Nobody is happy about the Detroit Lions’ loss to the Washington Commanders in the divisional round of the playoffs. It absolutely sucks that this had to happen to a 15-2 team with so much promise this year.
The thing about football fans is that they need to cope. With that comes coping mechanisms and with that comes the need to find a scapegoat or someone to blame. The idea is that of course, it couldn’t have been just a bad game because my team isn’t bad. It was bad because of something else.
Usually, it’s the refs, but for a lot of Lions fans, it was head coaching interviews and specifically the ones that Ben Johnson went through. He was so distracted by them that he drew up a bad game plan. It was either that or he was just ready to go so he just drew up a bad game plan.
I get this angle and I probably would have joined in a decade ago before I understood this process better. Logistically none of it makes sense. The Lions had from January 6th till about 11:30 at night on January 12th just to find out who they were playing in their next game.
Dan Campbell gave Lions coaches and players most of the week off and specifically the weekend of the 10th, 11th, and 12th off. Johnson conducted all of his interviews on the 10th and 11th. Then on the 13th, he was all in getting ready for the Commander’s game and there were no distractions.
Don’t take it from me though, take it from a guy who was with him the entire week. Take it from Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown.
“Everyone on Twitter, the Lions fans [expletive] hating him, talking about he didn’t prepare for this. He didn’t, you know, he was taking interviews in the bye week. Trust me, I know Ben. He was as locked in as can be for that game.”