance, committed eight penalties – double the amount of Chicago – and lost 59 yards in the process. This included three false-start penalties from the Lions’ offensive line.
“Extremely frustrating. Very uncharacteristic of us, yeah,” Goff said of the penalties. “We’ve been, I think, toward the top of the league in pre-snap stuff, penalties in general. I think today was not indicative of who we are, who we plan to be. Yeah, discipline stuff, unfortunately. Learn from it and get better.”
Simply, if Detroit is going to move on from Sunday’s lackluster performance and get better, Goff must clean up his play.
Sure, you can bring up multiple factors for the Lions’ recent poor showings, such as the team’s defensive woes, the shoddy play of the offensive line and questionable play-calling from Campbell and the team’s coordinators (Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson).
Yet, the success of Detroit starts with and ends with the play of Goff under center. And recently, his performance has not been good enough to consistently lead the Lions to victory.
Subsequently, the veteran passer deserves to shoulder a fair amount of the blame for the team’s second-half struggles. And, until he cleans up his act, there remains a chance that Detroit goes into a swoon to close out the 2023 campaign.