Lions News

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions make huge statement, beat Chiefs in K.C. in opener, 21-20

Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press


KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Detroit Lions are going to be a problem. Not just this season, but for years to come.

David Montgomery scored the game-winning touchdown on an 8-yard run with 7:06 to play as the Lions beat the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on their banner-raising night at Arrowhead Stadium, 21-20, on Thursday night.

Montgomery ran for a game-high 74 yards on 21 carries and picked up the game-clinching first down late in the fourth quarter, and the Lions got massive contributions from a slew of young players they expect to be the core of their future.


Brian Branch returned a Patrick Mahomes interception 50 yards for a touchdown. Jack Campbell made a diving pass breakup two plays earlier in the third quarter. Sam LaPorta had the key block to usher Montgomery into the end zone on his touchdown run. Jahmyr Gibbs finished with 60 yards from scrimmage. And second-year linemen Aidan Hutchinson and Josh Paschal led a much-improved Lions defense that held Kansas City to fewer points than it scored in all but three games last season.


Hutchinson, last year’s runner-up for NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, had three quarterback hits while providing relentless pass rush, and Paschal made a key tackle-for-loss on a third-and-2 trick play that forced a late Chiefs punt.

Paschal broke through the line to stop Rashee Rice for a 3-yard loss on a jet sweep from the Chiefs’ 34-yard line after tight end Blake Bell lined up under center for a direct snap.


Bell was playing in place of All-Pro Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, who hyperextended his knee in practice Tuesday and was inactive Thursday.

The Lions won a season-opener for the first time under Dan Campbell, and, in the process, spoiled the Chiefs’ celebration on banner-raising night, doing so in front of a raucous crowd that had large pockets of fans wearing Honolulu Blue Lions jerseys.




At times, the sellout crowd erupted into chants of, “Let’s go, Lions.”

The Lions, winners of nine of their past 11 games dating back to November, scored the game’s first touchdown Thursday on a 9-yard Jared Goff pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown, 10 plays after converting a fake punt deep in their own territory and mustered little offense most of the rest of the game, until they needed it, down six points with 12 minutes to play.

Montgomery started a drive that began at the Lions’ 25-yard line with a 5-yard run and the Lions covered 70 yards in their next eight plays to get in the end zone.

Goff was 22-for-35 passing for 253 yards for the Lions and Josh Reynolds added 80 on four catches, including two key grabs for first downs on Montgomery’s touchdown drive.

Mahomes finished 21-for-37 for 226 yards with two touchdowns and his first ever interception in a Week 1 game. The reigning NFL MVP was hurt by a handful of drops from his receivers.



The Chiefs, who twice settled for field goals after long drives in the second half, had won eight straight openers, tied for the fifth-most in NFL history, and 16 straight games against NFC opponents.

The Lions host the Seattle Seahawks in their home opener on Sept. 17 at Ford Field.

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

[whatever_gong82]

Lions upset Chiefs to open 2023 NFL season: How Kansas City’s supporting cast hurt Patrick Mahomes


By Nate Taylor and Colton Pouncy

Sep 7 2023

The Detroit Lions defeated the Kansas City Chiefs 21-20 on Thursday night in the opening game of the 2023 season. Here’s what you need to know:


*-Detroit quarterback Jared Goff was 22-for-35 for 253 yards and one touchdown. Running back David Montgomery rushed for 74 yards and a touchdown.

*-The Lions opened the scoring after converting on a fake punt from their own 17-yard line with 9:27 left in the first quarter. Ten plays later, Goff found receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown for a 9-yard score.

*-Detroit rookie safety Brian Branch had a pick six against Kansas City QB Patrick Mahomes with 10:54 left in the third. The Lions later scored on an 8-yard rush by Montgomery with 7:03 left in the game to go up 21-20.

*-Mahomes — who was 21-for-39 for 226 yards, two touchdowns and one interception — suffered his first loss in six career opening-week games. The Chiefs were without star tight end Travis Kelce (knee inflammation) and defensive tackle Chris Jones (contract holdout).



The Athletic’s instant analysis:



Lions showed up when it mattered most

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t efficient. But the Lions, on a banner night in Kansas City, took down the Chiefs. Detroit used timely plays — a fake punt to extend an eventual scoring drive, a Branch pick six and a key fourth-quarter drive — to pull it off. Kelce or not, this was a hostile environment. The Lions weren’t fazed and got it done when it mattered most.

Detroit started off 1-6 a year ago, in part, because it couldn’t finish games. That changed in the second half of the season, as a young Lions team learned how to win. Detroit went 8-2 in its final 10 games, but the biggest question coming into the year was whether that second-half run would continue. Against Mahomes and the Chiefs in Week 1, the Lions did just that. They were the better team in a decisive fourth quarter. The defense held strong down the stretch, the offense did just enough to win and the Lions will return to Detroit with a 1-0 record. — Pouncy



Mahomes needed more help


Mahomes knew he was starting this season under adverse circumstances. His best pass catcher, the All-Pro tight end Kelce, was forced to miss the game after he hyperextended one of his knees, a non-contact injury that occurred in Tuesday’s practice. But Mahomes, as he often does when facing adversity, produced another memorable performance, one that should’ve been enough to lead the Chiefs to a victory. But Mahomes was let down by his other skill-position teammates.

In total, the Chiefs finished with eight drops — four from receiver Kadarius Toney, two from receiver Skyy Moore, one from running back Jerick McKinnon and one from rookie receiver Rashee Rice. The game’s turning point proved to be when Mahomes, midway through the third quarter, threw a perfect pass to Toney, who was running a crossing route. Instead of catching the ball, Toney’s drop led to Branch’s interception, a turnover he returned for a 50-yard touchdown. — Taylor


Kansas City defense did its part

Even without Jones, their All-Pro defensive tackle, the Chiefs’ defense did plenty to help the team have a chance to win. Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo called a plethora of blitzes that helped generate quality pressure on Goff. Cornerback Trent McDuffie forced a fumble, defensive end Mike Danna recorded a sack and safety Justin Reid made a leaping pass deflection near the line of scrimmage just before the two-minute warning to give the Chiefs’ offense another chance to score the game-winning points. The Chiefs don’t know when Jones will end his holdout, which could last as long as Week 8. But their defensive unit held the Lions’ offense to just 14 points, a scenario that most often helps the team secure a victory. — Taylor



What they’re saying

Lions coach Dan Campbell said he “didn’t learn anything” from the win. “I got verification of what I already knew,” he added.

