Lions Week 10 Report Card: Detroit’s losing streak ends … with a tie

At the least the Detroit Lions didn’t lose on Sunday, not that was a game either team deserved to win.

At long last, the Detroit Lions losing streak has finally ended … in a tie.

At least the Lions won’t be going 0-17 this season. That has to count for something right?

This game was laughably bad football from both teams. No one wanted to win this game, and neither team did.

Here’s the Lions Week 10 report card.

Detroit Lions Week 10 Report Card

Offense-3/5 Stars

This is a weird grade. For the first and fourth quarter and right into overtime, the offense was awful. Failing to generate much of anything, which is nothing new this season.

However, in the second and third quarters, the Lions were absolutely unstoppable. Running the ball at will against the Steelers.

Unfortunately, the Steelers adjusted. After that, the Detroit ground game failed to generate much when it mattered most.

At the end of the day, the Lions did have over 300 yards of total offense. Although it was barely over 300, they gained 301 yards. While that is a little under their season average of 344.6, that’s still decent.

Best offensive player(s): The Running Backs

The Lion had 229 rushing yards on Sunday. That’s the most they’ve had in a game since 2018 against the Miami Dolphins.

D’Andre Swift ran the ball a whopping 33 times for 130 yards. And yet, he scored neither of the Lions’ two rushing touchdowns.

Jermar Jefferson came into the game early in the second quarter and rattled off back-to-back big runs, including the first touchdown of the day for Detroit. The rookie has now scored in back-to-games filling for Jamaal Williams. All told, Jefferson had 41 yards on three carries.

In typical Detroit Lions fashion, he got injured on this play and did not return.

In relief of Jefferson, Godwin Igwebuike got some run. He had a 42-yard touchdown run as part of 56 yards on two carries..

The blocking that the Lions’ rushers received for most of this game was incredible. Detroit used a lot of heavy sets to give their backs extra help, perhaps as a nod to head coach Dan Campbell taking over the play-calling. They would bring in an extra lineman to pair with two tight ends. And it worked wonders for most of this game.

Hopefully, this is something the Lions can maintain going forward. The identity of this team was supposed to be their ability to run the ball, and we saw that in this game.

Worst offensive player: QB Jared Goff

In a full four quarters of play plus overtime, Goff threw for just 114 yards as he completed 14 of 25 passes. Take away 37 sack yards, and 77 net yards passing won’t cut regardless of the weather conditions.

There are three parts to this equation in my estimation. The first is the aforementioned rushing attack. The Lions leaned into that, which naturally limits pass attempts. The second is that Goff played through an injury in this game.

But the most important is that the coaching staff simply does not trust Goff to make plays in rainy conditions. They dialed up a deep shot early in the game, and it went about how everyone would expect based on how this season has gone.

Goff is playing himself not just out of a job, but potentially out of the NFL altogether.