CHICAGO -- Darrell Bevell told players a lot of things in his very first meeting with them as interim head coach. He wanted them to play loose. He wanted them to play free. He wanted them to have fun.
He also reminded them a playoff bid was still within reach.
And while that was met with some scoffs outside the organization, it didn’t take long for Bevell to be proven right. The Detroit Lions took care of business in Bevell’s debut with a 34-30 win in Chicago, improving to 5-7, while the Arizona Cardinals fell 38-28 later in the day against the Los Angeles Rams, dropping to 6-6.
Just like that, Detroit is only one game out of the playoff race with four games to go. Yes, really.
“If we can keep winning, keep ourselves in a position like that, man, like we can get a chance to make the playoffs,” linebacker Reggie Ragland said. “We showed that we can come, stay in the games and win the close ones. That’s good for us as a whole.”
The Lions looked like they were toast after getting blown out four times in five weeks, fading into the NFC North cellar and dismissing head coach Matt Patricia last weekend. Bevell, the offensive coordinator, was promoted to interim head coach and stressed all last week how much he just wanted guys to have some fun playing the game again. He wanted them to play with their hair on fire.
There were some struggles early, but the Lions opened up their offense in the dramatic win. Matthew Stafford completed six straight passes for 96 yards and a touchdown pass to Marvin Jones late in the fourth quarter, which drew Detroit to within 30-27 right before the 2-minute warning. Then Romeo Okwara got them the ball back with a strip-sack of Mitchell Trubisky three plays later.
Adrian Peterson pounded the ball into the end zone from 5 yards out, Kevin Strong stepped up with a big-time stop on fourth-and-1 on the ensuing series, and the Lions had roared back from a double-digit deficit in the final 5 minutes to stun Chicago.
“I wish you could be in this locker room right now,” Bevell said. “I mean, it’s buzzing in there. Yes, definitely I think those guys really, truly believed in themselves all the way again. I know I’m going to keep saying the same thing, but they didn’t measure the game. The whole game. It didn’t matter what the scoreboard was. That’s what I asked them to do -- just keep playing, keep playing, keep playing and good things will happen at the end. And it did. And they made it happen.”
With that, the Lions are 5-7 heading into the final month of the season. That’s just one game back of Arizona (6-6) and Minnesota (6-6) for the seventh and final playoff spot in the NFC.
They already beat Arizona too, and face the Vikings in the final game of the season. They also face fellow NFC playoff contenders Green Bay and Tampa Bay, while traveling to Tennessee to take on the top-seeded team in the AFC.
The Lions still needed some heroics to eke past a team that had lost five straight and might fire its coach soon, so they are still more likely headed for a top draft pick than the playoffs, especially with the gauntlet awaits. But if the Lions can turn this good energy into a little winning streak, it won’t take much for them to find themselves in the thick of the postseason chase under their interim coach.
“That was (Bevell’s) first message to our team, was, ‘Hey guys, we’re two games back of Arizona with five to play. There’s a lot of football left. And Denver just played a game with no quarterback, so who knows what’s going to happen,’” Stafford said. “We just got to go out there and continue to play, continue to work with a great attitude, be ready to have some fun while we do it, and go out there and turn it loose on Sundays.”
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Detroit Lions move within 1 game of NFC playoff spot (yes, really) - MLive.com
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