Unlike the previous two games, the Detroit Lions didn't let things go down to the wire on Saturday against the San Diego Chargers. With a chance to clinch their first playoff berth since 1999, they didn't want it to come down to a goal line stand or a furious last-minute rally. Instead they put together perhaps their most complete performance all season and blew out the Chargers. From the very start it was a one-sided affair, and in the end the Lions were able to celebrate a 38-10 victory and the end of their lengthy playoff drought.

The Lions set the tone for Saturday's outstanding performance on the very first play of the game. Just like we saw last week against the Oakland Raiders, the Lions' best offense is often Matthew Stafford throwing the ball up and letting Calvin Johnson go get it. On the first play, that's exactly what the Lions did and Johnson pulled down the ball in coverage for a gain of 46 yards. After passes to Brandon Pettigrew and Nate Burleson went for 10 yards each, the Lions were inside the 10-yard line. There, Stafford moved the chains on third-and-one with a quarterback sneak, and two plays later he found Pettigrew for a seven-yard touchdown.

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With 2:14 left in the fourth quarter and no timeouts, the Detroit Lions took over at their own two-yard line. They trailed by six points and needed some late-game heroics against the Oakland Raiders to pull off the comeback. Fortunately, the Lions have Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson, and the two connected three times, including once for a six-yard touchdown, to give Detroit the go-ahead score. Fast forward 39 seconds to a blocked field goal by Ndamukong Suh and the Lions walked off the field winners by a score of 28-27.

The victory means the Lions are now 9-5 on the season. This is their first winning season since 2000, and the Lions can clinch their first trip to the playoffs since 1999 with a win over the San Diego Chargers on Christmas Eve next week. Who would've thought that just three years after going 0-16 the Lions would be in position to clinch a playoff spot? They have come a long way as a franchise, and now they are one win away from returning to the postseason.

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Throughout the past two seasons and especially in recent weeks, Detroit Lions fans have had a lot of gripes with the officiating. Especially lately, the penalties have become more and more of an issue, and some of the calls have seemed more about the Lions' rep than anything else.

There were numerous flags thrown again on the Lions on Sunday, including some questionable calls. However, the biggest story from the game wasn't a Lions penalty, but rather the lack of a flag on a blatant facemask on DeAndre Levy on the final play of the game. No penalty was called, and instead of having another shot at the end zone from the one-yard line, the Vikings fumbled the ball and their chances of winning away. Detroit recovered the fumble (in Vikings territory, amazingly enough) and held on for the 34-28 victory. The Lions can finally say that a crucial blown call went their way, and the end result is that they have eight wins for the first time in 11 years.

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Sunday night's game between the Lions and Saints followed a script similar to Thanksgiving for Detroit. The Lions committed a number of drive-killing penalties in both games, and they once again had a problem keeping their composure. Overall the Lions played quite well considering they are dealing with a number of injuries and didn't have Ndamukong Suh, but the end result was a 31-17 loss to New Orleans and another embarrassing showing on national TV.

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Taking on the undefeated Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving, the Detroit Lions had a golden opportunity to make people forget about embarrassments of the past on Turkey Day. For one half, despite some terrible penalties, they were doing a pretty good job of that, too. In the second half, however, the Lions melted down with more bad penalties and more awful turnovers. The Packers capitalized on the mistakes and jumped out to a 24-0 lead before ultimately winning by a score of 27-15.

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Midway through the second quarter on Sunday, the Detroit Lions seemed ready to collapse. The season appeared to be on the verge of disaster, as the Lions found themselves trailing 24-7 to the Carolina Panthers. A loss would have been a crushing blow to the Lions' playoff hopes and their psyche, especially considering they were blown out by the Chicago Bears a week earlier. Already some people were proclaiming this season to be a repeat of 2007, when the Lions started 6-2 before going 1-7 in the second half of the season.

In order to prevent the seemingly inevitable meltdown that would follow a loss to the Panthers, the Lions needed to make yet another comeback from a three-score deficit. Just as they did against the Minnesota Vikings and Dallas Cowboys earlier this season, a comeback is exactly what happened. The Lions caught fire in the second half and scored 35 points in the final two quarters. All Carolina could muster was one second half touchdown, and by the time the game came to an end, the Lions surprisingly emerged victorious, winning by a score of 49-35.

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