[Dan V]

Watching Branch run the pick six back- Reminded me of Dre Bly- he looks like him, and he runs like him. It was a flashback of epic proportions.

[whatever_gong82]

A view from a reporter from the other team:



Chiefs drop the ball: How the receivers’ mistakes cost Kansas City on opening night

By Nate Taylor
5h ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — They didn’t expect to feel this way. This was supposed to be another celebration of their continued excellence. On another national TV stage, this time on the NFL’s opening night, they would show they still have all the important people necessary — a future Hall of Fame coach, the sport’s best quarterback and a talented young supporting cast — to remain the league’s No. 1 team.

Yet the Kansas City Chiefs left their quiet locker room late Thursday night disappointed in themselves.

The scoreboards at Arrowhead Stadium displayed the league’s first result of the 2023 season: Detroit Lions 21, Chiefs 20.

For the first time in his seven-year career, quarterback Patrick Mahomes experienced what it’s like to lose the season’s first game. Playing without All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce and All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, the Chiefs had their eight-year streak of starting the season with a victory snapped. They had averaged 36.3 points in those games.

“Anytime I lose, I’m embarrassed,” Mahomes said. “We’ve got to be better.”

Mahomes completed 21 of 39 passes for 226 yards and two touchdowns. He also led his team in rushing, carrying six times for 45 yards. But the game’s most important statistic wasn’t included in the traditional box score: The Chiefs dropped eight of Mahomes’ passes.

“They know I’m going to keep firing it, so we’ll try to get it fixed this next week,” Mahomes said, trying not to criticize his teammates. “It’ll be good for the young guys to know that we’re not just going to walk in and win the game.”

Three of the Chiefs’ final four possessions were sabotaged by a skill-position player dropping a catchable pass from Mahomes. Running back Jerick McKinnon, a 10-year veteran who made one of the mistakes, said he and his teammates — receivers Kadarius Toney, Skyy Moore and rookie Rashee Rice — were trying too hard to make a highlight in the open field before securing the ball.



“You can’t make a play first unless you catch the ball,” McKinnon said. “We had a lot of missed opportunities. We didn’t make enough plays and we put our defense in a lot of bad positions. This one should hurt. It’s a long season, but this (was) not our expectations.”



The game’s turning point came early in the third quarter when Mahomes threw a perfect pass to Toney, who was running a crossing route. Instead of catching the ball, Toney let it go through his hands and right to Lions rookie safety Brian Branch, who returned the interception 50 yards for a touchdown to tie the game 14-14. The Lions’ win probability increased from 16 percent to 39 percent as a result, according to Next Gen Stats.

Toney, the Chiefs’ projected No. 1 wide receiver, never got into sync with Mahomes. A three-year veteran, Toney missed training camp and the preseason while recovering from surgery to repair meniscus and cartilage in his knee. When Toney watched Branch enter the end zone with the ball that was intended for him, he bowed his head and shouted an expletive. Later in the third quarter, Toney dropped another pass while running a crossing route, an unforced error that stalled the Chiefs’ drive in the red zone, forcing coach Andy Reid to use kicker Harrison Butker for a short field goal.



But Toney’s most egregious drop came during the Chiefs’ final dive. Trailing by one point with less than three minutes left, the Chiefs had the perfect play called against the Lions’ zone coverage. Running a deep over route, Toney was wide open for what would’ve been at least a 25-yard completion, a connection that would’ve put the Chiefs close to Butker’s range for a game-winning field goal. After the play, with fans booing Toney, Mahomes put his hands on his helmet in frustration.



“I have trust in KT,” Mahomes said of Toney, who didn’t speak with reporters. “Obviously, he wanted to play and he fought and rehabbed hard so he could play. Stuff is not always going to go your way. But I have trust that he’s going to be that guy that I go to in those crucial moments and he’s going to make the catch.”

Kelce, who missed the game because of a hyperextended knee, a non-contact injury that occurred in Tuesday’s practice, spent several minutes inside the locker room encouraging many of his offensive teammates in one-on-one conversations.



“The guy is a warrior,” receiver Justin Watson said of Kelce. “He would do anything to play. I know he’s going to be good. It’s a long season and Travis is going to (be an) All-Pro. He’s a huge part of our offense. We definitely missed Travis.”

Without Kelce, the Lions were able to effectively guard most of the Chiefs’ pass catchers with man-to-man coverage, especially after halftime.

“You’re losing the best, I think, tight end of all time,” Mahomes said. “But other guys have to step up.”

About 30 minutes before kickoff, All-Pro defensive tackle Chris Jones, who is holding out for a lucrative contract extension, entered Arrowhead. None of Jones’ attire featured red or gold colors. Sitting in a suite between his two agents, Jason Katz and Michael Katz, Jones watched his defensive teammates play well.



Coordinator Steve Spagnuolo called a plethora of blitzes that helped generate pressure on Lions quarterback Jared Goff. Cornerback Trent McDuffie forced a fumble, defensive end Mike Danna recorded a sack, and safety Justin Reid made a leaping pass deflection near the line of scrimmage just before the two-minute warning to give the Chiefs offense one more chance. The Chiefs don’t know when Jones will end his holdout, which could last until Week 8. But their defense held the Lions offense to 14 points.

“That wasn’t even in my mind,” Justin Reid said of Jones’ absence. “I don’t think that was in anyone’s mind in the locker room. We’re here to play a game and we didn’t play (well) enough. You can’t make any excuses about it. You have to come back and play better.”

Before Thursday, the Chiefs were 22-18 in regular-season games when trailing in the second half since 2018, Mahomes’ first year as a starter, the lone team with a winning record in that scenario during that stretch. The Chiefs believe they should’ve earned another thrilling comeback win Thursday.

