"Ton of injuries"? lol ok.
Again, this is no different at all than what I am on record as saying about the Bears the past 2 years. Many wanted to anoint the mighty Bears offense, despite knowing EXACTLY who Jay Cutler was. It's no different than the Lions.
It just f'ing cracks me up to no end how peoples perception on Stafford and the Lions offense immediately parallels who they play! They play decent teams and get beat down and it's crickets. They beat amazingly crappy teams in the Bears and Bucs and it's just "Hey! Look out! Here comes Matt Stafford. He's got his stuff back!" you wanna lol? There's one.
Stafford has now been in this league long enough that just like ole Jay, we know who he is. The Lions offense will not beat the Packers. Not happening. We don't turn the ball over we win going away.
I wonder how many people that are soooooooo high on the Lions would actually wager any money on them beating the Pack at home.
Umm, yes, tons of injuries. The Lions have had all their offensive lineman healthy exactly 1 game(Tampa), and about 5 offensive snaps. They lost their RT and backup tackle the first week of the year. They played most of the season with a terrible RT off the street. Then they lost their RG, and had to play a very raw under sized rookie project at starter. The right side is the side the Lions always run behind, so losing the entire right side for half the season destroyed the run game. Then, during the 2nd offensive snap of the Patriots game, they lost their LT too. it's kind of hard to beat the power ranked #1 team, at their place, especially a team known for basically never losing at home. NE has lost 3 times at home in the regular season the last FIVE years. How is a team supposed to do that with only a LG and center? Two guys well into their 30s and won't be on the team next year except as backups, at most.
At one point in the year, the Lions were without all 3 of their running backs. Luckily they got Bell back, but he was hobbled and not very effective. They were without 2 of their 3 RBs many games, and the Lions are a run by committee team. At one point they had to start UDFA off the practice squad just so they could have a RB.
Also, they were without all 3 TEs. For their London game, combined with losing their healthy TE so unexpectedly, they were forced to sign a TE off the street, merely because he happened to have a passport. There wasn't time to pickup any other TE from the street because there wouldn't of been time to get them a passport. Pettigrew their TE did manage to play hobbled a couple games, at least parts of games, but the Lions basically didn't have TEs nearly half the year either. And this offense was designed by Lombardi and Caldwell to be a tight end heavy offense.
Then Calvin Johnson was out for 5 games. Yes he was a decoy and played a couple snaps in a couple games, but he basically had no effect for 5 weeks.
All these injuries, on top of having all new coaches and a rookie OC. It's kind of hard for a coaching staff to evaluate whats working, implement schemes, get guys acclimated... when they are struggling to just field a team because of whole position groups + star players are injured.
But guess what? None of the injuries were season ending, and the bye week came at a good time for them. Unfortunately not soon enough, as they were still too depleted to go on the road and beat the best teams in the league, but they still stand at only 4 losses. Now that guys are healthy, and even have worked past the stiffness and soreness of injury, the offense is starting to play much better football. Putting up 34 points against the bears is so surprising feat, but Tampa Bay for 6 weeks had been fielding a very good defense. Holding every team they played under 290 yards and under 20 points. Their stats are bad and weighted down because their D was bad early on while adjusting to Lovies new defense. But, since their bye they've been good enough for top 5, if counted after their bye week until going into the Detroit game. Still Stafford put up 120+ QB rating with zero interceptions and they shredded that defense. Also, the Lions haven't needed to score more than 34 their last two games, they have a good defense (best points against D in the NFL) so they haven't needed to run up the score, just in case. You mention a little sloppiness in the Lions vs. Buccs game on the Lions part, that's funny, because I've seen the Packers have some sloppy moments too, and some unnecessary stuff from Clay.
Good defense, good offense, very good special teams too... if you want to say the Lions aren't very good (which I saw you do btw) you are free to think that. But I think that's a pretty ignorant thing to think, I've also seen a lot of misinformation too.. like "what did their great offense get them last year" I don't think a 20th ranked defense compares to #1 points against #2 yards...
I'll bottom line it. NOT same old Lions. The Lions beat the Packers once, and now the Lions are a much healthier team, much more acclimated to the new coaches and systems, and are playing sound football. The Lions weren't healthy at all against the bears, but were against Tampa. I expect a sharp increase each week leading up to week 17.
