15 days ago, the Lions were blown out by the Panthers. 11 days ago, they were blown out by the Texans. And so nine days ago they blew it all up, firing Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn.
Today they woke up one game out of the playoffs.
Maybe interim head coach Darrell Bevell wasn't so crazy, after all.
"That was his first message to our team: 'Hey guys, we’re two games back of Arizona with five to play. There’s a lot of football left. And Denver just played a game with no quarterback, so who knows what’s going to happen,'" Matthew Stafford said Sunday after leading the Lions to a comeback win over the Bears.
Are we in for a playoff race? Probably not. The Lions are 5-7, their win on Sunday came against a team heading for a blow-up of its own, and their next three opponents are the 9-3 Packers, the 8-4 Titans and the 7-5 Buccaneers. Aaron Rodgers could snuff this whole thing out with a few flicks of the wrist at Ford Field. He's done it before.
But we can't call the race yet. Fact is, the Lions are one win away from turning nothing into something, from setting the stage for a potential Christmas miracle against Tom Brady and Tampa Bay. Irony is, they're now fulfilling ownership's mandate of playing 'meaningful games in December.' Which goes to show you how silly that mandate was in the first place.
The Lions were absolutely right to fire Patricia and Quinn. And they were absolutely wrong to wait so long. They let a general manager and a head coach with their necks on the line chart the course for a future neither of them could see. So here are the Lions one year later, staring at the rebuild they asked for. The next four games aren't going to change that.
Unless...unless...the offense under Bevell starts to roll like it did in the first half of last season, like it did in the second half Sunday against the Bears. Unless Stafford keeps slinging it across the field and the Lions keep slaying the odds. Unless the next head coach and the next GM, whoever they may be, wherever they may be watching, see enough promise in this team and its franchise quarterback to stay the course for at least another year. For better or worse.
Speaking of the odds: the Lions have a 1.6 percent chance of making the playoffs, according to ESPN. A 4.4 percent chance, according to Football Outsiders. A one-game deficit doesn't sound like much until you consider the Lions have to jump four teams in four weeks: the Bears, the 49ers, the Cardinals and the Vikings. Which sounds pretty much impossible even when you consider they get the Vikings in Week 17.
Especially when you consider who they get first.
"There’s still a lot to play for," Taylor Decker said last week. "And if you can’t get excited to try to go out there and win, I mean, do you have a pulse?"
The Lions do have a pulse. We'll see how long it lasts. The Rodgers Rate tends to cost Detroit double. But the Lions just won a meaningful game in December, to set up another one this week. At any rate, these games might be more meaningful than we realize. Somewhere, the next regime is taking notes and devising a plan.
"Like I told the players," Bevell said Sunday, "we had a windshield and no rearview mirror. We’re not looking back at anything in the past."
Some of them will become part of the past this offseason, perhaps Bevell, perhaps Stafford. Where the team goes from here could determine where the organization goes next, playoffs or not. A few years might hinge on a month, in the endless pursuit of meaningful football in Detroit.