John Niyo: Lions can't give in to their playoff fate just yet

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — If the Detroit Lions were looking for clarity, now they’ve got it.

But if they were looking for some comfort, it’s gone.

And as the Lions rolled their suitcases to the loading dock inside SoFi Stadium on Sunday evening, the question no longer was about what it’ll take to make the playoffs. It’s about whether they’ve got enough.

Because with three games left in the regular season, the Lions no longer control their own destiny in the NFC race. After a 41-34 loss to Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams, who clinched a playoff berth of their own with Sunday’s victory, Detroit can’t afford another loss the rest of the way. And even if the Lions win out, they’ll need at least a little help, preferably from one of their division rivals.

Yet while fans can play around with the playoff prediction machines — the New York Times still gives them a 94% chance of making the postseason at 11-6, for what it’s worth — Dan Campbell knows this is no longer a math problem for his team.

It’s a mental one, really, which is why his postgame speech in the locker room was less of a pep talk and more of a plea to his players.

“My message is, ‘Do not go numb to the losing,’” said Campbell, who knows the sinking feeling everyone else is getting about this team, which has alternated wins and losses since September. “We've got to get out of that rut. And it can't be OK. … It should burn at you, you know? It should eat you up.”

Turn for the worse

And you could tell it did after this loss, which took a sharp turn in the third quarter after a wildly-entertaining start.

The Lions were up 24-14 after Jared Goff hit Jameson Williams with a 31-yard touchdown pass with 30 seconds left in the first half. But when the offense short-circuited coming out of the break, and the defense started to blink in the face of Stafford and that high-powered Rams offense, well, “it was pretty frustrating,” linebacker Jack Campbell admitted.

You could hear the frustration in his head coach’s voice, too, as he talked about the Lions’ struggles in the run game on both sides of the ball Sunday. The Rams more than doubled them up in rushing totals — Jahmyr Gibbs’ longest run went for 6 yards — and whatever tone Campbell was hoping to set offensively went out the window with three straight three-and-outs to start the second half.

“The third quarter was rough on us,” said Campbell, whose team was outgained 179-5 in that 15-minute stretch. “They got a jump on us, and we couldn't overcome it.”

Not with the glaring injury absences on defense starting to shine through.

Staying positive

The Lions were without their top three safeties in this one — cornerback Amik Robertson also exited late with a hand or wrist injury — and regardless of the rotations in that depleted secondary, Sean McVay and the Rams were ready to exploit it.

Puka Nacua enjoyed a career-best receiving day (nine catches, 181 yards), Stafford found tight end Colby Parkinson for a pair of touchdowns — the 37-year-old MVP frontrunner passed for 368 yards in all — and the backfield tandem of Kyren Williams and Blake Corum combined for nearly 150 yards and three touchdowns as well.

Afterward, Williams was crowing, “You know where the ball is going and you still can’t stop us."

No, they couldn't. And that's been true for the last month, as the Lions' opponents have averaged 32.3 points and 453 yards.

"It’s frustrating, because we’re better than that," Campbell said. "I know we’re better than that."

They were, definitely. But it's getting harder to say so in the present tense anymore.

And on a day where the Lions could've used some help, they didn't really get any from the Rams or the refs.

Stafford gifted his former team an early turnover when he threw a screen pass directly to Aidan Hutchinson. But he played keep-away from there, and the least-penalized team in the league was only flagged once all game.

“We knew that team didn't make mistakes,” said Campbell, whose team surely did, missing an early field goal and committing a couple of holding penalties that stalled drives Sunday.

But even though a late pass interference call — at the goal line on fourth down — finally went the Lions' way with 2:47 to play, it wouldn’t be enough against what looks to be the NFC’s best team.

A year ago, the Lions were that team. And now?

“That's them, you know?” Campbell said. “So now you know what it looks like. You know what it is. And we're not there right now. Doesn't mean we can't be. But now we know what it looks like. We’ve got to get better. We’ve got to move on. Can't talk about it. Can't feel sorry for ourselves. We make the corrections and we move on.”

On to the matchup with Aaron Rodgers and Pittsburgh next Sunday at Ford Field. And then to Minnesota the following week for a Christmas Day contest against the Vikings. And then, if they’re still in it, to Chicago for the regular-season finale against the Bears at Soldier Field, a game that could decide the Lions’ playoff fate.

And however ill-fated that outlook might seem to the rest of us, Goff talked Sunday about the need for the Lions' veteran leaders to drown it out: "We just have to stick together and not allow some of the narratives to pull anything apart."

“They’re like anybody else,” Campbell added, when asked what gives him belief this team can rally. “They’re frustrated. They don't like losing. But I go back to this: The core of this group, they’re the right guys, you know? And they've been through this. Most of those guys know what the dumps looks like.”

It looked like his first year in Detroit, and the first half of his second season in 2022, which not coincidentally is the last time the Lions lost back-to-back games. It’s also the last time they played a game while eliminated from playoff contention, shortly before kickoff in Week 18 at Green Bay. That was 52 games ago.

“Some of these guys don't know any different — rookies, second-year players — especially if all you've done is won,” Campbell added. “You just don't want them to ever get into that mode of, well … you’re just kind of playing and you're going through it.”

They’re going through it, all right. But they’re not out of it yet. And until they are, they simply can’t think like that. Because once they do, they will be.

"We’ve got a resilient group," Goff said. "And we’ve got to show that resilience a few more times here."

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