Finishing was a problem for the Lions last season — a big one.
The Lions went 3-12-1, their worst record since Matthew Stafford’s rookie season, and squandered second-half leads in seven of those games.
That heartbreak led to an uncomfortable offseason for many in the organization, and it spawned a new rallying cry the Lions are leaning on this fall: “Dagger time.”
“It’s something that we came up with in a team meeting,” tight end T.J. Hockenson said Monday, the first day of padded practice. “Everyone says finish, but I think we wanted to change it up. We’ve heard that throughout all growing up is, ‘Finish, finish, finish.’ But we kind of wanted to put our own little spin on it.”
Hockenson said Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, once considered the king of the comeback, coined a phrase that applies to everyone on the team.
Defensively, the Lions ranked 28th on third downs last season and 26th in goal-to-go situations. Offensively, they were 29th in goal-to-go situations and ineffective much of the year running the ball.
And collectively, they were outscored 221-147 in the second half and overtime of their 16 games.
RELATED: Lions’ Kenny Golladay ‘excited’ about Detroit’s offense, confident he’ll get a new contract
“We can take a look at last year,” Lions coach Matt Patricia said. “You like to dive into the stats, you don’t like to live in them. But certainly, I think they do say a lot for us and where we need to improve. I think we had quite a few games last year where we were winning and had a chance to win and we didn’t, and quite a few games where we were actually leading in the fourth quarter. We need to close those outs.”
The Lions’ emphasis on finishing is far from new.
“I think that’s a common theme in the game of football,” Patricia said.
But it’s also personal to the players who lived through last year’s struggles.
Before a back injury sidelined Stafford for eight games and sent the Lions tumbling into NFL oblivion, the team was kicking itself for squandered opportunities early in the year.
After starting 2-0-1, including an opening-game tie in which they blew an 18-point fourth-quarter lead, the Lions suffered late losses to the Kansas City Chiefs (on a touchdown with 20 seconds to play) and Green Bay Packers (on a field goal as time expired) that started their nosedive.
MORE: Only one Lions rookie took starters reps in first padded practice, and it’s not who you think
“(It’s) something for us that we can certainly look at last year and say, if we can make these improvements and maybe do a couple things better here in those situations, we can close those out better, I think that would really help everything overall,” Patricia said.
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett. The Free Press has started a new digital subscription model. Here’s how you can gain access to our most exclusive Lions content.