But many of the Chiefs — including Mahomes, McKinnon and Watson — left Arrowhead knowing the biggest reason for their loss will be clear to see in their upcoming film session.

“Anytime the defense doesn’t have to stop you,” Watson said, “you stop yourself.”



Nate Taylor has been a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Kansas City Chiefs since 2018. Before that, he covered the Indiana Pacers at The Indianapolis Star for two years. He has also been a sports features writer for The New York Times and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. A Kansas City native, he graduated from the University of Central Missouri. Follow Nate on Twitter @ByNateTaylor

[whatever_gong82]

I woke up early this morning and caught the Athletic article online, and I'm posting it here. Enjoy!!!


The Lions knew they could beat the Chiefs, and now a season tone has been set


By Colton Pouncy

Sep 8, 2023

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Inside the NFL’s loudest stadium, on a night the defending Super Bowl champs raised a banner and kicked off a new season as the league’s gold standard, the home crowd fell eerily silent. With less than a minute to go, the Red Sea departed, heading for the exits. This was not the night they had anticipated.

Left amid the aftermath was an upstart Detroit Lions team, lining up for victory formation and a victory lap. All offseason, they told us this was different. That they were building a core capable of not only going toe-to-toe with the best in the league — but coming out on top.

You’ll have to excuse them for saying they told you so.



“I didn’t learn anything,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell said following his team’s 21-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs. “I got verification of what I already knew.”

It feels so long ago now, when Campbell didn’t know what he had. It was a process of trial and error. Finding the right fits. Trying to establish an identity. Taking their medicine along the way, as GM Brad Holmes put it last week. But Campbell and everyone in this Lions organization feel confident in their ability to win games like this because of what they went through.


A year ago, at least early in the season, a contest of this magnitude probably ends on a more somber note for those in Honolulu Blue. Part of the 1-6 start the Lions limped to last year was the product of a young team that didn’t yet know how to close. A 38-35 loss to the Eagles. A 28-24 loss to the Vikings. A 48-45 loss to the Seahawks. A 31-27 loss to the Dolphins.



But what this team has now, and what it showed Thursday night, is a composure late in games it had to discover.

The Chiefs took a 17-14 lead into the fourth quarter. Tight end Travis Kelce did not suit up, and it showed throughout the night. The Chiefs’ remaining pass-catchers did little to help their quarterback. If anything, a drop by Kadarius Toney returned for six by Lions rookie Brian Branch helped keep this one close. But Kansas City still had No. 15, one Patrick Lavon Mahomes II. The league’s best player. A one-man show capable of making it work with whoever’s around him and willing his team to a victory.

Nobody would’ve been surprised to see the Chiefs pull away after extending their lead to 20-14. It would’ve been in typical Lions fashion to lose to a Kansas City team missing its best pass-catcher in Kelce and best defensive player in Chris Jones. “Same Old Lio–” … well, you know the saying.



But then, in the fourth quarter, a sound permeated the press box. It was the repeated tapping of the backspace key on laptops, as columns and gamers centering on a missed opportunity for the Lions had to be rewritten.

On their next drive, the Lions struck back, just when it seemed unlikely. The offense faced a third-and-12 from their own 23. Detroit was 2-of-11 on third downs before that. But Jared Goff found Josh Reynolds for a gain of 18. Chains moved.



Later in the drive, more of the same. A third-and-1 from midfield — most likely two-down territory regardless — was converted. Goff to Reynolds again, this time for 33 yards. Back-to-back conversions after a game full of stalled drives.

“That’s one of the reasons I love this team,” Campbell said. “They don’t get fazed by those things. And they know that the next one’s coming, the next play is the one that’s gonna change the game for us and they played that way today.”

Finally, a few plays later, Detroit broke through. An 8-yard rushing touchdown by David Montgomery, the workhorse of the evening, gave the Lions a 21-20 lead with a little over seven minutes to go. A nine-play, 75-yard drive to go up on the champs in their building.


At that time, you could hear the chants. Let’s go Lions. Let’s go Lions. Players heard it on the sideline. The only thing left to do was close it out. But not before a couple of tests.

Those final minutes proved pivotal. As they should. This is the NFL, and games are often won and lost in crunch time. There’s a feeling every Lions fan has in moments like this. Inevitable dread. A fear of what’s around the corner.

Campbell and his crew are doing their best to erase that feeling.



The Chiefs were 0-for-7 on third downs in the second half. The Lions’ defense, on back-to-back drives in the fourth quarter, held Mahomes and the Chiefs scoreless. They were aided by another untimely drop by Toney, but it’s nothing the Lions will ever apologize for. Stopping Mahomes is no small task. His final four pass attempts of the night hit the grass, falling incomplete on Kansas City’s final drive. When the Lions’ offense took the field again hoping to close the game, they relied on their offensive line to pave the way for Montgomery.

They fed him the ball time after time, forcing the Chiefs to use all their timeouts. By then, it just felt different. Like the Lions were in control. And when Montgomery squeaked through a pile to convert the first down, the realization set in.




The Lions were going to win the game. But, of course, it’s nothing they didn’t already know.

“I think it’s kinda the culture that we’ve really built over the years, just kind of maintaining our focus on maintaining our composure throughout the whole time,” right tackle Penei Sewell said in the locker room. “This game, it can be an emotional one. The flows can be up and down and the only thing that has to maintain is our heartbeat and our temperature. Coach preaches that and I think we just went out there and did that exactly.”



“I go into every game thinking we better win and if we don’t, there’s something wrong,” wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. “That’s just the mentality I feel like we all have and that’s what kinda helps us going into games — that confidence, that swagger that we have. Hopefully, you guys can see it too, looking from the outside in. I love this team.”

How the Lions finished Thursday’s game is a sign of maturity. You can see it in the ways they carry themselves, the collective mindset they share — speaking the same language in interviews conducted simultaneously across the locker room. It’s a unit that moves as one.



Answering questions in the bowels of Arrowhead Stadium, Campbell, in his third season, looked the most poised and matter-of-fact he’s ever been. He said he told his players they were made for this moment. He was calm, cool and collected as he talked about how he felt going into this one and how his team got it done.

