Wojo: For hot Lions, pressure comes with the praise in run toward playoffs

Detroit News

Allen Park — Everyone’s talking about the Lions — on the TV, in the grocery store, at the gas station. Exclamations have replaced expletives, and expectations have ratcheted so quickly, no one’s quite sure how to react.

That’s fine for you as a fan, and for Big Johnny at the meat counter. The key issue is how the Lions react, flipping narratives and scripts, from 1-6 to 6-1 and now one of the NFL’s more popular storylines. Suddenly, “Hard Knocks” doesn’t seem overly romanticized, like when Dan Campbell closed the series with a long pause, followed by this: “The 2022 Detroit Lions will be the team that CAN, and WILL.”

It was good TV that has a chance to be much better reality. At 7-7, the Lions face another Biggest Game Yet Saturday at Carolina, which is 5-9 but still in the playoff hunt in the cruddy NFC South. With six victories in seven games, the Lions are piling up praise, which comes wrapped in pressure. They pretty much need to win their last three to reach the playoffs for the first time in six years, and their chances currently hover around 40%, no longer a longshot.

They’re one of the hottest (and healthiest, shhh) teams in the league, and if they land a wild-card spot, they might be the team nobody wants to face, but everybody wants to see.

“I think they’d be very dangerous,” Tony Dungy said on NBC the other night. “They had been cutting it loose on offense, scoring a lot of points all year, but it’s just recently that the defense has picked up the pace … I wouldn’t want to play them.”

Dungy is an informed observer on the topic. He grew up in Jackson, west of Detroit, went on to win a Super Bowl as head coach of the Colts, and has maintained a bond with his hometown team. He was the one who introduced “Same Old Lions” to the rest of the nation on a TV broadcast years ago, a phrase currently being stomped upon.

This is heady stuff for a franchise with one playoff victory in 30 years. Football forecasting is as perilous as weather forecasting and uses the same methodology: You can only rely on the patterns you see. The Lions’ predictive patterns are an outstanding offensive line (hasn’t allowed a sack in 10 quarters), a confident, savvy quarterback in Jared Goff (hasn’t thrown an interception in 219 passes), and an opportunistic defense revived at midseason.

Is it sustainable? In the long term, absolutely. GM Brad Holmes has drafted superbly, with two more first-round picks in the spring.

In the short term, not as certain. (Don’t yell at me!). In the NFL, turnover differentials and odds tend to even out, you just don’t know when. During this seven-game stretch, the Lions have 13 takeaways and three giveaways. To finish 10-7, they’d have to win nine of their final 10, which almost never happens for any team. On one hand, though, they’re two-thirds of the way there. On the other hand, they’re a .500 team with a defense still ranked 30th.

Sorry for the brief dip into historic realities. Back to the fun. This might be Detroit’s giddiest, most unexpected ride — however long it lasts — since the 2006 Tigers rose from ruins to the World Series.

You’d think it’d be natural for the Lions to get swept up in the wave. Campbell thought it a bit in the first half against the Jets last week, when the Lions were playing tight, committing penalties and stuck in a 10-10 tie. If there was a why-are-we-here moment, maybe that was it, and maybe it passed.

“I kind of feel like, if it was going to happen it would’ve happened then,” Campbell said Tuesday. “Because all of a sudden there was all this attention and everybody wants a piece of the players and coaches. That was a big swing — we were in the sewer and then all of a sudden life’s great. But you can never lose sight. You’ve got to respect the opponent and what they’re capable of.”

Remembering the past

Aidan Hutchinson is a rookie who knows all about the Lions, having grown up here. He’s developing quickly, with more pass-rushing pals joining him — James Houston, Romeo Okwara, John Cominsky. The Lions lost a lot of close games early, which frustrated them, and emboldened them.

“I had a realization while we were playing the (Jets) — we feel like we’re one of the best teams in the league right now, but if we lose one of these games, we might not get in,” said Hutchinson, who has seven sacks. “You kinda forget about that in all the hype, with the confidence we have. It’s like, one screw-up and you’re done.”

That might be the hidden benefit of the early sewer crawl, as well as previous failures, although most current players have scant connection to the past. One guy with a connection is left tackle Taylor Decker, playing as well as ever in his seventh season here. He’s the unheralded stalwart on a line that boasts Pro Bowler Frank Ragnow, former Pro Bowler Jonah Jackson, and soon-to-be-perennial Pro Bowler Penei Sewell.

Decker famously declared after the Lions’ 28-25 Thanksgiving loss to Buffalo, “This isn’t the (expletive) same old Lions.”

“You don’t say things like that if you don’t know you’re able to back it up,” Decker said this week. “The guys who have been here multiple years, we don’t want to go back to losing, being the joke of the NFL, all that stuff. We’re gonna keep doing what we do.”

They pass-block as well as any team, tied with the Cowboys and Bucs for fewest sacks allowed (19). Goff has helped tremendously, becoming more comfortable and aware in the pocket.

Goff is a fascinating study in perseverance. He endured it all as the Lions’ offense collapsed last season, coinciding with Matthew Stafford’s Super Bowl run. When they opened 1-6 this season, the Lions seemed certain to draft a quarterback. Now, not so much.

Surely Goff hears the public’s joyful clamor?

“No, because it was just as loud when we were 1-6 the other way,” he said, pointedly deadpan. “Just us showing our maturity, showing that we can handle a little bit of praise and not change what got us here absolutely is the challenge now. But, the challenge earlier was a little bit harder.”

Navigating the NFC shouldn’t be as messy as slithering through the sewer, but there could be a trap for the Lions. Because they’re set up nicely for the future — young stars, modest salaries, draft capital — there might be an assumption this is just the first of many runs.

But an unimpeded, linear rise is never guaranteed. And right now, every playoff bid is a cashable ticket in the wide-open NFC.

“We’ve got an opportunity, and you don’t know when these opportunities are going to be there, so we can’t let this slip through our fingers,” Campbell said. “We can’t get uptight with that. The stakes go higher and our temperature’s got to go down. We are trending the right way, and I believe we’ll be better every year. But, we know what kind of opportunity you have (right now), and you better hold on to it and grasp it.”

The Lions need to squeeze it, but not too tightly. It’s life in an NFL playoff race, in case everyone forgot. The final opponents — Carolina, Chicago and Green Bay — don’t have imposing records, not that it matters. The Lions have narrowed the gap between “CAN” and “WILL,” and it’s worth praising and appraising. As for the next step, maybe it helps that their humble beginnings are recent enough to be fresh, painful enough to be inspiring.

Bob.wojnowski@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @bobwojnowski

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