Are Lions contenders after beating Chargers, Eagles?

Don’t look now, but the Detroit Lions are still undefeated at 2-0-1. Do we need to start taking Matt Patricia’s team seriously? Are they legit contenders?

When the NFL season started, we all had ideas about who would be undefeated entering Week 4. Teams like the Kansas City Chiefs and the New England Patriots felt like safe choices. But if you thought that the Detroit Lions would not suffer a defeat through three weeks, more power to you.

Guess what? The Lions are 2-0-1 through Week 3. That means one thing: the Lions are undefeated. They haven’t lost yet and that is a huge deal for a team that everybody outside of the Motor City thought was poised to finish in fourth place in the NFC North this season. It’s been a great three weeks for the Lions, but do we need to start taking them seriously now?

Well, head coach Matt Patricia is wearing his hat forwards this year and has that trusty No. 2 pencil of his to make the necessary adjustments on his laminated play sheet. While he might struggle still in that attempt, there are good things to like about Lions in the early part of the season.

Detroit should quite frankly be 3-0 but fell apart at the seams in the Valley of the Sun to Kyler Murray, Kliff Kingsbury and the Air Raid Arizona Cardinals. That game deserved a tie and America got just that.

Last week at home versus the

San Diego

Los Angeles Chargers, the Lions found a way to beat a Chargers team that beat themselves. Philip Rivers was less than impressed in his team’s effort. But a win is a win and this is Detroit and that’s all that matters. Go Lions!

At a cool 1-0-1, the Lions had to go to the City of Brotherly Love to take on a Philadelphia Eagles team that was coming off a high-profile loss in Week 2 to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday Night Football. With everybody taking the Eagles to win that game and win it convincingly, the Lions held on to beat the Eagles 27-24 to improve to 2-0-1 on the year. It could have ended in a tie, but no!

All kidding aside, there have been good things put on tape by the Lions thus far. The first is that their receiving corps is solid. We know that Marvin Jones and Kenny Golladay are good, but this T.J. Hockenson guy out of Iowa, he could be the next Travis Kelce. Great draft pick by Lions general manager Bob Quinn.

We know that quarterback Matthew Stafford will put up the stats, but not necessarily get signature wins. Well, beating teams like the Chargers and Eagles who were certainly capable of winning 10 games at the start of the year is a huge step in building Stafford’s football legacy as a winner. 11 years later and he might have his first signature win as a professional signal-caller.

Lastly, the Lions are starting to play with a brand of toughness Patricia has tried to bring with him from Foxborough to Detroit after his time learning under Bill Belichick with the New England Patriots. It’s a bit flattering, but trying to win in the trenches like Belichick always seems to do does seem to be working for Patricia in the early part of the 2019 campaign.

The issue with the Lions is that they’re not yet better than two of their division rivals in the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings. They might be better than the Chicago Bears and could be better than the Vikings when they meet on the gridiron. Being better than Green Bay at this time doesn’t seem possible, but that could change if the Lions keep on refusing to lose.

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In short, the Lions have played well enough to contend for a Wild Card spot in the NFC. So Patricia is doing his best to make the Lions like they were in the peak Jim Caldwell years in that they are good enough to win nine or 10 games and not host a playoff game. So the Lions will probably not win a playoff game again this season, but at least it’s cool that they aren’t a grease fire now.