All the standard caveats apply. The small sample size. The quality of competition. The feeling that we've seen this before. But since coming out of their bye, the Lions look like a new team on defense.
Specifically, they look like a new defense against the run -- from yielding 170 yards per game and 5.2 yards per carry, to 55 yards per game and 2.6 yards per carry.
The biggest difference?
"Everybody doing they damn job," linebacker Reggie Ragland said Thursday. "That's the thing, everybody doing their job. We know we're a good damn defense. So we just knew if everybody does their job and we make teams one-dimensional, we'll have a good chance at winning ball games. And that's what we're starting to do."
Do your job. It almost sounds like Ragland came from New England. He did come to Detroit from a winning organization, two if you count his time in college. Ragland won two national championships at Alabama, then joined the Chiefs in 2017 and won the Super Bowl last season. He knows what good teams look like.
The Lions are 3-3. They are not yet a good team. But they're a better team than they were two weeks ago, fueled by a defense that's finding its way after an offseason overhaul and a shortened training camp.
"Especially with a lot of new guys, with me being new, some of these other guys might feel like they gotta do their job plus somebody else's job. No, that's not how this game works," Ragland said. "You gotta do your job and your job only. And then if a play comes your way, you make the play. That's been our thing."
The Lions did what they were expected to do in Week 6 against the Jags. But they did much more than that against a terrific Falcons offense in Week 7. Detroit limited Atlanta to 66 yards on the ground and kept the NFL's most explosive passing attack in check. Ragland chipped in four tackles, including one tackle for loss.
"We've been having fun these last couple weeks," he said. "It feels good to win. We just gotta keep doing what we do and give this city and this team and this organization what they want, which is wins, and put ourselves in position to make the playoffs and then go to the Super Bowl.
"We just gotta keep doing our job and keep stacking these wins together and keep being consistent. That's what all the good teams do."
Ragland, 27, has been more than a versatile piece on defense for the Lions. He's also been a steadying voice through shaky times, both in the offseason and during the team's slow start. He describes himself as a people person. He says he constantly tells his teammates, "I love y'all," especially in the heat of the action. When the Lions celebrated their win in Atlanta, Ragland was in the middle of the locker-room dance circle holding a giant Boombox.
"You gotta be genuine with it," he said. "You can't be fake with it because a lot of these guys on the outside, they got a lot of fake stuff going on, just like I do. But they know when something is real. Me, I try to come real every day. I try to be myself every day so guys know how to judge me and talk to me. I want guys to be able to come and talk to me every day.
"And anybody will tell you in this locker room, I talk all day, which I don't mind. But that's just me, because I love getting to know people and I love talking to people. I want my teammates to know they always can come to me and talk to me about anything. 'If you need something, I got you.' That's how I've always been as a man."
The 'fake stuff' comes with the territory, Ragland said. "Fake family members, fake friends." It's the cost of cashing NFL checks. Ragland learned that the hard way when he signed a $5.8 million contract with the Bills as a second-round pick in 2016, then tore his ACL in training camp and watched a lot of people drop out of his life.
"When they leave," Ragland said, "they can't come back."
With several rookies on the Lions playing prominent roles this season, Ragland has tried to pay this lesson forward. He's warned guys like Jeff Okudah and D'Andre Swift to keep a tight circle, to enjoy the NFL experience without feeling the need to share it with everyone who wants a piece. And when his teammates need a pick-me-up -- "a coping mechanism," Ragland said -- they know where to go.
"That's me, I'm the guy. You need somebody to talk to, you want to get away from everything, come over to my house," Ragland said. "We chillin'."
All he asks if that you show up to the office ready to work.
"We're going in the right direction," said Ragland. "We just gotta keep getting better, keep believing in one another, and the most important thing, doing your damn job."
