Week One seems like a long time ago.
After a thrilling 39-35 last minute victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the season opener, optimism was incredibly high for the 2016 Detroit Lions. But three consecutive frustrating defeats later, particularly last weekend’s ugly 17-14 loss at the hands of the Chicago Bears, the air is almost completely out of the balloon. At 1-3 and with a difficult upcoming schedule, there isn’t a lot of positivity surrounding this organization anymore. While a 1-3 start is by no means an indicator of a lost season, the pressure is most certainly mounting for one of the NFL‘s most enigmatic franchises.
What 1-3 Means For the Detroit Lions
So what does such a predicament mean for this club? For starters, it’s important to understand that what’s done is done. The team has dropped three straight games, and that’s not going to change. The Lions need to move forward and compartmentalize every remaining contest. Getting hung up on the fact that only 14 percent of 1-3 teams have made the post-season under the current playoff format since 1990 is not something the organization can afford to do.
The fact is, the schedule is about to get very tough, and the rocky start has left the Lions with very little wiggle room. Before the team goes on bye in Week Ten, they have home contests against the Philadelphia Eagles, the Los Angeles Rams, and Washington, before a two-game road trip that includes match-ups with the Houston Texans and the 4-0 Minnesota Vikings. That’s no cakewalk.
Coming out of the bye, things don’t get much better. Over the final seven games of the season, the Lions’ slate includes the Jacksonville Jaguars at home, the Vikings at home, the New Orleans Saints on the road, the Bears at home, the New York Giants on the road, the Dallas Cowboys on the road, and the Green Bay Packers at home.
One glance at the upcoming slate of games indicates that the Lions have already seen the softest part of their schedule, and the degree of difficulty is about to get much worse. But does this really mean things are as bleak as they seem?
Not necessarily.
Cause For Optimism?
Quietly, the Lions have spent much of the early season short-staffed due to injuries, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. The absence of DeAndre Levy and Ezekiel Ansah has largely contributed to the downfall of the team’s stop unit. While the organization has offered little information as to the expected return dates of these players, there has been no indication that either man is headed for inured reserve. If one or both of these impact players can get back on the field over the next few weeks, the defense is a virtual certainty to improve.
Offensively, inconsistency rather than injury appears to have been the primary culprit. At times, this has looked like a top-flight NFL offense, seemingly moving the ball at will. However, in other situations they have seemed out of sync, struggling to maintain drives and failing to put points on the board at critical moment. These struggles have popped up from time to time, but largely the offense has remained effective.
In truth, Week Four was really the first clear instance of the Lions offense completely hitting the skids. A lot of people want to point to the Week Two, 16-15 loss to the Tennessee Titans as a poor offensive performance, but in reality, the team moved the ball well for much of the game. Ultimately, it was bad penalties that proved to be the team’s undoing. The team’s inefficiency was largely contained to the Bears game, and to panic and reach the conclusion that the offense is broken after one bad showing would be irresponsible and reactionary.
A Familiar Face at Ford Field
With that said, the trend could continue into Week Five. As mentioned earlier, playing host to a surging Philadelphia team will not be an easy task. One of the surprise teams of the year, the 3-0 Eagles have featured one of the game’s top defenses. Led by defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz (yes, that Jim Schwartz), this unit has allowed only two offensive touchdowns in three games, and has not allowed a single passing touchdown on the season.
It’s no secret that the Lions offense runs through Matthew Stafford and the passing game. It’s also no secret that Schwartz was Stafford’s head coach for five seasons, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of his former quarterback’s strengths and weaknesses. When you combine an elite defense that doesn’t yield passing touchdowns with an intimate understanding of an opposing signal caller’s game, that’s a recipe for a long day for the Lions offense.
Not a Time to Panic
This all sounds very negative, doesn’t it? All these facts and statistics make it seem like the Lions’ season is already over, don’t they? Of course that isn’t the case. This is the National Football League. The unexpected happens every week. The Buffalo Bills started 0-2, and all of football counted them out. They then proceeded to dominate the Arizona Cardinals and the New England Patriots in back-to-back weeks. The Pittsburgh Steelers offense struggled against the aforementioned Eagles in Week Three, everyone panicked, and then they dropped 43 points on a Kansas City Chiefs defense that had just forced eight turnovers and scored two touchdowns against the New York Jets the previous week.
This is the most unpredictable sport imaginable; a game where the illogical borders on the norm. Sitting at 1-3 and with a tough schedule ahead is not the situation the Detroit Lions wanted to be in a quarter of the the way into the season, but with twelve games left on the docket this is no time to panic. Every game is, in and of itself, a season of it’s own. Right now, the Lions don’t need to worry about their record. They don’t need to worry about an upcoming date with the NFC North leading Vikings. They need to worry about the Philadelphia Eagles, because that is the immediate test in front of them in this crazy, unpredictable, week-by-week league called the NFL.
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