The Detroit Lions lost on Thanksgiving day for the seventh straight year. This caps off an irritating three week stretch that has seen the Lions struggle on both side of the ball. They’re allowing a lot of yards and points and they’re suddenly dealing with turnover issues on both sides of the ball. Yet, they’re 8-3 and still very much on track to do big things once they figure out their issues.
But that doesn’t seem to be how Lions fans are feeling right now. I saw a lot people calling them frauds and all kinds of things on Thursday and it’s just been a very confusing thing for me to watch this group all year long.
It’s been immediate doom and gloom for this fan base as soon as anything goes wrong. Sometimes it feels like some fans just feel better when the team fails. There’s also this feeling like this is it. This is the year that everything needs to happen. Like the Lions are going to move away from Detroit after this season and take all the players and coaches with them.
It’s like watching a telethon in a movie and the Lions have to raise a certain amount of money by the end of the night or the rich people from out of town are going to come in bulldoze the rec center in favor of building luxury condos.
This is a rebuild that started less than three years ago and has taken this team from the very bottom of the league to the very top. If they don’t achieve it all this year, they’re pretty likely to just go an get better next year and the year after. “Maybe next year” doesn’t mean the same thing it used to mean. This team isn’t about just having a winning record anymore. It’s not maybe next year they make the playoffs. It’s maybe next year they win it all.
I think one of the big things here is that most Lions fans have never experienced a winning team before. It’s not what you think it is. It’s not constant domination and you just beat everyone. Sometimes you get wrecked by a better team. Even by a lot. That didn’t just happen to the Lions this year by the way.
The Jaguars got destroyed by the 49ers and the Seahawks got beat up by that same Ravens team handled the Lions. Both lost even worse than the Lions did too.
Good teams lose to teams they’re supposed to beat as well. The Eagles only loss this year came to the 4-6 Jets. That Ravens team that beat everyone so badly lost to the Colts and the Steelers. The Cowboys lost to the Cardinals.
Good teams also go through hard stretches. The 49ers just recently lost three in a row. The Jaguars had a rough start to the year. For as good as the Eagles are, they’ve had to pull out close wins in the last few weeks. They will lose again this year. It’s just something that happens.
There is nothing out of the ordinary happening here for the Lions. They aren’t exempt from hardship because they’re good now. Any given Sunday isn’t just a thing people say. It’s real.
The Lions aren’t doomed. They don’t need to fire anyone and they don’t need to move on from Jared Goff or anything like that. They need to simply figure out their issues and keep moving. That’s it. They have ten days to do that before they play the Saints. The Lions are still a very good team.
I know it’s hard to be patient because you’ve been through many years of bad football. The way I approach this whole thing is to act like this team never existed until 2021 or act like they were never actually ran like a professional organization until 2021. Both of those things are basically true.