Category: NFL playoffs

Five things to watch as Lions face the Giants; plus injury update, prediction

While the Giants have lost five straight, Lions coach Dan Campbell will not overlook them when they play at Ford Field on Sunday.

Again, the Lions (6-4) are coming off a loss and again they look to bounce back. They haven’t lost back-to-back games since October 2022 and they intend to keep that streak alive. Campbell said the urgency is always there.

“We’ve had urgency. We’re an urgent team. Things haven’t gone our way that we would like. I mean we would love to be sitting here undefeated right now and that’s not the reality, we’re not undefeated,’’ Campbell said. “But there’s an urgency that’s there. And I know this, if you say, ‘Well let’s ramp up more urgency,’ that’s when you start making mistakes, that’s when you start panicking, that’s when guys start doing things they shouldn’t do. They’re trying to make plays and then they cost us all. That’s where bad stuff really happens because that means you don’t really believe in what you’re doing. You’re grasping for straws.

“I know what we’re doing, I know what we need to do. We go back to work, we clean up the little things, we adjust, we adapt, we move on and let’s find a way to get a W,’’ Campbell added.

Five things to watch:

ONE: The Lions defense played its best game of the season at Philadelphia. Coordinator Kelvin Sheppard saw a never-blink mentality and said they never wavered at any point in the game.  Still, he would like to see more takeaways. “The way that game was structured on that night our offense needed one more possession, that was the nature of that game,’’ Sheppard said. “That was the one thing if I could, kind of a little teeny thing that we would have improved upon it would’ve been to steal a possession for our offense.’’

TWO: Can the Lions offense rebound? Jaredd Goff said he isn’t worried about the offensive inconsistency, he’s concerned about winning games. “I don’t care if we have 100 yards. If we win the game, that’s all that matters. The output of the offense, of course, yeah you’d love to score 40 every week and 500 yards like we did 10 days ago or two weeks ago, whenever that was,’’ Goff said. “But yeah no, you have a bad game, you learn from it. The output is not nearly as important as just finding a way to get a W, and we didn’t do that last week.”

THREE:  If the offense is to bounce back after their worst showing of the season in loss at Eagles Goff and WR Amon-Ra St. Brown will have to connect like they have been until the Eagles debacle. “We’re good. Again, I consider that an outlier for what we’ve done in our career together,’’ Goff said. “You learn from it, you look at it, we talk about different ways we can get better. Yeah, no grand conversation about it, no.” Goff targeted St. Brown a dozen times but only connected on two at Philadelphia.

FOUR: Rookie Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart is out because he hasn’t passed concussion protocol which means veteran Jameis Winston will start. Campbell said they have been preparing for both, but thought they would face Winston. “I think the run game itself stays intact, I think the pass game – there is some vertical pass game to it. I don’t think it changes a ton,’’’ Campbell said. “And look, I know Winston very well, man. This guy, he can put it on a dime. He’s not afraid to freaking rip it in there, he’s a competitive, smart guy. And so look, he’s going to give him a chance. He’s played a lot of games, man, won a lot of games.’’ Campbell knows Winston well since both were with the New Orleans Saints in 2020. 

“Well, I think there are a lot of things that – I think the core of what they do, and the pro-style offense itself is not going to change. And I think even if Dart had played, there wasn’t going to be a ton of quarterback run, things of that nature. So, I think the run game itself stays intact, I think the pass game – there is some vertical pass game to it. I don’t think it changes a ton. And look, I know Winston very well, man. This guy, he can put it on a dime. He’s not afraid to freaking rip it in there, he’s competitive, smart guy. And so look, he’s going to give him a chance. He’s played a lot of games, man, won a lot of games. But we’ve been prepared for both, we’ve made sure that we prepared just in case if you got a little different flavor with Dart. But we kind of felt like Winston was probably going to be the guy.”

FIVE: The offensive line needs to step up. Goff was twice but pressured all game long. He had a difficult time connecting with pass-catchers because he had no time. The run game averages 30 rushing yards per game but was held to 74 in part – not totally – due to the offensive line getting beat in the trenches.

LIONS INJURIES: OUT — CB Terrion Arnold, S Kerby Joseph, EDGE Marcus Davenport, OL Miles Frazier, EDGE Josh Paschal; TE Sam LaPorta likely out for rest of the season. QUESTIONABLE — LT Taylor Decker, CB Khalil Dorsey, C Graham Glasgow, G Tate Ratledge, CB D.J. Reed, RT Penei Sewell, WR Isaac TeSlaa and RB Sione Vaki.

GIANTS INJURIES: OUT — QB Jaxson Dart, DB Paulson Adebo, TE Thomas Fidone, LB Kayvon Thibodeaux; QUESTIONABLE — DB Tae Banks, RB Eric Gray, DB Tyler Nubin.

PREDICTION: Lions 38, Giants 17

Five thoughts from Lions WR Jameson Williams on his role, his TD at the Eagles and the celebration

ALLEN PARK — Since the win over Tampa Bay a month ago when Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams finished with zero catches on two targets, he’s been more involved in the offense.

Always a deep threat due to his speed, in recent weeks he’s also been targeted in intermediate and crossing routes with success.

Five thoughts from Wlliams when he met with the media on Thursday:

ONE: He does notice a difference on game days. “I feel more involved, but I’m just thinking it’s part of the progression and you know it’s part of plays, we’ve been running the same plays no different, switching it up a little bit and it’s been coming my way,’’ Williams said. “That’s the thing, it’s part of the progression.’’

