Lions Finally Support Matt Stafford with Late-Game Heroics, Take NFC North Lead

As he stood in his own end zone with the ball on the 2-yard line, it seemed Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford had surely met a fourth-quarter comeback hurdle that was too tall.

The scoreboard wasn’t his greatest enemy, as the Minnesota Vikings led by only three points while threatening to spoil Detroit’s annual Thanksgiving Day football festivities. And the clock wasn’t throwing lightning bolts at him, either. It read 5:02, which is the equivalent of roughly two days in gridiron time, especially with the Lions still holding all three of their timeouts.

No, the vast, stretching field ahead was taunting Stafford. It had been doing that for the entire second half. Until this point, the Lions had managed a mere 29 yards of offense since halftime. Now Stafford—who owns and operates the league’s best white-knuckle-ride offense—needed either 98 yards to win the game or a still-daunting roughly 65 yards to get kicker Matt Prater into reasonable field-goal range.

Just over three minutes, 10 plays and six Stafford completions later, the Lions took their first giant step toward another comeback that could only be watched through your fingers. Prater hit his first of two 40-plus-yard field goals to beat the Vikings, 16-13, and take the NFC North lead.

The first one, a 48-yard kick, came after Stafford provided a historic holiday treat. He instantly turned around a dormant offense during the bleakest possible situation—and in doing so tied the record for most fourth-quarter comebacks in one season.

As David Mayo of MLive did here, now is a good time to remind you that it’s only Week 12, and there’s still over a quarter of the 2016 season remaining:

The highlight of Stafford’s heroics this time was a 29-yard completion to wide receiver Anquan Boldin that had no business even being a pass attempt. The ball shouldn’t have been allowed to leave Stafford’s hand.

A crushing third-down sack with just over three minutes left seemed inevitable. For a split second, punting actually may have been the best-case scenario as multiple blitzers closed in on Stafford. The far worse and very possible outcome? A potentially game-sealing fumble.

But when he’s at his best, Stafford has great vision and a high-level sense for space. That’s how he's able to buy those vital milliseconds of time for downfield throws by manipulating the pocket.

And it’s how he turned the tornado of white jerseys seen below into a long completion to keep winning hopes alive.

Go ahead, take a few minutes to gawk at the freeze-framed image from the second Stafford released his throw to Boldin. While you do it, remember that he ended up on his back, but the play started on the Lions' own 18-yard line and still finished at midfield.

Credit: NFL.com

It was a throw that could be read as a microcosm of the Lions’ season.

Even when losing darkness looms, the Lions have often found ways to stay in games and then win them, usually because of Stafford’s fourth-quarter magic. The Lions entered Week 12 as the first team in NFL history with each of its first 10 games decided by seven points or less, and that streak continued.

This time, however, there was a twist in that cardiac-arrest-inducing plot line. Stafford provided the main push during a game-tying drive in which he threw for 61 of his 232 total yards. He could only do so much, though, and needed help that came in the form of a clutch defensive play by cornerback Darius Slay.

Slay timed his move perfectly when he anticipated and undercut the out route Vikings receiver Adam Thielen was running. He read quarterback Sam Bradford’s eyes and then pretty much ran the end of the route for Thielen. Then two plays later, Prater was setting up for his game-winning boot.

The interception stood as an exclamation point on an afternoon when Stafford’s moment to shine was made possible by a defense that’s been mediocre at best. Prior to Thursday, the Lions defense was allowing 358.2 yards per game (19th), and it held Minnesota to only 306 yards. Much of the pummeling came through stuffing the run, as the 82 rushing yards the Lions yielded were also 23 yards lower than their per-game average.

The most significant defensive impact was literal and repeated. A sometimes slumbering pass rush woke up just as all of America was dozing off into a collective turkey coma. Bradford was never sacked, but he did face constant pressure—the sort of pressure that severely limited the Vikings passing offense and made it rather predictable.

As Pro Football Focus noted, the Vikings didn’t have time to stretch the field at all. The average distance of Bradford’s throws was only just beyond the line of scrimmage:

The Lions eliminated any shred of a deep passing game. For further evidence of that, we can turn to the combined totals for all three Vikings receivers: 80 yards on 15 receptions. Yes, that’s a whopping total of 5.3 yards per catch. The defensive swarming also included only two Vikings third-down conversions on 10 attempts.

Few style points will be awarded after what was mostly a defensive slog, with the two teams combining for only six points in the second and third quarters. But overall, the success of these 2016 Lions has been rooted in plenty of dramatic flair.

Of their seven wins, four have now come by a field goal or less. That’s the sign of a team always in games and able to rise during key moments, as the Lions did both offensively and defensively against the Vikings. Or it reflects a team shimmying through the season on a razor-thin margin for error, with bounces and calls in key moments—like the illegal formation penalty that erased a Minnesota first down just prior to Slay's interception—often going the Lions’ way.

Luckily, this sometimes-lucky team may not need to be great to win the NFC North. Periodic stretches of “good” might be more than enough.