A football team that was 1-6 last month is suddenly the talk of the NFL. The Detroit Lions are captivating the country.
"Man, nobody wants to play ‘em! I’m telling you that right now," former Jets and Bills coach Rex Ryan said Monday on ESPN's Get Up. "And how many teams (that are) 1-6 end up folding? ‘We’re punting on the season, fire the coach.’ Not one time did that team flinch. Why? Because they’re locked in it together, head coach, general manager, they have a direction for this football team — and I’ll be, a year before they expected to. This team is playing their butts off."
The Lions won three games last season in year one under Dan Campbell and GM Brad Holmes. They won one game through the first two months of this season. They've won six of seven since the start of November and are now hunting down one of the most improbable playoff berths in NFL history.
"What normally happens with bad football teams is they find ways to lose games, and we’ve seen that from the Detroit Lions, especially in recent history," said former Pro Bowl safety and Super Bowl champ Ryan Clark. "But when you watch this team down the stretch of this season, they’re finding ways to win games. They are a team that has come together and learned how to play complementary football.
"And for all the times that you laugh at Dan Campbell and you think he’s quirky, this team has taken on his personality of fighting every week and being a tough, physical-minded football team and a team that now even emotionally and mentally when they get in those late-game moments, they believe they can win. And that belief is a start."
The Lions' latest win, 20-17 over the Jets, came on a slow day for their high-flying offense. But their defense, not long ago the worst unit in the NFL, stepped up and return man Kalif Raymond delivered a touchdown on special teams. And when the offense needed a go-ahead drive in the closing minutes, it delivered.
"I think the thing that stands out is they’re not scared of the moment," said former Lions quarterback Dan Orlovsky. "This whole football team is not scared of any moment. Two things offensively that I love. Number one, in their pass game, their receivers are as detailed as anybody in the NFL. They are coached phenomenally well.
"And their quarterback, Jared Goff, does one thing very good: he gets through progressions, one to two to three. Everything is built off of that. They marry things in their offense as well as anybody."
At 7-7, the Lions are closing in on the 7-6-1 Commanders for the final NFC wild card spot. Their playoffs odds have climbed to 41 percent, according to fivethirtyeight.com, and will jump to 62 percent with a win this week against the 5-9 Panthers. After starting the season in the spotlight thanks to HBO's Hard Knocks, the Lions are back in it because of their play on the field.
"They have Carolina, Chicago and Green Bay to finish," said Mike Greenberg. "The Detroit Lions have an excellent chance of going from 1-6 all the way to getting into the playoffs, which would be an incredible accomplishment."
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