In front of what QB Jared Goff describes as “the coolest home atmosphere I’ve ever played in front of,” the Lions moved to 6-2 with a win over the Raiders on Monday Night Football.
But it didn’t come without some bumps in the road. The Lions had three turnovers — a first-quarter Josh Reynolds fumble, and back-to-back turnovers in the third quarter deep into Las Vegas territory.
After a Goff pick-six cut the lead to two, the Lions got right back down the field on a monster drive, only to have it end with a Craig Reynold fumble inside the five yard line. But the Lions defense was there to pick them up.
“Three turnovers typically doesn’t win you a game and certainly in the situations where we had the turnovers, they played really well,” Goff said Tuesday morning on Karsch and Anderson. “They kept us in the game and we had good faith in them that as long as we kept moving the ball up field we’d come away with the W.”
He said between the turnovers and settling for multiple field goals despite moving the ball well, it felt like Monday’s win could have been a lot more convincing.
“That’s where you come away with that stinging feeling in your stomach, a little pit, where it’s like it could’ve been a 40-point game, 50-point game potentially if we were just finishing drives the right way,” Goff said. “We felt like we kinda had our way there, running the ball, throwing the ball, whatever we felt like we needed to do. Unfortunately we didn’t put as many points on the board as we may have wanted, but did enough to win. Our defense really stepped up and played well.”
And a lot of it boils down to the Lions having battled through tough times together. Not just last week’s beatdown at Baltimore. It goes way beyond that, according to Goff.
“We’ve forged through it. We’ve been forged through adversity. A lot of the guys that were here in 2021 are still here on this team. We went through those tough times together and we kind of are on the other side of it now so when one bad series or one bad play happens, it’s miniscule in comparison to what we’ve already been through as a group in the last three years and we’re able to move through it pretty easily,” he said.
As for the pick-six, Goff called it “as bad a play as I’ve had.”
“I was trying to get the ball out of bounds, and just dumb. Just really dumb. Really pissed off about it, to be honest. Can’t do that, can’t put our team in that situation. Just a bad play, but I’ll learn from it,” he said.
Now it’s time for a little rest and recovery, as the Lions head into the bye week at 6-2 with a two-game lead over the Vikings in the NFC North and sitting in second place in the NFC.
Goff said he plans to rest at home this week, but will likely get out of town at some point.