Caldwell After 1-6 Start: Lions Will Get Better 'Because I've Seen It'
By Ashley Scoby
@AshleyScoby
Another loss, another batch of X-rays for Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, and another round of questions wondering where the coaching staff's in-game adjustments are – otherwise known as "Sundays" in Detroit. The Lions lost 28-19 to Minnesota at home on this particular Sunday, adding onto their nightmare of a 1-6 season.
Head coach Jim Caldwell called his team "inept for a stretch," and the Lions backed up his words. They ran over the Vikings for a quarter – accumulating 160 offensive yards and a 14-3 lead – and then imploded.
After taking a 17-15 lead into the locker room, the Lions put together their worst offensive quarter of the season. In the third quarter, Detroit ran six plays. They had more penalty yards (five) than actual offensive yards (minus-1) during that span. By the time the final period started, the Vikings had taken a 25-17 lead – a margin manageable for most teams, but a Mt. Everest of impossibility for Detroit and its flailing offense.
And down 28-17 with the clock ticking towards two minutes remaining, the Lions came up with an inexcusable gaffe that sent what few fans remained at Ford Field heading to the exits. Calvin Johnson climbed the ladder and came down with a Stafford jump ball near the goal line – and on replay, it looked like he had crossed the plane – but the officials ruled him down at the one.
The Lions inexplicably rushed to the line of scrimmage to run a play before the officials could review it (which would have also stopped the clock). Then four times from the one-yard-line, the Lions failed to score – two incompletions, and two backs (George Winn and Michael Burton) stuffed.
"Yeah, our guys didn't see it that way initially," Caldwell said of the possibility that Detroit could have challenged Johnson's catch and gotten a touchdown out of it. "But we had a first down there, nice and tight. We should've been able to get that thing in, but they didn't see it quite that way. They felt the spot was good."
As they did the last time these two teams played, the Vikings' pass rushers ran amok and knocked Stafford around like a sack of flour. He absorbed seven sacks and hurt his left hand in the second half. He got X-rays afterwards, but results were not immediately known.
"You don't have to peel me off the field," he said. "I'm always going to get back up if I can. That part of it's part of football. … We're not going to be perfect every time, so I'm just going to keep fighting, keep playing."
After this particular loss, the Lions are quickly losing anything to fight for. The best they could finish this season is 10-6, which isn't exactly an automatic punched ticket into the playoffs. Not to mention nothing about the team that fell apart Sunday looks like the kind of team that would roll off a nine-game win streak.
The team's responses were as stale as always, after all.
"We can turn stuff around," Johnson said. "We've just got to find a way to do it and make more plays, both offense and defense."
Said wide receiver Golden Tate: "It's tough on us right now, but we've just got to keep working. Stay together and keep moving together and there's going to be change, it's going to happen."
Caldwell grasped at the Lions' performance during their single win of the season, last week against the Bears, as reason why he thinks the team will turn it around.
"Because I've seen it," he said. "All you do is take a look at them. Last week, we played pretty well in some tough spots and moved along. There's been times where we've played very good defense and there's been times when our kicking game has been outstanding. So we just have to collectively get it together where we can play more consistently, which we haven't."