The Lions appeared to be down and out early in the season. They lost six of their first seven games, but three of those losses were by four points or fewer.
Detroit’s fortunes turned around in the second half of the season and the Lions have rattled off wins in five of their last six games. Sunday’s victory over the Vikings was perhaps their most impressive given the quality of the opponent.
The Lions are still on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, but it’s not out of the question by any means.
Former NFL linemen T.J. Lang and Jon Jansen of the Audacy Original Podcast “Necessary Roughness with Lang & Jansen” expressed their belief in the Lions down the stretch.
“I think at this point I’m fully bought in. I am in. I just have no reason to believe that this team is going to slow down,” Lang said (2:06 in player above). “I mean their confidence is sky high, the execution is at a very high level, the designs, the play calls, the way that this team is closing out games and making plays at the end.”
The Lions led by two scores for most of the second half, but it looked like the Vikings could claw their way back into it after making it 31-23 in the final minutes. However, Detroit recovered the onside kick and ran over two minutes off the clock before kicking a field goal to seal the win.
“I have no reason to believe that what we’ve seen the past six weeks is not going to continue to carry on the rest of the season. I just don’t,” Lang continued. “And I think that this was the win we needed to see. We needed to see it against the Vikings.”
While the Vikings may not be as good as their now 10-3 record suggests, it takes a good football team two win 10 of their first 12 games. The Lions stopped that team for the fifth win in their last six games.
“This is the game that I needed to see to just jump right in. They played great football. Was it perfect? No, it wasn’t perfect, but any time you get a two-score win over a division rival this late into the season, that’s an impressive victory,” Lang said. “I have no reason to believe that they’re going to slow down.
The Lions have four winnable games on the schedule against the Jets, Panthers, Bears, and Packers, but only one of those games is at home.
“I’m not saying I disagree with you – in fact, I agree more with you than not. I think at the end of the season if when you look back and you say OK, out of the final 10 games they won nine of them. I have a hard time believing that to be true with three of the final four on the road,” Jansen said.
Detroit is now 6-7 on the season and in the hunt for a playoff spot. The Commanders and Giants are each 7-5-1 and face each other again this week, then the Seahawks are 7-6. The Lions will have to leap over two of those teams to get into the playoffs.
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