“I think we expected to win this game,” Campbell said. “We came in here and we knew what we needed to do, and we knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We did that.”

Expecting to win. That’s the main difference between these Lions and Lions teams of the past. Thursday, with the world watching, they believe they set the tone for the season ahead.



Colton Pouncy is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the Detroit Lions. He previously covered Michigan State football and basketball for the company, and covered sports for The Tennessean in Nashville prior to joining The Athletic. Follow Colton on Twitter @colton_pouncy

[whatever_gong82]

This was from yesterday, but it's sad and funny at the same time:


Despite history and logic, I believe in the Detroit Lions this year

Can you jinx a team that's lived for years under a cloud of disappointment and despair?



Sept. 7, 2023, 3:11 PM CDT
By Michael A. Cohen, MSNBC Columnist


My name is Michael … and I am a Detroit Lions fan.

I was born in Michigan, but my family moved to the Philly suburbs when I was 3 years old. Driven by sibling rivalry, I eschewed fandom for my brother’s beloved Philadelphia Eagles and chose the Lions as my football team.

For almost five decades, I have paid a terrible price for that decision.


Followers of the Cleveland Browns, Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills will tell you that they are football’s most long-suffering fans. But they don’t know the half of it.

The last time the Lions won a playoff game, George Bush was president. I don’t mean George W. Bush — I’m talking about his father. On Jan. 5, 1992, the Lions soundly defeated the Dallas Cowboys in an NFC playoff game. It was a fitting win because only 11 days earlier, another evil empire had been vanquished: the Soviet Union.


Since then, life as a Lions fan has been one misery and heartbreak after another. There was the 1993 playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, when Detroit blew a late lead by leaving Shannon Sharpe so wide open in the end zone that there wasn’t a Lion within 15 yards of him. What about the playoff game the following year, also against the Packers in frozen Lambeau Field, when our all-world running back Barry Sanders rushed for -1 yards? Since 1992, we’ve had nine straight playoff losses: it’s the worst postseason losing streak in NFL history.

There are many “Same Old Lions” moments but Lions fans can recite most of them from memory. There was the Calvin Johnson “complete the process” game; the “batted ball” game against the Seahawks; the Aaron Rodgers Hail Mary; the “runoff game” versus the Falcons; that time the Ravens’ Justin Tucker hit the longest field goal in NFL history to beat us in 2021; and of course the “the refs picked up the flag” playoff game against the Cowboys in 2015 that sent me into a deep emotional abyss (and still does when I recall it).


In 2008, the Lions were the first NFL team to go 0-16 (other teams had winless seasons but did not play 16 games). We’ve had two of the greatest position players in the history of the game, Sanders and Johnson. Neither won a playoff game. Matthew Stafford, our Hall of Fame-worthy quarterback, finally left the Lions and immediately won the Super Bowl with his new team, the L.A. Rams (no Lions fan is upset at Stafford, though, who was a great player for us who deserved to win a title). We’ve lived through both the Matt Millen era and the Matt Patricia era, which from a historical perspective, are probably most akin to the Dark Ages or a stroll in the Sahara without water.



We Lions fans are largely resigned to our fate. Our singular expectation is that when something can go wrong, it inevitably will. Optimism is for other teams.

That’s what makes the dawn of the 2023 season, which kicks off tonight with the Lions playing the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, so unusual.

We have hope. We have a pretty good team this year. We could go to the playoffs.

Yup, I said it.



I can pinpoint the last time I had real hope as a Lions fan: the morning of Dec. 30, 1995. The Lions were playing the Eagles in the NFC wild card game. They had finished the season on a seven-game win streak and would have hosted a playoff game had wide-open Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Yancey Thigpen not dropped a pass in the end zone to hand the Packers the NFC Central title. Our all-pro offensive tackle Lomas Brown guaranteed a victory.

After we tied the score 7-7, the nightmare began. The Lions gave up 44 straight points, including a Hail Mary pass at the end of the first half, to end in a 58-37 loss. That this crushing defeat came at the hands of the Eagles — my brother’s favorite team — only enhanced the misery.

But fast-forward 27 years. Going into the final game of the 2022 NFL season, the Lions were on a roll. We’d won seven of our last nine games and headed to Lambeau to take on the Packers yet again. Earlier in the day, we’d been knocked out of the playoff race, but Green Bay was still alive. A win would send home the team that every Lions fan learns to hate from an early age.



Our defense, an Achilles’ heel all season, hounded Rodgers all game, with the highlight being the interception on the Packers’ final drive that sealed the game.

Beating the Packers in Green Bay and humiliating Rodgers was our Super Bowl. Finally, we could take pride in our Lions fandom. I fully appreciate how pathetic that sounds, but when you’re a Lions fan, you take your victories wherever you can get them.



That end-of-season run has made the Lions the sexy pick to dethrone the Packers atop the NFC North this season and return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016. It didn’t hurt that the Lions crushed free agency and the draft, or that we have one of the most creative offensive coordinators in the game today in Ben Johnson. We sport one of the best offensive lines in the game, a dual-threat running attack, a beast of a pass rusher in last year’s No. 1 pick Aidan Hutchinson, and one of the best up-and-coming receivers in Amon-Ra St. Brown.

The expectations are sky-high, but so too is the confidence among Lions fans that this team is not the same old Lions that have broken our hearts, year after year. Anything less than a division title and a home playoff game will be a disappointment.

Simply putting these words to paper is playing with fire. As any sports fan will tell you, there is no such thing as jinxes … except when it comes to major sporting events.

But how do you put a jinx on a team that has lived for decades under a black cloud of disappointment and despair? If anything, to confidently state that the Lions will finally win a playoff game this year is the ultimate reverse jinx. If assuming the worst has always led to terrible gridiron outcomes, then maybe the antidote is in hoping for the best and saying it publicly.




But hope — irrational, misguided and deluded — is the lifeblood of every sports fan. Winning championships is difficult. Sometimes it happens once in a generation. For the Denver Nuggets (who finally won a title this year), it took five decades of futility to reach the mountaintop.


