After their latest wave of injuries and their first loss since September, the Lions have felt the narrative around their season shift. As Jared Goff said Tuesday, "I think the mood everywhere else is like the sky’s falling, but the mood internally is fine."
"I refuse, we refuse, to use any of these injuries as an excuse," said Goff.
The Lions have spent most of this week beating back the idea that they're dead, starting with Dan Campbell's rousing speech Tuesday on these airwaves. Goff echoed Campbell's sentiments Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Thursday, defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn joined the choir, with his unit in shambles after losing two more crucial players in Alim McNeill (torn ACL) and Carlton Davis III (fractured jaw).
"We’re 12-2 and the sky is falling. We’re going to the playoffs, we're in the tournament. Why in the hell is the sky falling for us?" said Glenn. "Why do we have to sit back and be sad? We leave that up to you guys, we let you guys do that. Our job is to go play football, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do."
Already ravaged by losses, Detroit's defense was ripped apart by Josh Allen and the Bills last Sunday for 48 points and 559 yards. To Glenn, it owed mostly to Allen's superhuman ability: "That’s a damn good player, MVP type player that we went against."
"When you go back and watch the film, the passing game was him moving around and just finding guys open, and that’s pretty hard to do as a defense when you have your guys covering for that long against a guy like that," Glenn said. "We had him wrapped up a couple of times, didn’t make the tackle, but our guys understand that."
The Lions won't see another quarterback of Allen's caliber until a possible trip to the Super Bowl. That goal remains in front of them. If they win their final three games, starting Sunday in Chicago, they will clinch the No. 1 seed in the NFC and a first-round bye, which would be a huge boon to such a banged-up team.
"We lost two games, we have a chance to win out and accomplish everything that we want to accomplish," said Glenn. "So why should we sit back and wallow and think that the sky is falling? It’s dumb.”
The defense will have a large say in where they go from here. The only starter nearing a return is linebacker Alex Anzalone, who could be back by Week 18. Still, the Lions have proven difference-makers up front in Za'Darius Smith and DJ Reader, a rising star at linebacker in Jack Campbell and the best safety duo in the NFL in Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch.
"We’re in Week 16 and I think our stats are better now than they were early in the season. And that has a lot to do with the players," said Glenn. "Our players understand exactly what our play style is. Even the new guys coming in, that’s been the most impressive thing to me is, they’re saying, ‘Coach, we haven’t seen guys practice like this. We haven’t seen teams -- we didn’t practice like this. This is why you guys continue to improve on the things that you need to improve on.’
"And I like to hear that, really, because it lets me know how other teams are operating and I think it lets us know as an organization that we’re doing things the right way."
In the Lions' first team meeting of the week on Wednesday, Campbell told his players, "This is where we’re at, this is how we’re viewed right now, and look, nobody writes our story. We’re the only ones who write our own story, so we have the pen."
"There’s a lot of football left and I think we’re looking forward to this, to be honest with you," Campbell said. "You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and you go back to the basics. Go back to work. That’s the only way to get better and clean up the issues that cost you."
The biggest issue on defense last week -- aside from that Josh Allen guy -- was stopping the run. The Bills churned out nearly 200 yards on the ground and running back James Cook averaged 7.5 yards per carry. Glenn admitted that while they knew Cook is a good player, "he ran a whole lot harder than I thought he would."
"He came out and had a damn good game against us. It’s something that we have to look at, but that’s the number one part of our defense, if we’re not letting people run on our defense," said Glenn. "We're going into this week to make sure that we don’t let that happen.”