After a season where the Lions had a lead at some point in the second half of 13 different games but won just three of them, it’s easy to see why the players are rallying around the new battle cry.
“Dagger Time”.
The Lions offense is using the phrase Dagger Time to focus on finishing out drives and games. It’s something quarterback Matthew Stafford has done quite well throughout his career. Yet even Stafford didn’t have his typical fourth-quarter magic or red zone excellence in 2019 even before a back injury ended his season after eight games
“It’s something that we came up with in a team meeting,” tight end T.J. Hockenson said during a Zoom session about the new mantra. “Everyone says finish, but I think we wanted to change it up. We’ve heard that throughout all growing up is, ‘Finish, finish, finish.’ But we kind of wanted to put our own little spin on it.”
The Lions sputtered in the red zone in 2019. Only five teams scored fewer points in the red zone than the Lions. They also fell off offensively in crunch time, finishing 26th in points per game in the second half with just 9.0.
Coach Matt Patricia appears to embrace the Dagger Time theme too.
“We can take a look at last year,” Patricia said. “You like to dive into the stats, you don’t like to live in them. But certainly, I think they do say a lot for us and where we need to improve. I think we had quite a few games last year where we were winning and had a chance to win and we didn’t, and quite a few games where we were actually leading in the fourth quarter. We need to close those outs.”