Detroit Lions: How the Bills game could have been far worse
By Robert Jones
Now in all fairness, the starting defense looked good and played like it was supposed to play, but a questionable roughing the passer penalty on Christian Jones allowed a great defensive series to turn into the Bills first scoring drive of the night.
By the letter of the NFL law, it wasn’t a horrible call. The NFL is determined to protect their passers but considering Josh Allen was falling backward while attempting an ill-advised pass across his body, he was going down anyway and that could have been a no-call.
But this does lead us to one of the biggest negatives that came out of that game; penalties.
The Lions committed several penalties that helped determine the outcome of the game. Now Buffalo wasn’t any better as they committed more than their fair share as well. Yet penalties are often times harder to overcome than the opponent. You simply cannot continually hand out first downs or put yourself behind the chains and expect to win on a regular basis.
Back in the 1970s, the Oakland Raiders were one of the most penalized teams in football. Part of it seemed to be the result of their ‘nefarious’ reputation while much of it was deserved from, how shall we say, over-exuberant play.
Yet those Raiders teams were in the championship race almost every year. Different era aside, the big reason they survived their own penalties was that they, like the Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys of that era, had much better players than just about everyone else.
Today’s NFL is built upon the bedrock of ‘parity’. Something the Detroit Lions haven’t enjoyed too much of, but there is no such thing as one or two loaded teams while the rest of the league is miles behind.
On any given Sunday any team can beat another. Many of the Lions biggest victories over the last several decades are a testament to that, like last seasons win over the eventual Super Bowl champion New England Patriots. Sure the Patriots entered that game in a state of flux, but so did the Lions. There really weren’t many who saw that one coming.
But the point is simple, there is simply not enough of a talent difference between teams in the modern NFL that any franchise can win consistently by committing the volume and key penalties the Lions did against Buffalo. They have to make less mental mistakes.