Lions coach Caldwell insists team still alive

Nov 25, 2017 - 2:49 AM ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Head coach Jim Caldwell has a word of warning for everyone writing the Detroit Lions off after Thursday's loss to the Minnesota Vikings.

"Don't count us out just yet, all right?" Caldwell said. "I know the media will paint it as the sky is falling. The sky is not falling for us. We've got to get ourselves a little bit better and keep moving forward."

The Lions trail the Vikings by three games in the NFC North standings with five to play, and now face long odds if they're going to win their first division title in 24 years and maybe even make the playoffs.

At 6-5, the Lions can likely afford at most one more loss and still reach the postseason, and surely need to win out to have a shot at the division.

They trail the Falcons, Panthers and Seahawks in the wild-card race, and would lose head-to-head tie-breakers to Atlanta and Carolina since they lost to both teams earlier this year.

The Lions don't face another team with a winning record all season, but three of their final five games are on the road and at least one, a Christmas Eve trip to Cincinnati, will be played in cold weather.

"I think we beat this team before, so we just need to keep playing good ball, get back for another one, just finish out strong and let the chips fall where they may," defensive tackle Akeem Spence said. "We're a good football team and they just made a few more plays than we did today. We just need to regroup, reload, enjoy Thanksgiving and just get ready for next week."

Though the Lions have stumbled through three straight games, Caldwell said it's far too early to count his team out of the division race and cited an old adage that "if you're around .500 a little bit before when you're sitting down for your Thanksgiving meal, you've still got a chance."

"We've got a lot of football yet to play," Caldwell said. "You don't know what's going to happen."

--Matthew Stafford suffered an ankle injury on his 43-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Jones Jr. in Thursday's fourth quarter, but appears to have avoided serious injury.

Stafford limped into the interview room after the game and, with 10 days to prepare for the Lions' Dec. 3 game against the Baltimore Ravens, said he expects to be fine.

"Not 100 percent, but ticker's still ticking so I'll be alright," he said.

Stafford was injured as he rushed to get a snap off on third-and-14 when he caught the Vikings with 12 men on the field. He zipped a beauty of a pass to Jones between two defenders for the touchdown, but fell to the ground in a heap of pain after backup guard Corey Robinson wrestled a Vikings lineman into his right leg.

Stafford clearly wasn't the same player after the injury. He completed just 3 of 6 passes for 7 yards after the injury, missed a potential touchdown to Golden Tate, and threw an interception to end the game.

"Obviously I was battling through some stuff, but still got to make (the plays)," Stafford said.

--Slow starts continue to doom the Lions, who have now been outscored 33-3 in the first quarter of their last three games.

On Thursday, the Lions fell behind 13-0 before they scored their first points, on a 32-yard Matt Prater field goal, and trailed 27-10 after they came out of the locker room sluggish and allowed a four-play, 75-yard drive to open the second half.

"We just dug a little bit too much of a hole," Lions head coach Jim Caldwell said. "Just didn't perform well there at the onset and anytime you do that against a good team it's going to be tough. We fought back and gave ourselves a chance, but some of those holes are a little bit too big to dig out of and it was tough."

Offensively, the Lions ran just eight plays in the first quarter. They went three-and-out on their first and third drives and lost a fumble on their second.

"We've just got to execute better," Stafford said. "Obviously, we had the turnover that wasn't good there early. We have to find a way to avoid that and just as team, we have to start a little faster."



REPORT CARD VS. Vikings

--PASSING OFFENSE: C-plus - Matthew Stafford wasn't at his sharpest Thursday as he completed just 20 of 35 passes for 250 yards and missed several potential big plays. Stafford rushed a screen pass to Theo Riddick in the face of a blitz early in the game that would have gone for a touchdown had it been on target, and he overthrew Golden Tate down the seam on the Lions' final drive when he was dealing with an ankle injury. Stafford did thread a 43-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Jones Jr. early in the fourth quarter, and Jones had one of his better days as a Lion with six catches for 109 yards and two touchdowns. Kenny Golladay caught two passes for gains of 20 and 41 yards, but tight end Darren Fells couldn't hang onto two touchdowns, left tackle Taylor Decker struggled in pass protection and Tate reversed field and lost a first-down pickup on third-and-3 late in the game.

--RUSHING OFFENSE: F - The Lions have no real running game to speak of, and they barely even tried to run the ball Thursday. Tate had the team's biggest gain of 10 yards, while running backs Ameer Abdullah and Theo Riddick combined for just 34 yards on 11 carries. Abdullah and Stafford fumbled a handoff, and Corey Robinson, who was pressed into duty at left guard after center Travis Swanson left with a knee injury, looked ill-equipped to play from his very first snap.

--PASS DEFENSE: C - Case Keenum had his way with the Lions defense early, running or passing to convert several third-and-longs, and he finished the game 21 of 30 for 282 yards. Adam Thielen had a big day against nickel cornerback Quandre Diggs, with eight catches for 89 yards, and tight end Kyle Rudolph caught two touchdown passes, one when the Lions had just 10 defenders on the field and the second on a corner route against linebacker Tahir Whitehead. The Lions did finally get some production out of their dormant pass rush (two sacks and several other pressures) against the hard-to-sack Keenum, but the secondary was devoid of its usual big plays.

--RUSH DEFENSE: C - After allowing 423 yards rushing the previous two weeks, the Lions gave up another 136 on Thursday. The majority of that (75 yards) came on four carries on Minnesota's opening drive of the second half, when safety Tavon Wilson missed tackles on two big plays and linebacker Paul Worrilow couldn't get off a block. The Lions had more issues with the zone-read, as Keenum scored on a 9-yard run, but other than those handful of plays they held Minnesota in check on the ground. Both A'Shawn Robinson and Akeem Spence came up with big run stuffs, and the Vikings averaged just 3.3 yards per carry as a team.

--SPECIAL TEAMS: A-minus - If not for a couple blocked kicks, the Vikings would have won more comfortably. Robinson blocked Minnesota's first extra-point attempt and Jeremiah Ledbetter got his hand on a long field-goal try. Matt Prater made all three of his field-goal attempts, including a 50-yarder, and Tate and TJ Jones shined in the return game in Jamal Agnew's absence. One negative: An illegal block penalty on Miles Killebrew wiped out a long Tate punt return.

--COACHING: D - Jim Caldwell and his coaching staff are at least partly responsible for the Lions' recent string of slow starts. The Lions went three-and-out on their first possession, then gave up a 14-play touchdown drive. At home, on Thanksgiving, with a chance at the division on the line, there's no excuse for that kind of sluggish play. To have 10 men on the field for one Vikings touchdown also reflects poorly on the coaching staff, and the Lions had a chance to kick the extra point after a would-be touchdown by Fells, only to have the play blown dead just before the snap and the touchdown overturned on replay.