And even dynasties inevitably have their fallow periods as any Detroit Red Wings fan will tell you. As sports fans, we make inordinate (arguably unhealthy) emotional investments in sports franchises where only one team can emerge as a champion, and the rest finish the season searching for answers. It’s not rational or even wise and, far more often than not, it ends in heartbreak.

Yet we come back season after season, believing against logic and experience that this will finally be the year. No matter how bad things get, the pull of fandom is too strong. After all, without hope and belief, what’s the point of being a fan? Even if you expect the worst, there’s always that small part of your brain that says “maybe it could happen.” The only difference for me between now and previous seasons is that I’m willing to actually say it out loud:

I’m a Lions fan, and I have hope.*


*If they finish 5-12 this year, you’ll know whom to blame.


Michael A. Cohen, a columnist for MSNBC and a fellow with the Eurasia Group Foundation, writes the political newsletter Truth and Consequences. He has been a columnist at The Boston Globe, The Guardian and Foreign Policy, and he is the author of three books, the most recent being “Clear and Present Safety: The World Has Never Been Better and Why That Matters to Americans.”

[whatever_gong82]

Detroit Lions' win over Kansas City Chiefs another perception-changer: Now what?



Shawn Windsor

Detroit Free Press


KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Well get a load of that. Opening night in the NFL? Your team is on the big stage? And they beat the defending champs with … defense?

The same champs who employ Patrick Mahomes?

Yeah, the Detroit Lions just did that, knocked off Kansas City, 21-20, then celebrated in front of thousands of fans who’d made the trip and filled up Kansas City’s bars and restaurants.

Detroit semi-west?

How about Detroit is back? Though as so many wondered after the Lions' unlikely victory: What happens now?


Well, expectations get heavier, for one. And that hype train that the anti-hype head coach talked about at the beginning of training camp?


It’s a rollin’, and will be for another 11 days or so, until the Lions take on Seattle back at Ford Field. Until then, you’ve got time to get used to this strange and uncommon feeling.


Yes, it’s just a single game, but so often that saying comes after a loss, usually of the heartbreaking variety. And one game does not make a winning streak.

But it sure can begin a shift in perception, not that the rest of the NFL world hasn’t been pumping this team up since last January. The Lions don’t need that outside backslapping, though. They just need to keep believing internally, and in their coaches, which they have for two-plus years now.




You can bet that they believed all summer they could win this game. That they had real belief. To go along with the real talent that’s clearer by the season.

Sure, you can dismiss the win if you want, you can point to the absence of Kansas City’s second and third best players, and surely many will. Context matters, I suppose.




But then so does hanging around when you’re on the road, in a stadium where the home team is coming off a Super Bowl win and doesn’t lose often at GEHA Field, once known as Arrowhead Stadium.

Besides, Kansas City was missing Kelce, not Patrick Mahomes, and the future Hall-of-Famer who is so often his own one-man show.


It felt like it was Thursday night, right?


Mahomes doesn’t just read the defense, he feels it, senses it, and while there are faster quarterbacks and swifter scramblers, there is no savvier scrambler. Yes, Mahomes makes throws most QBs can’t make. And that helps.


But the combo of his strength and vision and the threat of him leaving the pocket is what makes him so difficult to bother in the pocket, never mind bring down.

Make an inside spin move, as Aidan Hutchinson did early in the game, and Mahomes leaks outside, say, on a third down, and easily scoots to the first. Keep the outside edge as you rush, form a tidy perimeter, and Mahomes waits for it to get deep enough into the pocket and then spits its seam up the middle.



The star converted a couple of first downs this way, despite not having his best threat. Then again, the Lions don’t have their best threat either … at least downfield … in theory.


Jameson Williams is still an idea at this point. And for stretches against the Chiefs' improved defense, you could see how a vertical option would open everything up.



Again, it’s the first game, a single game, and the miscommunications that stalled a drive and messed up a few plays will improve. So will the youngsters, Brad Holmes' latest crop of promising rookies. Several of whom made impressive debuts.

Jahmyr Gibbs. Sam LaPorta. Brian Branch, who had a crucial pick-six. Even Jack Campbell made a diving pass breakup.

Their play was almost as meaningful as the win, because for the third year in a row, the brain trust of this franchise proved that they know how to find talent and fit them into what they’d like to do.




No one player had a dominant performance, save for maybe Aidan Hutchinson – who was everywhere for the Lions on defense all night – but many players had dominant moments.



None more critical than when Josh Paschal shot through the line and hauled down the runner who caught it on a direct snap. Andy Reid’s trickery didn’t fool him when he stopped the Chiefs on third down and forced a punt on a late possession in the fourth quarter.



The usuals showed up, too, including Amon-Ra St. Brown who found space in the seams like always and Jared Goff, who missed a few throws but made the ones he needed.

He will be better.

His offensive coordinator, Ben Johnson, will be better – he made a couple of shaky third-down calls that went nowhere.

As for Dan Campbell? Whose mystique is only now going to grow?

He went for it again on fourth down, inside the Lions’ 20-yard-line, early in the first quarter, a gamble that led to a touchdown.



Gutsy?

Of course, but don’t forget the context. The Lions weren’t expected to win the game. They’re on the road. Against the champs.

If it had failed, Campbell’s gamble likely would've given the Chiefs a touchdown, and the first lead of the game, and possibly momentum. Or not. Who knows?

Either way, the call wasn’t going to decide the game, not so early in the game. And Campbell knew that, just like he now knows he’s got a team that can go into one of the loudest stadiums in the country and take down the champs.



Believable?

It is now. Even if it may take a while for it to sink in.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@shawnwindsor.

[-Deborah-]

Thanks for taking the time to post the articles!!

[-Deborah-]

This stuff with Buggs is weird.

[whatever_gong82]

Mitch Albom: Detroit Lions outplayed Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs to justify the hype

Mitch Albom

Detroit Free Press


The house was on fire, the hostile crowd was wild, conventional wisdom called for surrender, punt the ball, you have the lead, it’s fourth-and-2 on the opponent’s 45-yard line, only a few minutes left in the game. You gotta punt it, right?

