Detroit Lions path to the playoffs?

Detroit Lions path to the playoffs?

points losing to Ben Johnson as the Packers move into first place in the NFC North. So here things stack up in the North. Packers take over first place now at 93 and one. Bears now in second. A game up on the Lions. Detroit 8 and5 after their last victory. You can see there Bears 9 and4. And if you remember, the reason that Laflur Johnson thing was interesting was that Ben’s introductory press conference made a comment out of nowhere that nobody really understood about enjoying beating the division and enjoying beating Matt Laflur twice a year with no prior friendship. No, right. So, you can believe that those two were uh certainly looking forward to this game in particular the floor. Uh official introduction. Wojo’s here. Hello. Burchie’s here. Glad to be here. Great to have you guys here. Um can I ask you a quick quick question? Sure. Absolutely. Who was the dum dum that called that fourth and one play at the end of the deck? Oh, really? Okay. I would not have expected that. And then you you read called the interception or or you read that highlight perfectly. Besides, Caleb Williams fires it into the end zone. He didn’t quite fire it into the end zone. He just kind of lollipops in there. I do I do want to put my hand up on one thing. I sat in this very seat about three weeks ago and said the Bears are the most fraudulent and beatable seven and three first place team ever. Okay, they might be kind of good. They might be kind of good and we might be veering toward a collision course in week 18 between the Lions and the Bears at Soldier Fields. Well, we’ll see what it comes down to. I mean, the Lions got what they needed to even be in that conversation. They had to win that game against Dallas. And I think going into that game, obviously part of the story was Dallas was so hot. Their defense was smothering everybody. The offense was number one in the NFL. Their passing game was terrific against the Lions pass defense, which had not been good the past couple of weeks. But the one thing that you kind of held out and said the Lions can win because we’ve seen them play that type of football they played on Thursday night. We just hadn’t seen it except maybe Washington for about five or six weeks. We saw it Thursday. Yeah. and and I switched my pick to the Lions clearly and solely because of the fourth quarter am St. Brown and the spirit that he brought and you think, “Oh, please come.” No, no. And the plays he made, but they um we probably overestimated Dallas’s defense to a certain degree. Certainly, and the Lions held up against those receivers. CD Lamb went out, that certainly helped. But that was a fairly impressive victory and a completely important victory. You know who has two thumbs and was the only guy to pick the Lions in the pregame show? That guy. That guy. You know who has two thumbs and has lost eight picks in a row? This guy. That That’s hard to do. Yeah. Well, I’ve been trying to do it before. Set a new record for economic. Even trying to lose on the 50/50 bet is hard. Challenging. I’m picking on behalf of Detroit now and just picking against them so that we can manifest these wins. I do want to say one more note on on St. Brown. Six days before that game, he couldn’t walk. He was hobbling around on crutches. 5 days before that game, the pain was so intense still on his ankle. He thought there’s probably no way I’m playing. Four days before that game, he tried to jog and couldn’t do a single skip, as he said. And two days before that game, he was like, “Ah, I’m feeling kind of better. I might give this thing a Oh, it works out Wednesday and it wasn’t perfect, Dan Campbell said, but it was good enough. And once Aman Ra got it in his head that he was going to play, as Campbell said, nobody was telling him that he wasn’t. There was no talking him out of that. And I love what St. Brown said. He he just said this, “My job is to go out there and make plays and be on that field. That’s what they pay me to do.” So, I was going to do whatever it took to be out there. And Goff’s first pass to St. Brown. Goff’s last pass that probably sealed the win to St. round 37 yard catch and run slant across the middle. As Dan Campbell said, he is what we are. He embodies more than or as much as anyone on that team. And he’s one of the reason they never lose two in a row because they gutted up in that in that case. And we also before the game said Kelvin Shepard, he’s going to have to dig something up, do something different defensively, show some different looks. And they did. They had blitzes coming from different directions. They got uh takeaways, two takeaways if I recall. Three. Correct. Three. Right. Points off. Absolutely. And three sacks, four sacks, five sacks. I lost track. Yeah. Derek Barnes rushing from different directions. Intercepting the ball. And intercepting the ball. It was that that we expect that out of the offense, although they were very good. The defense really stepped up there. So, here’s the thing. Got to keep winning. Rams Seattle 10 and three. One of them probably win the division. Uh 49ers, Bears, Lions, 9-4, 9-4, 8 and five. One team out of that group’s not going to make it. Yeah. And you need to outplay some of the others along the way. Obviously Rams this week, LA the early favorite, four and a half points. Those corners have to step up for the Lions next week, but they lose Branch for the season and unfortunately likely most of next season. We don’t really know about Kirby. don’t really know about Thomas Harper, but for as well as everyone played defensively on Thursday night, both DJ Reid and Amique Robinson were the first to say, “Look, we lost our matchups.” Like DJ Reed got beat by CD Lamb and Amique Robinson got beat by Pickkins. And those two against Devonte and Puka have to have to level up next next Sunday. Yeah, it’s going to be a challenge. There’s no doubt about that. All right, let’s get C.

The Fox 2 Sportsworks panel discusses the Packers/Bears game and what the Lions need to do to get back to the playoffs.