As Alim McNeill discussed the Lions' latest rout, Taylor Decker emerged from the showers with Papa Roach blaring through the locker room. The team's longest-tenured player can attest to the lyric that rang from the speakers: "Our scars remind us, that the past is real." The words ache. In Detroit, the wounds have healed. Decker has a blue Lion tattooed on his chest. This team has a Super Bowl on its mind.
The Lions wrecked the Jaguars on Sunday, in what felt like business as usual at Ford Field. They had so much fun scoring 52 points in their last game here that they decided to do it again. They scoffed at the biggest point spread of the NFL season -- 13.5 -- and won by 46. Their offense scored touchdowns on its first seven drives before the starters took a seat. Their defense never came close to allowing one.
"We have a lot of talent and people that are wired right, and we’re just playing our brand of football," said McNeill. "It’s an every week thing. Doesn’t matter who we’re playing, doesn’t matter their record, none of that. We’re going to play our brand of football as long as we’re on that field."
McNeill bears a scar from his first season in Detroit, when the Lions won three games in year one under Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes. So does Amon-Ra St. Brown. The All-Pro receiver has seen his numbers dip this season, even while setting a franchise record by catching a touchdown in eight straight games. He no longer stuffs the box score, because the Lions don't need him to. Passing game coordinator Tanner Engstrand called St. Brown "a beacon of light" this week for continuing to put the offense before himself.
Then St. Brown caught 11 passes for 161 yards and two touchdowns, just to keep the box score honest.
"Our brand of football," said St. Brown, "is a mixture of the new school with a splash of the old school. We can run the ball down your throat, we’re physical, and we can play the finesse game, too. We got guys that are fast, we got guys that can get open, and defensively, too, we stop the run, and then we cover on the perimeter and make plays and interceptions."
Jared Goff posted a perfect passer rating Sunday, a week after throwing five picks. He didn't miss a single throw to St. Brown. He hit Jameson Williams on a slant and Williams turned on the afterburners to race 64 yards to the house -- and then flew backward into the end zone like Marshawn Lynch. Williams nearly broke free for another on a hook-and-ladder with St. Brown. The O-line gave Goff all the time he needed after a few shaky weeks of pass protection, and the Lions did their signature trick where they scored more touchdowns than Goff threw incompletions.
That was in the air. On the ground, David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs tore up Jacksonville's defense for three touchdowns and 5.5 yards per carry. They ran through a lot of holes thanks to "them boys up front," as Montgomery likes to say, and created a few of their own. Montgomery has scars from his time with the Bears, who rode him for four years and then let him walk to a division rival. Now he's running over the NFL.
"It’s cliche," said Montgomery, "but our brand is Grit. I think it’s the land of the misfit toys. A lot of people got rejected and wasn’t good enough. I was in Chicago and I wasn’t good enough to be there, so Detroit took a chance on me here and I ensure that they know that they didn’t make a mistake by doing so."
Montgomery isn't the only misfit. He pointed to three of the Lions' captains: St. Brown, a fourth-round draft pick; Goff, a cast-off from the Rams; and Alex Anzalone, an unheralded linebacker in New Orleans who has become a pillar in Detroit. The Lions lost Anzalone on Sunday to a broken forearm, but they are built to overcome it. It's not just the pieces in place who are poised to step up, and the coaches who will prepare them. It's the knowledge that this team is too hardened to break.
"How much we care for one another," said Montgomery, "being selfless and being able to understand that we hold accountability for each other. As long as we keep that standard and expectations as high as we can, the sky’s the limit."
On defense, Detroit's brand is "violent, physical and detailed," said McNeill. The Lions smothered the run for the second week in a row, holding the Jags to 41 yards on 17 carries. McNeill thought about it a little longer and decided, "Overwhelming. That's the best term, in my eyes, for our defense."
"We have a lot going on in the backend, we want you to be confused on where the DB’s are going. We want you to be confused on the games and the stunts and what we’re doing (up front). If you overwhelm the offense, there’s not a lot they can do, unless they’re able to combat that — and that’s what our offense does," said McNeill. "They’re able to combat it."
McNeill can often hear the confusion on the other side of the line. He knows the Lions have an opponent on the ropes when "they'll be making the wrong calls and offensive linemen won't know what's going on. They don’t know who to block, they don’t know what to do. When they start doing that, in my head I’m like, 'Yeah, we’ve got ‘em,'" he said.
Despite all their losses up front, the Lions still have the personnel -- and the defensive coordinator -- to put stress on an offense. They also have the playmakers in the secondary to turn a game upside down. Kerby Joseph was waiting all day for a pick, until Mac Jones obliged late in the third quarter on a roll-out to his right. As soon as Jones patted the ball and looked downfield in Joseph's general vicinity, "I was like, 'Oh, that's a pick,'" Joseph said. It was his NFL-leading seventh of the season.
Joseph was genuinely surprised to learn that Sunday was only the Lions' second time scoring 50 this season: "Didn't we do somebody else like that?" They are blasé about blowouts. Packers safety Xavier McKinney said earlier this year that the Lions are trying to "embarrass" teams. Joseph said Sunday, "We’re just playing football! If you not coming ready to win, then you gonna get your ass whooped, for real."
McNeill doesn't mean any disrespect, but he felt the Jaguars wilt early in the game. The worst team in the AFC was no match for the best team in the NFC -- by their respective records -- and Jacksonville knew it. To McNeill, it was a feeling that "we were just on a different type of time." A short while later, Joseph explained that the game has slowed down so much in his eyes that "now it’s on my time."
Now is their time. The Lions are 9-1, and winners of eight straight for the first time since 1934 -- their first year playing in Detroit. They are talented and tough, physical and fast, united as one. They play without fear "and trust that our brothers got our backs," said Joseph. They are making routs routine by doing nothing more than "playing football how we’ve been doing it since we were seven, eight years old," said McNeill. "Ain't gotta do nothing special."
Except, that's exactly what they're trying to do. The Lions have played 10 games this season, with their eye on 10 more. The past is real, which makes the present all the more unreal. Their future is not up to fate. Their brand of football will have the final word.
