Boy, do the Detroit Lions have a chance to be good this season. And no, it's not because they beat Matthew Stafford and the L.A. Rams in convincing fashion Sunday night.
Because guess what? Dan Campbell's squad failed to do that to Sean McVay's team to kick off the 2024 season.
Sure, based on the eye test, you can make the case that the Lions were the better team in the highly-anticipated season-opening matchup. Detroit, aided by a career breakthrough performance from third-year wideout Jameson Williams, did lead by as many as 14 points to start the third quarter – neither side had a bigger lead than that. Plus, Campbell & Co. dominated the eventual overtime session, with David Montgomery exerting his will and running all over the Rams en route to the game-winning score.
Yet, it was far from an “A”-level display from the reigning NFC North champions. It was, in fact, a very uneven performance from both sides of the ball.
Lions veteran signal-caller Jared Goff had a less-than-stellar outing, throwing for just 217 yards on 18-of-28 passing. Plus, he threw an interception in the fourth quarter that led to a touchdown on Los Angeles’ ensuing possession. Meanwhile, Goff's top two targets from a season ago – Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta – combined for just seven catches, 58 yards and no touchdowns.
“The theme of tonight, kind of, we just kind of kept shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit, certainly offensively,” Goff said after the Week 1 win. “We had some plays there that we could’ve had. I got to be better with the cadence for our guys, be a little smoother there on the operational stuff. That alone would solve a lot of problems tonight that we had. But, it just wasn’t our smoothest, but a win’s a win and we got to be happy about it.”
Then, on defense, the Lions struggled to wrap up all night, with defensive backs Brian Branch and Carlton Davis being two of the biggest culprits. Additionally, Detroit's secondary allowed Rams veteran receiver Cooper Kupp to do as he pleased for four quarters and haul in a game-high 14 catches for 110 yards and a touchdown.
Overall, Aaron Glenn's unit permitted 387 yards of offense to Stafford & Co., as well as 26 first downs. It was very much a bend-but-don't-break showing from the defense that will need to be cleaned up as the season progresses.
It was a performance, as a whole, that fell short of the high standard for the Lions, a team which has entered the ‘24 campaign with serious Super Bowl aspirations.
“There were certainly things that were below our standard,” the Lions franchise passer expressed. “But yeah, some of the operational stuff is ultimately my job, and it wasn’t good enough. Good enough for a win, wasn’t good enough for our standard.”
As Goff alluded to, Detroit did not play its finest or cleanest game, and still it was good enough to beat the Rams, a playoff team from a year ago that very well could end up in the postseason once again this season. That right there is the mark of a good football team – and one that has a serious shot at making a deep run in the playoffs.
Campbell knows his team has plenty to clean up, and is confident it will do so in the season’s ensuing weeks.
"This is our first taste," Campbell said. "We’ll get better, we’ll get in a better flow, on both sides of the ball, we will. But, at the end of the day, our defense held these guys to less points than our offense, and our offense scored more points than their offense did. And so, we found a way to win.”
In a 17-game season, no NFL team is going to consistently play its best brand of football. Each team is going to make its fair share of mistakes, and have its weeks where points are hard to come by and the defense struggles to make stops.
Yet, even when that’s the case, it’s no excuse for the league’s best teams. The NFL’s most competitive teams in those instances still find a way to win more often than not, and Campbell’s squad did just that Sunday.
It’s a credit to Campbell, Goff and many others in the organization that have helped establish a winning culture in the Motor City. As last season taught us, Detroit now expects to win on a weekly basis, and will do everything in its power to find a way to prevail even when things aren’t going its way. Sunday just reiterated that point.
"A win is a win. That team gave us everything they had, man," Campbell told the team after the game. "They did, they threw it at us, man, and give them some credit. They did, man, they laid it on the line all the ay. But the bottom line is it's hard to break us, man. It's hard to break us. As a matter of fact, you ain't gonna do it."
Detroit has a darn good football team, and with its ability to win both pretty and ugly, is on track for another strong season in 2024.
A damn good win pic.twitter.com/FLQf8dHd9C
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 9, 2024