Dan Campbell didn’t need a microsecond.

“GO!” he screamed, his face nearly crimson.

So the Detroit Lions went. They went for broke. They went for glory. Jared Goff took the fourth-down snap, dropped back, released a pass …

And the ball was knocked down.



It could have been a classic Detroit overreach. A blunder that cost the night.

But not this night.

Less than three minutes later, the Lions STILL won. They just defeated the Super Bowl champions, on the road, in the season opener, in front of the whole world, because “Go!” with this team doesn’t just mean “Go!” It means “Don’t stop!”



So the Lions didn’t stop. A team that hadn’t won an opener in six years, a team that hasn’t won a playoff game since the 1990s, a team last seen beating a legend, Aaron Rodgers, in Lambeau Field, dug in, squeezed the mighty Chiefs until they went limp, and beat a second legend, Patrick Mahomes, in a second football temple, Arrowhead Stadium.


They did it with grit, with power, with offensive line dominance, with timely completions, with a successful fake punt inside their own 20 yard-line, with a ramrod rushing attack, and with a surprisingly tight defense, their weakest link last season. They shut down Mahomes, the face of the league, harassing his receivers into 18 incompletions, and pushing him further and further backward, until his final play was fourth-and-25.

And no, he didn’t convert that.


“You either get a thumbs up or a thumbs down in this league,“ said NBC analyst Cris Collinsworth after Detroit held on to upset the champs, 21-20. “And the Lions just got a thumbs up.”

Yes, they did.


Go!


They found Superman's kryptonite


Stop rubbing your eyes, folks. We’re not making this up. The Lions, scoring just 14 points on offense, defeated mighty Kansas City by gaining more first downs, winning time of possession, throwing no interceptions, and limiting Mahomes to only a few magical plays, instead of his normal bagful.

“You guys give Patrick Mahomes the ball back, with two and a half minutes to go, Chiefs down by one,” NBC’s Melissa Stark asked Goff. “We’ve seen this script before. What’s going through your mind?”

“Not today,” Goff answered. “Not with our crew out there.’

Not today. The Lions secondary, buoyed by newly acquired trash-talker C.J. Gardner-Johnson, broke up passes and blanketed routes. They forced K.C. into a holding penalty, then a false start penalty, until fourth-and-25 was all the Chiefs had left, and even Mahomes couldn’t make that one happen.


This on a night when the Lions rookies — tight end Sam LaPorta, running back Jahmyr Gibbs, linebacker Jack Campbell, and defensive back Brian Branch — all made key contributions, making Brad Holmes look even smarter than he’s been looking lately. Branch had a one-handed interception that he returned for a touchdown. I think it was the first time he touched a regular-season NFL football.



Consider what the Lions did here. They went on the road, to face a team was 9-1 in openers under coach Andy Reid, and 5-0 in openers with Mahomes under center. And they shut them both down! Against this revamped Lions defense, Mahomes, at times, looked — and I know this is sacrilege — mortal.

The funny thing is, the Lions weren’t perfect themselves. Marvin Jones fumbled in the red zone to kill a promising drive. A snap hit their own man and Goff had to scramble save the ball. They didn’t convert that late fourth-down call.

But when they needed to be solid, they were a sequoia tree.



Far from the 'Same Old Lions'



The stretch that won them the game began, as such stretches often do, with an almost unnoticed sequence. Fourth quarter, Chiefs up, 17-14, and holding the ball, second and one, at the Lions 20.

At that moment, it seemed to all the world that Mahomes would finish the drive with some whimsical touchdown, the lead would be double digits, NBC would cut to a State Farm commercial featuring — of course — Mahomes, and the Lions would fold when they came back.

Instead, the Lions stuffed the second-and-1 jet sweep attempt for a loss.

On third-and-2, they got good pressure and forced an incompletion.

K.C. kicked a field goal, and Detroit was only down six instead of 10.


That was critical.



On the ensuing drive, facing a third-and-12, Goff didn’t blink. He found Josh Reynolds over the middle for 18 yards. It was the kind of play Goff made all night, standing tall, enjoying the extra second of protection that this well-assembled line now provides, and laser-passing to an open receiver.

A few plays later, Goff hit his biggest pass of the night, a 33-yarder, again to Reynolds, and the Lions then rode newly-acquired David Montgomery into the end zone. It was 21-20, and while most of the world thought the Chiefs would come back, the Lions apparently did not.


Not today, as Goff said.

Maybe not this year.



If you thought the hype was wild before ...


Now, a word of caution, in case you are Googling “How to buy Super Bowl tickets.” The first week in the NFL is notorious for red herrings. Three years ago, lowly-regarded Jacksonville beat Indianapolis, 27-20, in the season opener.


It would be the only game Jacksonville won all year.

Twenty years ago, New England lost, 31-0, to Buffalo in their season premiere. The Patriots would go on to win the Super Bowl. The Bills would finish 6-10.

So when Goff was asked what this game means to Detroit, and he told NBC, “It means we’re 1-0," he’s showing the right attitude.


Just as the Lions' performance Thursday night showed the right stuff for an opener. Not a ton of mistakes. Good timing. Hey. Considering this was the first time Campbell unwrapped the offense all year, it looked remarkably smooth. The Lions had a total of four penalties. Goff needed one series to get his rhythm, and was then as sharp as a Ginzu knife set. He outdueled Mahomes, had more yards (253) and more completions — especially when it mattered most.


Still as Goff said, it just means they're 1-0.


On the other hand …


It was one game, but it was more than one game. It was one win, but it was bigger than one win. It was a reversal of fortune, in what everyone in the Motor City hopes is a permanent change in direction. It sure looked real Thursday night. And if nothing else, it gives fans an awful lot to chew on over the next 10 days, until the Lions play again.

Just before Thursday’s opener began, Collinsworth told the national audience: “The hype train is over, Detroit. Time to go to work.”

They went to work, all right. But the train is now opposite from over. It’s motoring down the tracks. That’s what happens when you yell “GO!”



Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.

[whatever_gong82]

Thanks for taking the time to post the articles!!

