Monday Overreactions: The Detroit Lions are overcomers

We’ve all seen this movie before, am I right? The Detroit Lions are doing good things and everyone is happy before it all goes wrong. The next you know, the Lions are on the losing end of the game and everyone on Twitter is using their favorite version of “here we go again.” On Sunday it really felt like that was going to happen again. The Commanders brought the game to within reach and, just like I said, Twitter was lighting up with the same old narratives. The Lions surely seemed like they were on their way to an embarrassing loss. Then that just didn’t happen.

And it wasn’t like the Commanders fumbled the ball on the goal line as they were about to win. Bane didn’t come in and blow up the field. The other shoe never dropped because the Lions saw the adversity and chose to overcome it instead of letting it ruin their day. That’s just not something you’re used to seeing in Detroit.

This team just keeps on overcoming adversity and it’s a breath of fresh air. It’s not all about the final score. The Lions are doing it with the little things throughout the game. In Week 1 the Lions were put in a bad position early in the game where they were driving and then committed back-to-back false starts. That would have killed the Lions momentum in previous years. They would have settled for a field goal or worse. Instead, the Lions just kept moving forward and scored. Later in the game Jared Goff threw a pick six. Instead of getting dejected, the Lions came back on the field and scored a touchdown on the ensuing possession.

On Sunday against the Commanders, the Lions stacked multiple bad offensive drives and allowed the Commanders to work their way back into the game, At no point did this team hold their head down. They went back out there and kept running up the score and keeping the Commanders away from a chance to win.

And that’s despite some serious adversity when it comes to the injury department. They overcame injuries to each of their starting interior offensive linemen, their starting No. 1 cornerback, and in-game injuries to their star rookie edge defender and cramps from their No. 2 cornerback.

A couple weeks ago, coach Dan Campbell warned us that adversity was not going to slow this team down.

“Nobody is going to handle adversity better than us,” Campbell told 97.1 The Ticket. “We went through so much shit last year, and we adapted. Our guys were ready to go and it was next man up, and so, man, this is nothing for us.

This all seems like normal things that football teams should just do. I get that. At the same time, it’s just not something the Lions have really done in recent memory. You’re just so used to watching this team crumble when adversity comes that you’re predisposed to feeling bad whenever the Lions even allow a touchdown.

With this new overcomer attitude that the Lions are showing so far, you might be able to just calmly watch a Lions game without worrying that the wheels are going to fall off at any moment.

Why is this an overreaction?

Honestly, it’s not that big of an overreaction. The Lions are showing good things out there when it comes to overcoming adversity. Still, Lions fans are the spouse from the Lifetime movies. They keep cheating over and over again, and when it finally feels like they’ve turned a corner and become a new person—show up with flowers and candies—they go back to cheating again. You just can’t trust the TV movie actor that is the Detroit Lions because of all the pain they’ve made us feel.

I’m not at all saying this is all a sham, and the Lions are pretending to be this good and they won’t cheat again. I’m saying that we’re at the point in the movie where we’re having the Lions call their friend to verify they were indeed at the mall with them instead of off somewhere with that damn secretary who will eventually corrupt the Lions into a plan to kill us.

We just need more time—and a little more consistency—with the Lions playing like this to show that it’s really real. It’d be nice to see them continue to do so against good teams. It’s only been two weeks. There’s a ton of football left. There are also a ton of opportunities for adversity to come in and make trouble for the Lions. Let’s see if the Lions can continue to be the overcomers that they’ve been so far. If they can, then we’re talking about some real possibilities with this team in 2022.