After All Other NFC North Teams Fall, Lions Rise To First!

Well, what a bye week it was. With the Lions not playing, Detroit’s TV sets were viewing the Packers/Titans bout in Nashville and the Vikings/Redskins match-up in Landover. In what may have been the most surprising result of the day, the Titans trounced the Pack 47-25, and the ‘Skins beat the Vikings in a close one 26-20. To put the cherry on top of the Sunday sundae, even the lowly Bears lost in the most Jay Cutler game of all time to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Not even warrior Kyle Long banging the side of a medical cart so loud it was audible to the home-viewer could help the Bears Sunday. As a result, the Lions are top dog in the NFC North and control their own destiny to win it for the first time in recent team history.

The NFC North:

Lions, 5-4, 1-2 Division Vikings, 5-4, 1-2 Division Packers, 4-5, 2-1 Division Bears, 2-7, 2-1 Divsion

After nine straight games of trailing with under a minute to go, the 5-4 Lions now find themselves atop the NFC North. This is a position that the Lions have stumbled into rather than earned, however they now have seven games to prove that they deserve to be there. The outcome of these next seven games have a very good chance of dictating the direction to where GM Bob Quinn takes this football to team in the future.

Not many teams that have made the same amount of mistakes that the Lions have this year find themselves at 5-4, let alone leading the division. The Lions’ players and coaches found themselves in a perfect bye week where hopefully they self-evaluated what has been going wrong, figured out a way to fix it, and will implement that in practice during the week.

If the first nine games were any indication, we all are likely in for a wild ride to the end of the year. That ride begins at home against Blake Bortles, whose arm motion looks more like a softball pitcher’s than a NFL QB, and the struggling Jaguars. This is a great opportunity for the Lions to finally stomp a team, but fans are smart enough not to look past any team that goes against the Lions on Sunday.

Looking at you Tennessee and Chicago.