Lions Week 16 player of the game: Who gets the Game Ball vs. Bengals?

The Detroit Lions were overmatched in every phase of the game on Sunday, but there were a few good individual performances from the men in blue. Since it’s Christmas (but really because we do this every week), let’s focus on that in this column and give out our weekly Game Ball.

Before we get into this week’s candidates, here are the Game Ball standings after 15 weeks. Remember, first place in voting gets three points, second place gets two, and third place gets one.

Matthew Stafford - 15
Marvin Jones Jr. - 8
Darius Slay - 8
Glover Quin - 7
Matt Prater - 7
Golden Tate - 5
A’Shawn Robinson - 4
Ezekiel Ansah - 3
Anthony Zettel - 3
Jarrad Davis - 3
Jamal Agnew - 3
Tion Green - 3
Eric Ebron - 3
Quandre Diggs - 4
Darren Fells - 2
Kenny Golladay - 2
Ameer Abdullah - 2
Akeem Spence- 1

Here’s who we have up for Game Ball this week:

Eric Ebron

Stats: 5 catches, 83 yards, TD

Whether it was becoming a dad or staring down the barrel of a possible trade, Eric Ebron has finally neared his potential as a threat in the Lions offense. Ebron was torching linebackers on the regs on Sunday. His 83 yards on Sunday was the fifth-highest in his career.

Ebron hauled in a 33 and 29-yard catch on Sunday, both of which led to the Lions’ only two touchdowns on the day.

Tion Green

Stats: 7 rushes, 43 yards, TD

All year the Lions have struggled to convert on third or fourth-and-short situations. Coming into the game, the Lions were converting just 29 percent of those opportunities in the running game.

Green had two of those opportunities on Sunday, and not only did he convert both, but he picked up 11 and 12 yards on each play respectively. He also had an impressive touchdown run from five yards out. Did I mention he did all of this on one, single drive?

Ezekiel Ansah

Stats: 7 tackles, 3 sacks, 4 tackles for loss

Facing a beaten-up offensive line with several backups in the game, Ezekiel Ansah took complete advantage of the mismatch. Not only was Ansah able to sack Andy Dalton three times, but he picked up four additional tackles along the way, including one for a loss.

Akeem Spence

Stats: 8 tackles, 0.5 TFLs, 1 QB hit

Spence set a career mark on Sunday with eight total tackles in the game. Spence earned the team’s third-highest PFF grade with a solid 79.9 overall grade. For a team that struggled to defend the run and get to Andy Dalton, Spence was part of the solution, not the problem.

No fifth candidate this week.