Pour out the Honolulu blue Kool-Aid. Or pour something strong and intoxicating into it. Either way, the first half from the Detroit Lions in Saturday night’s preseason game against the Pittsburgh Steelers is about as discouraging of a half of football as Lions fans have ever seen.
Thank goodness it didn’t count in the standings. That’s about the only saving grace from a truly dreadful performance by Dan Campbell’s team.
They couldn’t cover anyone. They couldn’t tackle. They couldn’t run block on offense. They committed penalty after dumb penalty. It was an undisciplined, unrefined, uninspiring performance by Detroit.
There is some important context. The Steelers played their starters deep into the second quarter, while Campbell sat most of the Lions starters for the entire night. Pittsburgh should have looked much better than Detroit’s second-team players. But it’s how the Lions facilitated the Steelers’ impressive performance that should bother Detroit fans.
It will certainly bother Campbell and his coaches. This was sloppy football. The halftime box score is a good place to start:
But it was so much worse than the numbers. It’s one thing for better athletes, better players, to beat a team. But when the players on the wrong end of the hose are playing bad fundamental football, making mental errors and failing to do things that should be second nature for NFLers, it’s a soul-crushing defeat.
This was a gross illustration of just how far behind the Lions roster is from being where it needs to be. Again, expecting Detroit’s backups to compete with Pittsburgh’s starters is irresponsible. But expecting them to not look like they’ve not practiced, playing undisciplined and repeating dumb mistakes and mental errors, that’s not asking too much. And the Lions failed at that in the first half. Miserably. And that includes a few guys who will be starters on both sides of the ball, too.
It’s a necessary dose of harsh reality that it’s going to take some time before the new regime can cleanse itself of the sins of the prior one. Any injuries to starters at pretty much any position group during the regular season will quickly devolve the games that do count in the standings into looking like this stinkbomb of an exhibition.