Before you can even say it, I’ll do it for you. “Mike, what the hell are you talking about?” I get it, the Detroit Lions are very good and the Jacksonville Jaguars are really bad. Like, really bad. The Jags are 31st in defensive DVOA and their offense is 16th and that’s with Trevor Lawrence, who won’t be playing Sunday. This should be a slaughter.
So what am I talking about? The Lions have been passing tests all season long. They passed the bounce back from a tough loss test, the weather test and the come back from a big deficit test. Now it’s time to pass the “not looking past their opponent test.”
After the Lions won an insane game against the Texans last Sunday and became 8-1, it’s really easy to see how a team could buy their own stock and then think they’re unbeatable. That is almost always teams get beat by the team they were supposed to steam roll, but looked past.
This Lions team needs to continue to believe that they have to prove it to everyone. Judging by Dan Campbell’s comments this week, they may be feeling that way.
“Well I think no different than what we just – I think we just faced a team in Houston that felt like their back was against the wall. I think that’s how they approached that game, and they brought it. I would expect nothing different out of this team, I would expect that we’re going to get their best game of the year and same with the Colts after that, and same with Chicago after that and same with Green Bay after that.” Campbell said. “So, we’re going to get everybody’s best shot and you have to understand that we have to assume that we will get the best version of what they are and what they’re capable of. So, with that, we have to be on our game, and it really is about yourself and it’s about the details to what we do. What we put in for this opponent, it’s about the why, ‘Why are we doing what we’re doing?’ And the how, ‘How are we going to do it?’ That’s really the starting point with this week or any team.”
That’s the way the team has to be this year if they want to do the big things. It’s games like this where you don’t want to get tripped up. It’s the difference between fighting like hell at the end of the year for seeding or a divsion title and being comfortable in December knowing that you locked both those things up.
The Lions keep passing tests. Will they pass this one?