Detroit Lions Learning to Win, Defeat Washington Redskins

In a game the Detroit Lions won by 12, it’s easy to forget that they were about 200 seconds and an incomplete pass away from losing by five.

This is not a situation that has been comfortable for the Lions in recent weeks (or years). It’s hardly a secret that the average fan’s typical reaction to the Lions holding a late lead of anything less than seven is universally, “Oh, no.”

And for good reason.

The Lions really only know how to lose two types of games: Blowouts and heartbreaking meltdowns. Late leads usually result in the latter.

One of the side effects of the oft-mentioned “losing culture” in Detroit is just that: a fear of leads, and a constant feeling of impending doom.

Even against the Rams, in a 38-point game where most of the points scored in the second half were gravy, the ever-present knot in the stomach never really went away.

But once in a great while the Lions play clutch. And not the kind of clutch they usually play, which involves a hand over their heart, gasping for breath with the game on the line.

I mean the kind of clutch that involves the Lions making three consecutive defensive stops with a one-possession lead. This was the kind of clutch that involves Matthew Stafford, fresh off seven weeks of rest and shoulder rehab, completing a touchdown pass on fourth-and-1, when an incomplete pass likely meant a loss.

Lions fans are far too accustomed to seeing those plays go in the opposite direction, i.e. the game-clinching sack-fumble on Rex Grossman that turned into a Ndamukong Suh touchdown. That’s exactly the kind of backbreaking play the Lions are used to seeing go against them.

Not this week.

Though it’s true that the Lions squandered a number of opportunities in the game,  it’s also true that they responded every time the Redskins started to seize momentum. They never got into the all-too-familiar “here we go again” routine. They played like a team that knows how to win football games.

How about that? The Detroit Lions, playing like an NFL franchise that understands what it means to win a football game.

Sure, the usual suspects were around: Penalties, shoddy special teams coverage, and dropped passes (on both sides, as Alphonso Smith dropped a would-be pick-six shortly before halftime) all played a role in making the game as close as it was.

But great football teams aren’t the ones who make no mistakes. Great football teams are the ones that force the other team to make more of them.

As Grossman and the Redskins took the field with just under two minutes to go and a six-point deficit to overcome, the Lions responded with a touchdown. No, not giving one up, scoring one.

Of course, as proof that the Lions are not completely past their old ways, Suh started celebrating a little too early on his fumble recovery and could very easily have given up a Leon Lett-style fumble to Santana Moss—who was right there to harrass him for his final 15 yards into the end zone, but he didn't.

In the end, Suh scored and the Lions won by 12 in a game that was much closer than that for the first 58 minutes.

Finally, the Lions buckled down and did enough to win a close game. Not because time ran out, as it did in Washington a year ago. Not because of a miracle, like Cleveland. Not because it was never a close game at all, like St. Louis.

The Lions won this game because they finished it. The game was on the line and they made they plays that mattered.

Finally.