Week 9 Care/Don’t Care: The NFC is a mess — but the Lions are squeaky-clean

5 things I care about

In a messy NFC, the Lions are ultra-clean

Who is the second-best team in the NFC?

That’s a tricky question to answer right now, as the conference feels jumbled on the second tier. What’s not in doubt is the class of the conference. That team is the ultra-clean Detroit Lions.

Detroit proved itself again with an emphatic win on the road against a division rival in Week 9. The final score says the Lions beat the Packers by just 10 points. It never felt that close throughout the evening.

The Packers averaged more yards per play, with 6.6 to 4.7 yards for the Lions. Their third-down efficiency was within shouting distance, going three of 12 compared to four of 12 for Detroit. It wasn’t a particularly flashy game for the Lions offense but they just got the job done. That’s what they do because they’re such a clean operation regardless of conditions.

In the postgame press conference, Dan Campbell said that any notion of surprise that his football team wasn’t built to win a game like this — a hardnosed game in the elements — is foolish. I’m paraphrasing but Campbell almost seemed amused at the contrary simply because they were a dome team.

He’s right.

We know the Lions as this high-flying offensive team that produces multiple starting fantasy pass-catchers and frequently invites teams into shootouts in their home dome. That’s a part of who they are but not all they are. It’s certainly never been the core beliefs of the people in charge of this club.

In their heart of hearts the Lions want to be a team that pounds on you with its ground game, beats you up on defense and leans on opponents until they topple. That’s the team we saw in Week 9. Green Bay was powerless to slow down the onslaught of the Lions’ ground game. Both David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs steadily eroded time on the game clock until the final whistle sounded. The two backs averaged a combined 5.1 yards per carry and neither had a run longer than 18 yards. It was a…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-11-04 04:44:21

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