We heard these words over and over from Matt Patricia, on so many Sundays the past three years: Gotta coach better, gotta play better. We heard one word over and over from Darrell Bevell after his first Sunday as Patricia's replacement: Amazing.
10 times in a press conference that lasted about nine minutes, including four times in a span of four seconds when he was asked to describe his first week on the job.
"Amazing, I mean, amazing. Amazing. Amazing week," Bevell said. "It was hard. Everything that I did was a new experience, including today with the headset that I had on with different lines talking to different people."
This was also a new experience for the Lions, stealing a win against a division rival. Patricia was 0-5 against the Bears, 2-13 against the NFC North. The worst of those losses may have come in this year's season opener when the Lions frittered away an 18-point fourth quarter lead against Mitch Trubisky.
They blew an 11-point lead against the Packers the next week. They blew nine double-digit leads total in 43 games under Patricia. Naturally, they erased a double-digit deficit in their first game under Bevell.
"My emotions right now, I can’t even think straight," Bevell said. "I'm just trying to wrap my head around this whole thing and what just happened."
What just happened was something that never happened under Patricia. Not just the 14-point rally in the final 4:30 of the game. Not just the key defensive plays down the stretch, including a strip sack by Romeo Okwara to set up the go-ahead touchdown. The distinction is that the Lions did it with a depleted lineup, that they found a way to win on a day they were expected to lose.
The irony is that this is exactly where they were supposed to go with Patricia at the wheel. They only got there once they handed the keys to someone else.
"The players, they responded today," Bevell said. "Hopefully you could see it in the way that they played and in their demeanor on the field as they were flying around."
The Lions played the way Bevell asked them to, with their hair on fire. They carried themselves the way Bevell carries himself, with a pep in their step and some life in their bones. "Youthful joy," Matthew Stafford called it this week. The Lions looked as joyous after Sunday's win as they've looked the last three years.
It was the exclamation point on a week in which they had more fun than they've had since the days of Jim Caldwell.
"I think guys enjoyed being in the building this week, had a great time," Stafford said. "Still worked hard and got our work done, but it was just a different message from a different guy. Not saying anything against Coach Patricia, it was just different. And sometimes that sparks guys."
It sure seemed to spark the Lions, who were jumping on Bevell's back at the end of the game the way only a few of them ever seemed to back Patricia. They wanted to win this game for themselves, for their slim playoff chances, and just as badly for the coach who never turns down the music at practice, who keeps the mood light even when the air gets heavy.
"I’m obviously really happy for him," Stafford said. "He cares about our guys. His energy is infectious and guys fed off of it. Really appreciate him as a person, and just happy that he helped us get the win today. Guys went out there and played fast and free."
Like when rookie Quintez Cephus hauled in a 49-yard touchdown late in the first half. Like when Marvin Jones hauled in a 25-yarder later in the second. Like when Okwara came around the edge and used every inch of himself to create a turnover his team didn't waste.
Like when the Lions executed all the 'winning football' plays from there on out, the plays Patricia was so fond of talking about and so foreign to executing.
Bevell wound up parroting Patricia after all, emphasizing the 'gotta-have-it situation' that Detroit's defense converted with the game on the line. And in some ways the Lions mimicked their old mistakes, failing to establish the run, failing to stop it. Except for when they needed to run it and stop it the most, on the two final drives of the game.
The Lions lost a lot of games they were supposed to win under Patricia. On Sunday they won a game they were supposed to lose, and the players couldn't have been more excited for a guy who couldn't have been more excited for them.
"It was a crazy, amazing week," said Bevell. "Just couldn’t be happier with how they did today."