Thanks, Deb, but I got a few more from the Freep that I'll post in a few minutes.

[whatever_gong82]

Grading Detroit Lions' win over Chiefs: Gutsy Dan Campbell gets A for another fake punt

Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press


KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Free Press sports writer Dave Birkett grades the Detroit Lions in their 21-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night:

Quarterback

The Lions managed just two scores on offense against a Chiefs team playing without its best defender, but I thought Jared Goff played well overall. He was 22-for-35 passing for 253 yards and made a handful of big throws with the game in the balance, including a third-and-12 completion to Josh Reynolds when he stood in the pocket and took a hit as he delivered the ball. Goff wasn’t perfect. He threw behind Amon-Ra St. Brown on one third down, one play after he completed a 20-yard laser to Kalif Raymond on second-and-22 in the shadow of his end zone, and he may have been at fault for the timeout the Lions wasted after a kick in the second quarter. But he navigated a tough road environment without a turnover and led the offense on a late touchdown drive with the game in the balance. Grade: A-minus.


Running backs

David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs have the potential to be one of the best running back tandems in the NFL. Montgomery averaged just 3.5 yards per carry Thursday, but he scored the game-winning touchdown with a nifty 7-yard touchdown, when he sidestepped one tackler in tight quarters, and he iced the game when the Lions went to their 4-minute offense. Gibbs broke four tackles on his first three carries, including two on his 17-yard run on the Lions’ first touchdown drive. He plays at one speed — fast. Montgomery was solid in pass protection, and fullback Jason Cabinda had a nice block off a run-action fake when he slid to the back side of the formation to clip a blocker and give Goff time to complete a 21-yard pass to St. Brown. Grade: A-minus.


Receivers/tight ends

St. Brown was his usual consistent self with six catches for 71 yards and a touchdown, and Reynolds delivered two key fourth-quarter catches on the Lions’ last touchdown drive. On his 33-yard catch two plays before Montgomery’s TD, he ran a sharp comeback route then blew past L’Jarius Snead on his way upfield. But the Lions got minimal production from the rest of their receiving corps, and Marvin Jones lost a crucial fumble — the first of his career — in the second quarter, dropped one pass and had another sail through his hands. Rookie tight end Sam LaPorta (five catches, 39 yards) had the key insert block on Montgomery’s TD run to help get him in the end zone, and the perimeter blocking overall was key to the Lions’ 118-yard rushing performance. Grade: C-plus.


Offensive line

Goff had plenty of time in the pocket, thanks to a line that mostly played up to its potential as one of the NFL’s best. The Chiefs had four quarterback hits — one when Snead came unblocked on a corner blitz — and one sack, when Mike Danna beat Jonah Jackson straight upfield then stopped on a dime to corral Goff as he stepped up in the pocket. Frank Ragnow had a premature snap that hit motion man Brock Wright, which Goff was fortunate to recover for a 10-yard loss, and a snap infraction, and Penei Sewell was called for a personal foul that was part of offsetting penalties. Grade: B-plus.


Defensive line

The Lions didn’t have a single sack on Patrick Mahomes, but they got enough pressure on the two-time MVP to keep Kansas City’s Travis Kelce-less offense off track. Aidan Hutchinson had three quarterback hits in the first half, drew a holding penalty on guard Trey Smith and was most effective on interior rushing in sub packages. Hutchinson tackled Mahomes just short of the sticks on one third-down scramble, but gave up the edge when he tried a spin move that didn’t work on a third-and-6. Collectively, the line was a tad too loose with its rush lanes in the first half, when Mahomes ran for 27 yards on four scrambles. Josh Paschal made a huge tackle-for-loss when the Chiefs tried a third-and-1 trick play late. He was barely touched on the play, but gets extra credit for defending the jet sweep after Kansas City showed the same formation in the preseason on a tight end sneak up the middle. Benito Jones nearly gave the Chiefs a free first down on the play, but Kansas City didn’t get the snap off in time to catch him offsides. Grade: A-minus.


Linebackers

No linebacker is likely to put up huge numbers if the Lions rotate at the position like they did Thursday. Alex Anzalone tied for the team lead with six tackles as the one every-down player in the unit, and Derrick Barnes (six tackles) played well as the other starter. Anzalone guessed wrong on Mahomes’ second touchdown pass, when he left Blake Bell open at the goal line, and Malcolm Rodriguez and Jack Campbell got beat in man coverage for first-down catches in the first half. Campbell bit on a double move, when Rashee Rice faked a curl that turned into a drag and a 25-yard gain over the middle, but also made a great diving pass breakup in the middle of the field one play before Brian Branch’s pick-six. Collectively, Kansas City’s running backs had just 45 yards rushing on 14 carries. Grade: A-minus.


Defensive backs

Branch’s pick-six, which deflected off Kadarius Toney, was the kind of game-changing play the Lions needed when Mahomes appeared to be heating up, and the Lions would have had more turnovers had C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Jerry Jacobs held onto near-picks. Mahomes had a modest day with 226 yards passing, but I counted at least five drops by his receivers. The Lions also had some communication issues in their secondary in the first half. Jacobs and Gardner-Johnson didn’t properly pass off receivers on Mahomes’ touchdown pass to Rice, Branch and Kerby Joseph weren’t on the same page on a long third-down conversion in the first half and Jacobs appeared to be playing zone while his safety help was expecting him to be in man on the 26-yard pass before Bell’s touchdown. Cam Sutton was flagged for pass interference, though the Lions argued the contact was incidental. Grade: B.



