Thankfully touchdowns don't carry over from previous games. If that were the case then the Lions would be trailing Chicago already. Wait, let me just check something... okay, Philadelphia has stopped scoring. Just making sure.
We've seen our fair share of blowouts due to the Lions being a bad team in past years, but I've never seen the defense look so bad. Philadelphia couldn't do anything wrong against Detroit on Sunday -- run or pass. If McNabb dropped back to pass, chances are that Kevin Curtis was out there for a catch or Brian Westbrook was waiting for the dump off. That leads me to my next point, if Westbrook touched the ball at all, he simply slipped through nearly every attempted tackle by Lions defenders.
Thanks to the worst defensive performance I've seen in a long time, the Eagles won by a score of 56-21. That is just absolutely embarrassing and you can bet brings everyone back to reality. How real was that 2-0 start? I'll get to that in a second, but first, below is how the scoring happened in this game, because that's all that really needs to be said.
FIRST QUARTER
PHI: 25 yard run by Brian Westbrook (7-0 PHI)
DET: 2 yard run by Kevin Jones (7-7)
PHI: 5 yard run by Brian Westbrook (14-7 PHI)
PHI: 68 yard pass from Donovan McNabb to Kevin Curtis (21-7 PHI)
SECOND QUARTER
PHI: 12 yard pass from Donovan McNabb to Kevin Curtis (28-7 PHI)
PHI: 43 yard TD pass from Donovan McNabb to Kevin Curtis (35-7 PHI)
DET: 11 yard pass from Jon Kitna to Shaun McDonald (35-14 PHI)
DET: 91 yard pass from Jon Kitna to Roy Williams (35-21 PHI)
PHI: 43 yard pass from Donovan McNabb to Brian Westbrook (42-21 PHI)
THIRD QUARTER
PHI: 1 yard run by Correll Buckhalter (49-21 PHI)
FOURTH QUARTER
PHI: 1 yard run by Tony Hunt (56-21 PHI)
Now that you've seen what exactly led to this debacle, let's get into where to go from here. Obviously in this case, you just want to forget about this game right now. That's all you really can do -- move on and look ahead to the next game. Listen, I know it seems bad, but thankfully Rex Grossman might be the opposing QB on Sunday. That means that at least the Lions won't be facing another Donovan McNabb, who just simply picked the secondary apart. And Cedric Benson is no Brian Westbrook. Don't get me wrong, he's a solid player, but the Lions should not have as tough of a time tackling him.
Is this all just false optimism? Possibly. But really I'm going to try and be positive for a change. If the Lions go out there on Sunday and get rolled over again, then things will be a "cup half empty" mindset. With a division rival like the Bears coming to town, it is a must-win situation.
This game against Chicago on Sunday really will set the tone for the rest of 2007. Previous Lions teams would get smoked after a performance like yesterday, but then again, a previous team would probably be 0-3 by now. With the record at 2-1 right now, Detroit has two roads that it can take right now. Beat Chicago and improve to 3-1, possibly tying for first place in the NFC North. That would put the Lions in a good position for now at least. On the other hand, a loss puts Detroit at 2-2 and really questions where the rest of '07 is going. Minnesota doesn't appear to be a strong threat for the NFC North crown, but Green Bay already has a hold on it. With that, who will be the other team that steps up right now: Detroit or Chicago?
I guess we'll find out Sunday. Kickoff is set for 1:00 p.m. ET on FOX.
(I'll have more from this game tomorrow once I get more time to post.)