Do you want to know what improvement looks like for the Detroit Lions? It looks like a 38-35 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday that could have been worse than last year’s 44-6 loss.
Do you want to know what improvement sounds like for the Lions? It sounds like 64,537 fans at Ford Field screaming from start to finish because they had something to scream about. It sounds like coach Dan Campbell and his players, because in the tone of their voices there was something more than frustration and disappointment. There was encouragement.
“And we were this close,” Campbell said, “and so it’s really like, ‘Look, man, this is Game 1 and we’ve got a long season here.’ And I said (to the players), the good news is that we didn’t play very well and we lost by three. That’s what you can take away from this.
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“Now if we just take this whole approach where every week, it’s like, ‘We lost by three, we lost by three, we lost by three.’ Then what are we doing? So we’ve got to clean this up, and we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be a lot better in all the areas.”
Here’s the good news for Campbell. They’re already better in one very important area. They actually believe they can beat a good team that has an excellent, dynamic quarterback. And they almost did by maintaining their resilience.
No one likes to talk about moral victories, because if feels like loser talk, like a consolation prize. But that’s what the Lions got out of Sunday. They were down, 31-14, early in the third quarter and rallied on offense and defense.
Campbell and quarterback Jared Goff were clearly encouraged after the game by what this team showed. Of course they need to get better, but this was a good start against a good team. The defense had no answer for Jalen Hurts and A.J. Brown early in the game then forced two punts after short drives in the fourth quarter.
If the scoreboard had stopped working in fourth quarter, and you had to judge who was leading based on the effort and excitement of players, you would have picked the Lions. Their defenders were jumping around after big tackles that likewise lifted fans out of their seats.
“Yeah, it was loud,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. “Yeah, and you know what? The Lions, the people of Detroit, they came out for this game, and we obviously knew it was going to be like that. …
“Obviously, you don’t want that as a visiting team, but everybody wants that. To play in front of the entire world and play in front of a rocking crowd like that on the road and be able to come out with a victory is big.”
So take a bow, Lions fans. You grunting, growling gaggle of ear-piercing fanatics earned the opponents’ respect as much as Lions players did. Because last October, the Lions were never in their game against the Eagles. Nearly 11 months later, the Lions look different.
“They had a great football team,” Hurts said. “It’s clearly not the same football team we played last year. They were flying to the ball, they played very physical.”
Don’t worry, the Lions don’t believe they’ve arrived just because they opened with a close loss to a playoff team with high expectations. The mood among the players wasn’t dour, but it wasn’t a celebration, either.
Amon-Ra St. Brown led Lions receivers with eight catches for 64 yards and a touchdown. I asked him if players were happy with the resilience they showed, but he pushed back immediately.
“I don’t think none of us were happy,” he said. “We felt like we could have won that game. Obviously mistakes were made out there. We wish we could have had back certain plays.
“But no, resilience? We know we’re resilient. That’s something that we are as a team. We already know that. We feel like we’ve got to win those games. We’re not going back to last year, those close games we couldn’t finish. Moving forward we’ve got to win those.”
The Lions’ conservative, ineffective offense early in game cost them dearly. But with a shorter preseason in which teams barely — if at all — play their starting quarterbacks, the season’s first game or two might function as a de facto preseason warmup. This preseason, Goff attempted just four passes. Josh Allen attempted just three, then threw two interceptions in the first half of Buffalo’s opener. Aaron Rodgers and Matthew Stafford didn’t play at all.
So it might take a little while longer for the Lions to find their groove and go from getting close to closing out games. Sunday at Ford Field, the Lions showed everyone they had improved. Once they start winning a few more games, everyone else will sense that improvement, too.
Contact Carlos Monarrez: cmonarrez@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@cmonarrez.