TWO: He scored a touchdown in the loss to the Eagles on Sunday night beating out cornerback Adoree Jackson with his speed. “I feel when I get a ball and it’s a little bit of space I can make something happen. Every time I catch the ball I’m trying to score,’’ Williams said. “ I’ve got the mindset to break a tackle and try to get more than what I got at the catch point.’’ He caught that ball at the Eagles’ 25-yard line and ran it in from there for the score on Sunday. The 40-yard pass play was one of Williams’ four receptions.

THREE: His touchdown celebration, where he jumped up and bear hugged the goalpost, may have gotten more attention than the score. “I didn’t know it was a penalty til I sat down on the bench and saw the field goal team going out,’’ Williams said. “I apologized to Jake (Bates), I apologized to Jack (Fox), I apologized to coach, everybody. They told me it wasn’t my fault but I felt like it was my fault in the moment. We’ve just got to make plays and be smarter.’’ He was penalized for unsportsmanlike conduct which pushed the extra point back 15 yards. Bates missed it wide right. Williams said that coach Dan Campbell told him not to do it again.

FOUR: Williams said he doesn’t think they played bad at all. He praised the defense and said the offense has to learn and move on. “Wherever anybody wants to rank us, that’s up to them. I don’t really care where we’re at, we know what we play like, we know what type of team we (are),’’ Williams said. “We’re going to get it together and down the line it’s going to be big for us, games like that are going to help us down the line. We know where we went wrong, we corrected it, we just have to move forward.’’ The Lions are 6-4 at this point and out of the playoffs with seven games remaining.

FIVE: Detroit is a hefty 10-point favorite over the Giants on Sunday. “I think I see a lot of ways we could attack them, it looks good on our end,’’ Williams said. “We’ve got a lot of different ways we can attack them and make plays and execute. We’re just trying to get back on the winning track, that’s the main thing going into this game.’’

UP NEXT: Lions (6-4) face the N.Y. Giants (2-9) at 1 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23, at Ford Field. It’s the first of three home games in 12 days for Detroit.

Lions process fact that their season is over so abruptly after divisional loss

ALLEN PARK — Less than 24 hours after the heart-breaking, divisional round loss, 45-31, to the Commanders, the Lions were cleaning out their lockers and saying goodbye on Sunday. Lots of hugs. A few questions.

As the No. 1 seed the Lions expected to at least make it to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. Now they are going home, garbage bags of locker goodies thrown over their shoulders, like Santa.

Center Frank Ragnow said the process of dealing with the finality of it starts now.

“Try to channel it, use it whether it’s anger, sadness, whatever it is, try to use that as motivation into the offseason,’’ Ragnow said on Sunday.

He said coach Dan Campbell’s message to the team was along those lines. “Never forgetting that feeling of watching them celebrate across the field and listening to them in the locker room, just never forgetting that,” Ragnow said.

Defensive tackle Alim McNeill was hobbling through the locker room on crutches. He tore his ACL in the loss to the Bills on Dec. 15 and is recovering from surgery. He said he’s on pace but does not have any type of timeline for returning. He watched the game from home.

“It’s tough, definitely tough. Not what anybody expected this year. We put in a lot of work, we had a goal set for this year, things took a different turn and we’re kind of here and now,’’ McNeill said. “It happens, it’s definitely tough, kind of hard to swallow, nobody knows what to think about it really. It’s definitely tough.’’

It was a team loss with the defense unable to stop Washington quarterback Jayden Daniels and the offense unable to hold onto the ball. Teams with five turnovers rarely win a game.

Quarterback Jared Goff had a rough night throwing three interceptions. He was having trouble processing it immediately after the game.

“I think we all look within and that’s part of it, if you get to this level you’re always going to be looking at yourself before you’re pointing fingers and that’s what makes us as good as who we are,’’ Ragnow said. “That’s what makes (Goff) great. He’s going to feel it, it’s going to burn. But we all know everybody on this team had a hand in last night. We as a team just didn’t play well enough to win.’’

It’s all new to rookie cornerback Terrion Arnold.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a sense of shock, it’s a sense of that team they outplayed us that night you have to get back to it and the only way to ease the pain is to get back to the drawing board,’’ Arnold said. “There’s always somebody who’s dealing with something way worse than a lost football game. I love the game of football, I put my life into it, I know my teammates do and I know we’ll be back.’’

No question the current locker room is loaded with young talent, but in the NFL rosters are fluid which may have made Saturday’s loss even harder.

“I would say the hardest part is just knowing the room will be different. Even in the locker room after the game we took time to say, ‘Guys really cherish this  moment in the locker room because it’s going to be different,’’’ Arnold said. “That’s been the hardest thing of being in the NFL, normally in college you go back and see everybody. But the NFL is a business, people get better opportunities which I know they’ll take those, I’m happy they’ll take those. It’s hard because you get close to a person and then they leave.’’

Ragnow, who just finished his seventh season with the Lions, sees a bright future.

“One hundred percent. There’s so many talented dudes in this room, not only talented but the right mindset. Just the right wired guys that are willing to do whatever it takes for their teammates and put it on the line,’’ Ragnow said. “Again, I’m just so grateful to be a part of this locker room because there’s a lot of special dudes.’’

AND THIS: When cornerback Amik Robertson broke his arm early in Saturday’s game, teammate Terrion Arnold was right there on the field. “I thought it was kind of cool that when I was praying over him, Jayden (Daniels) came right there and we prayed over him together,” Arnold said. “It’s one of those things, it’s bigger than football.” Robertson was scheduled to have surgery on Sunday.