Detroit-Pittsburgh: First Team to Overcome Second Half Stumbles Wins

The Detroit Lions and the Pittsburgh Steelers had very different fortunes last season.

The Lions reached a historic low. The Steelers, a historic high.

The Lions finished out their season 0-16, the first team ever to do so. The Steelers won their sixth Super Bowl, making them the team with the most Super Bowl wins in NFL history.

If you didn’t already know that the league makes schedules on a rotating basis, you would think it was somebody’s cruel joke pitting these teams against one another.

And yet, a quarter of the way into the season, these teams seem more alike than different.

Both teams are built around running and defense, although Pittsburgh has a storied history of it, and it’s sort of a new idea (or the return of an old one) in Detroit.

Both teams enter this game with major players on the injured list, and several questions about their respective returns.

And most importantly, both teams have shown an inability to close out games in the second half.

In the last three games, the Steelers have allowed 58 second-half points. The Lions have allowed 61.

Both teams gave away a pair of winnable games in which they played well in the first half, and forgot to show up for the second.

They also both nearly gave away a victory that seemed to be in hand, before allowing a major comeback attempt that fell just short.

In Week Four, the Steelers led the San Diego Chargers by 28 points heading into the fourth quarter. After holding the Chargers’ offense down all game long, they allowed 28 points late, and barely escaped with a 38-28 victory.

In Week Three, the Lions, leading by 12 with just over five minutes to play, were unable to stop the Washington Redskins from scoring, getting the ball back, and driving to within 30 yards of a miracle comeback. The clock was the Lions’ only salvation.

So the question, then, is which team will take charge in the second half? Somebody has to win it.

Chances are, the Steelers, being the superior team, will be comfortable enough by the end of the first half to play a sloppy second half and still come out with a victory. That’s roughly how they played against San Diego, so why would they not get away with it against Detroit?

Not so fast.

The teams that have beat the Lions this year have a combined record of 11-1, and the Lions had moments in each game where they appeared to be on equal footing. They held a halftime lead on the Vikings, and a couple early leads on the Bears.

So is it really inconceivable that the Lions are able to hang around with the 2-2 Steelers for a half?

If they can, then we’re in for an entertaining show, as we find out which team steps up in the second half, when neither team has proven capable of doing so.

If it’s the Lions, then they’ll have one more thing in common with the World Champion Steelers: their record.