Special teams

If it’s a big game, you can almost bet the Lions are going to try to steal a possession with a fake on special teams. They did that Thursday, executing a direct-snap run by personal protector Jalen Reeves-Maybin on a gutsy call from their own 17. Jack Campbell and Brock Wright had key blocks up front on the run. Khalil Dorsey handled kick returns (though they were all touchbacks) and had two tackles as a gunner on the punt team. He nearly forced a fumble with one hit, and made a great hustle tackle when he sprang to his feet after getting blocked to the ground to pull Richie James down from behind. And Jack Fox landed three of his five punts inside the 20 without a touchback. Grade: A



Coaching

Dan Campbell has made an art out of calling fakes at the right time, and his decision-making is empowering to his players. The Lions have the most talented roster they’ve had in a long time, and they came into Thursday’s game believing they were going to win and establish themselves as one of the NFL's best teams. I didn’t like the decision to decline a defensive holding penalty and play a second-and-2 rather than have a first down and I was surprised Campbell punted on fourth-and-3 from the Chiefs’ 40 in the second half. But the Lions played complementary football, didn’t have an enforced penalty in the first half and made the proper adjustments to take Mahomes’ scrambling away after halftime. In one of the NFL's toughest road environments, they looked like a well-coached team. Grade: A.



Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

[whatever_gong82]

I've got to eat, but I'll return with a few more Freep articles.

[edindetroit]

Mitch Albom: Detroit Lions outplayed Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs to justify the hype

I didn't know Mitch Albom still wrote sports articles. Thought he was all about his books and his column.

[whatever_gong82]

I'm back after taking a little break.


Detroit Lions fans crashed Super Bowl party, giving country a peek at our unique fanbase

Shawn Windsor

Detroit Free Press


KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Aidan Hutchinson took a turn. Amon-Ra St. Brown followed, running along the wall that separates the seats from the field, the fans from the players.

Each of them high-fived the fans as they leaned over the railing atop the wall, hollering, smiling. And then Jahmyr Gibbs said to heck with that and leapt over the wall and into a throng of joy, decked in blue.

The man who blocks for him, Penei Sewell, stood 20 yards away, grinning, having encouraged the rookie running back to take the leap and revel. Everywhere, players and fans celebrated, a normal scene for a team that wins a statement game at its home stadium, this one ending 21-20 in Detroit's favor on Thursday.



But on the road? Inside of one of the loudest stadiums in the NFL? On a night when the actual home team received its flowers for winning the Super Bowl eight months ago?

Thousands of Detroit Lions fans broke up the usual sea of yellow and red here at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. Kansas City loves its Chiefs — it’s one of the best football towns in the country, and a tad underrated, even.


Yet it ain’t Detroit. It hasn’t endured the same kinda pain. It doesn’t understand, not truly, what unrequited love feels like. Shoot, Kansas City played in the first Super Bowl — ever. It won Super Bowl 4. And even though decades passed before it won again, this franchise has made playoff runs, had good teams.



You think Lions fans would sell 10,000 or so of their tickets to fans of another team on the night they celebrated a Super Bowl?

Of course not. The Chiefs’ fans did, though. Or somebody did, which speaks to the tenacity of a fanbase to get inside this stadium.

They were everywhere. And they were loud. And, as the players said, they made a difference.


“When I walked out in pregame I’m looking, and you see a sea of blue, and I’m like: 'Wow,' ” Dan Campbell said. “And then about the third quarter you could start hearing them, you could hear them, and it just started to grow when we got into the fourth quarter. They made themselves known, and we could feel it.”

After the Lions forced a punt midway through the fourth, the chants began building, until the noise had overtaken the stadium.


“Let’s go, Lions … Let’s go, Lions!”

Think about this for a moment. Chiefs fans hadn’t left. The stadium was still full. It was a one-point game. Still, the chants took over the joint.

“It's outstanding to have fans that travel like that,” Campbell said.


Did he hear the chanting?

“Yes, I did,” he said. “Yes, I did.”

Unprecedented? To have so many opposing fans tilt the vibe and undercut one of the best home-field advantages in the game?



Maybe. Maybe not. The NFL doesn’t keep such stats.

The Lions players, however, know what they know, and know what they believe, and what they believe is this:



“I know the Lions history hasn’t been the best,” St. Brown said.

But?



“They’re still here, supporting us. I love Detroit fans,” he said. “They're the best.”

Lemme guess — you’re thinking: Of course, he’s supposed to say that! He's not going to trash his own fanbase.

No, probably not. This doesn’t mean he’s not right. Not about the Lions fans being the best — that’s subjective and immeasurable (though not completely unknowable, at least intuitively). This is beside the point, though.

St. Brown is right that Lions fans have suffered. And he’s right that they are still here, and we're here again to begin another season.

This time on the road. Midweek, as Taylor Decker, noted, almost in disbelief. Then again, the offensive tackle has been around Allen Park for a while. Seven seasons, if you're counting, making him the longest-tenured Lion in the locker room, and also making him something of a Lions’ fan whisperer.



“I mean, it’s pretty incredible,” he said of their presence, “especially for a fan base that’s starving for a team to represent them the right way. (Arrowhead) is usually a sea of red.”

Does it make a difference? Like, a real difference?




“Absolutely,” said Decker, which is why so many of his teammates celebrated with all the fans who stayed to revel.

And why, after Hutchinson had shared a victory lap and was finally headed to the tunnel, Brad Holmes, the team’s general manager, ran up behind him and blurted:

“Let’s (expletive) go!!”

A phrase used around southeastern Michigan all night Thursday, no doubt, and used all around the country wherever Lions fans congregated to watch the most anticipated regular-season game in decades.

The celebration extended to social media, too, where videos of primal yells from table-tops shot up everyone’s feeds. Well, maybe not everyone. Still, the joy was obvious, on the field, in the stands, in the locker room, all over the city that is home to the Lions.



A bit strange? To outsiders, sure, but then when they learn about the history, the one playoff win in 66 years, the sheer and utter misery so many have endured loving this team — when they learn that, as some did in the stadium Thursday night, they begin to understand, and see, and make sense of how some 10,000 fans — perhaps even more — bent the will of a hostile stadium toward Detroit.

“It was even happening two hours before the game,” said Decker, shaking his head in awe. “This is definitely one of the biggest games of my career.”



And?

“We earned the right to come in here.”

So did those that love the uniform Decker wears, and the region — no, state — it represents. The rest of the country got a glimpse of a promising team Thursday night on the national stage, on opening night of the most popular sport in America.



It also got a glimpse of the relationship this up-and-coming team has with its people. They were everywhere. And they were heard.

Finally.


Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@shawnwindsor.