Just before the trip to London, the Lions fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi as well as offensive line coach Jeremiah Washburn and assistant offensive line coach Terry Heffernan. He played out the 2014 season – and did well before a knee injury in London kept him out of the final half of the season for Detroit.
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Lions coach Jim Caldwell is doing his best to look forward as Detroit’s hopes of making the playoffs fade, refusing to rehash his team’s disheartening loss to Green Bay on a Hail Mary. The Lions seem like a great bet this week, even if they are at a field goal.
ALLEN PARK Nick Fairley was too much of an up-and-down player in his four seasons with the Lions. He will throw at least three more interceptions, although there is a good chance that he will be benched before that ends up happening.
Whether those performances were due to a lack of effort, a weak-minded locker room, superior opponents or something else is up for debate.
“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves, ” wide receiver Golden Tate said. The two teams split 1-1 in 1957, the past year the Lions won a championship. We’ve already moved on and started our preparation for St. Louis, so that’s really where our head’s at. Now, with nothing but pride left to play for, these two teams will attempt to save themselves another week of bad headlines with a win on Sunday. “There are children, there are wives”, Caldwell said of the shakeup within the organization.
The Lions are 3-8 ATS in their last 11 road games and 5-11 ATS in their last 16 games overall. “Oftentimes, you’ll kind of key in on one victory or one loss or whatever it might be”. I think when you look at him, he’s throwing the ball, he’s operating a new system that for him, a lot is on his plate.
“It wasn’t like it was just this past Sunday, so we’ve been able to re-focus”, said Caldwell, who led the Colts to a runner-up Super Bowl finish in 2010 and who was an assistant for Super Bowl-winning teams with the Colts (2007) and the Baltimore Ravens (2013) “There’s nothing easy in this business, but I do think we have a good group of guys with resilience”.
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As Lage notes, there were several questions that Caldwell could have answered but didn’t. The last time these two teams played in 2012, Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford led a thrilling last-minute comeback. He made a visit, we talked, I followed his career, I knew what he did at Auburn, my son was one of his teammates and I didnt have any issues. Nobody has to tell a player that. They have guys that are cut. “Otherwise, you’ll find yourself looking for a job, plain and simple”.
