Lions Come Back to Beat Raiders, On Verge of Playoffs

It’s official: 2011 will be a winning season for the Detroit Lions. The Lions picked up their 9th win with a Tebow-esque comeback against the Oakland Raiders, erasing a 13 point deficit in the 4th quarter. With the win, the Lions are on the verge of their first playoff birth since I was in elementary school 1999.

Bullets of incoherent thoughts because I’m still going nuts 3 hours later:

• Jim Schwartz fist pump? Jim Schwartz fist pump.

• Calvin Johnson is a beast, plain and simple. The Raiders spent most of the game double covering Megatron and he still managed to catch 9 passes for over 200 yards. There were multiple occasions where he simply outran defenders (as well as Stafford’s arm at one point).

• Speaking of Stafford, wow. After today, Stafford is the second-youngest player to ever throw for 4,000 yards and 30 TDs in a season. The youngest? Some bum named Dan Marino. More important than the stats, however, was how well Stafford played down the stretch. Dude has balls, plain and simple.

• I said it on Twitter earlier, but Cliff Avril’s sack of Carson Palmer on Oakland’s last drive will likely be the most underrated play of the Lions’ season. Forcing the Raiders to use their last timeout in that situation helped keep them in the stratosphere for Janikowski’s field goal attempt. If they get any closer, I don’t know if the kick is low enough to get blocked.

• Odds are that the story of the week will be Ndamukong Suh blocking Sebastian Janikowski’s 65-yard field goal attempt on the last play of the game. Like many people (myself included) thought, last week’s radio show incident is going to blow over because of Suh’s performance on the field.

• As far as the playoffs are concerned, the Lions need to win one of their last two games to lock up a wild card berth. With the way that San Diego is playing tonight, this seems much more difficult than it did a couple hours ago. However, San Diego is 2-4 on the road this season.

• The Lions can also make the playoffs if the Bears, Seahawks, and Cardinals all lose one more game. The Bears are at Green Bay next weekend and the Seahawks and Cardinals play each other in week 17. Odds are the Lions will be able to back in if, Tebow forbid, they lose their last two games.

• Currently, the Lions are locked into a matchup with San Francisco in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. This is much preferred to playing the Saints again in the Superdome (which might be inevitable, but let’s put it off as long as possible). Root for Pittsburgh tomorrow night.