It took a full extra period of some unsavory football, but the Detroit Lions did not lose in Week 10. The Lions and Steelers played to a 16-16 tie in soggy conditions in Pittsburgh.
It was not pretty. In fact, it might have been one of the ugliest displays of football from both teams in an NFL game in a long time. The tie moves the Lions record to 0-8-1, while the Steelers now stand at 5-3-1.
Detroit had a chance to win with four minutes remaining in overtime, but replacement kicker Ryan Santoso badly missed a 48-yard field goal attempt. Pittsburgh followed that up with a very quick 3-and-out aided by an errant snap that went some 10 yards over QB Mason Rudolph’s head.
Pittsburgh had another chance and moved the ball into Detroit territory, but Lions safety Will Harris forced a fumble and OLB Trey Flowers recovered. A final gadget play by the Lions came up well short.
The Lions did do some things well. Led by D’Andre Swift and his 130 yards on the ground, Detroit topped 200 rushing yards in a game for the first time in three years. The defense made some key plays, from Harris’ forced fumble to nine defended passes off Rudolph and his limp noodle arm.
Rudolph threw the ball 50 times to net just 242 passing yards. Yet that still dwarfed the utter ineptitude of Detroit’s passing offense with Jared Goff, who finished 14-for-25 for 114 passing yards. Consider that 22 of those came on the final play, and another 28 on the play that set up Santoso’s terrible miss, in a game that had an extra quarter.
The tie will prevent the Lions from finishing a season with only losses. And tying the Steelers in Pittsburgh is an outcome that many Lions fans would happily have accepted before the kickoff. But it still feels unsatisfying and hollow. Watching a truly poor exhibition of football for almost four hours will do that to anyone.