The Split Personality Society

The Detroit Lions do not DESERVE to go the playoffs.....

The Detroit Lions CAN BE a playoff team, and they can make it to a Super Bowl.....

This is our world. A world where two completely contradictory statements live side by side in chaotic harmony. One driven by the very realistic vision presented to us by our eyes and the cold hard figures that say we are a team that can't hack it when the big games come along, the other driven by the type of optimism that is reserved for the die hard nature of a fiercely loyal sports fan who refuses to tap out until the last light of the sun has vanished over the horizon.

So how does a team that does not deserve to go to the playoffs have a chance of making the Super Bowl, and can a person simultaneously believe both?

Welcome to the Split Personality Society!

With 3 weeks to go of the 2025 NFL season the Detroit Lions, fresh off a beating from the NFC #1 seed LA Rams, sit with a precarious 8-6 record that leaves their playoff hopes hanging by a thread. The room for error has now gone, nothing less than a perfect 3-0 record against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears will suffice in the chase for the postseason, and even then there is a slight chance it won't be enough. 2 years after the NFC Championship Game loss to San Francisco, with no further playoff wins and even our participation to start with at stake, how do we logically and emotionally process what has happened this season?

Say hello to my personalities!

Mr Realism.

Mr Realism has been my predominant personality this year. Ever since Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell took charge I like to think I have had realistic expectations of them.

• Year 1 was throwaway, such was the rebuild that just starting to import talent into the team was enough, and they achieved that in abundance

• Year 2 was learn how to start winning, and after that gross 1-6 start the team did exactly that, and even the heartache of missing the playoffs did not dampen my pleasure at how well they did

• Year 3 was about showing you can win the North and make the playoffs, and boy howdy did they overachieve on that one

• Year 4 was about showing consistency in this new winning mentality, and despite getting bounced by Washington in the playoffs, our first ever NFC #1 seed and 15 win season was a positive indicator that we are indeed a consistent winning team now

• Year 5, this year, was about showing that now you've achieved all these franchise firsts in the regular season, that you can get back in the playoffs and start heading back towards a Super Bowl, you know the one and only true aim in the NFL.

With 3 weeks to go, it is completely an understandable reaction that I feel my expectations are in danger of not been met. The most important games an NFL team will play in a season are their divisional games, and against teams that they will be fighting come playoff time. As of week 15, the Detroit Lions are 1-3 in their NFC North matchups, and they are 2-4 against teams that occupy the NFC Playoff spots. The solitary wins coming against the Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. One team (who were) riddled with a losers mentality and bedding in a new HC who we caught early, and the other a 7-7 team barely managing to stay atop a truly awful NFC South.

Against teams who we would want to consider our equals it's a different story. Green Bay destroyed our trenches twice, the Eagles completely shut down our offense, and the Rams eviscerated our defence.

The Lions did not come into this season a complete team. Two new coordinators, the interior of the Offensive Line saw significant change whilst both tackles have been dealing with injury issues which has damaged our most prize asset, and lingering injuries from 2024 and new injuries this year have hit the defence. But this is the nature of the NFL. Injuries will always be here, and winning teams will always get talent drained by poachers, basically there is always going to be an available reason to excuse regression.

What is true though is there is still an insane amount of talent on this football team, enough to be competitive against the best the NFC has to offer, and the stark reality is that when the big games have come to town, we as a team have been found wanting, and Mr Realism cannot ignore this. The Green Bay Packers identified our weakened trenches and took a sledgehammer to them, running the ball well and keeping Jordan Love in a force field protected pocket on offence, and then sending everything on defence at our interior O-Line to completely collapse our run and pass game. The Vikings took away our vertical passing threat and forced us into a small box, exactly what Brian Flores wants cause his blitz heavy schemes eat that alive. The Eagles Defensive Line caused utter havoc on our rebuilt interior, stifling the offense and more importantly, de-fanging our aggressive 4th down approach with 5 successful stops cause we had no time to develop the plays called. The Chiefs nullified our pass rush which left Patrick Mahomes free to pick on the Legion of Whom. Then came the tough one, the Rams!

'A smart enemy, hits you exactly where you think your safe'

That might be a movie quote, but it's also relevant. The Lions pride themselves on their vaunted run defence. Between Alim McNeill and DJ Reader we have over $110 million of cap invested, and a first round pick invested in Tyleik Williams. Not to mention we have Marcus Davenport shoved down our throats and excused from been a useless pass rusher because 'hes a can crushing defensive end who is there to stop the run', and overall the Lions draft strategy is to prioritise run defence over pass rush, so this is supposed to be our castle which in the biggest battles cannot be conquered. The Rams took one look at our castle, put away the catapult and called in a B-52 to level it to it's foundations. With no respect at all they ran at will right through where we thought we were most safe, and when you are facing an MVP Quarterback if the Keep of your castle falls then everything else around will fall with it which is exactly what happened.

Metaphors aside the point here is that Mr Realism has had to watch as every time we have played a team in the NFC at our level, they have all found different ways to expose us, this is not a singular problem that can explain it all, and that's a huge worry! Defensive teams like the Packers and Eagles have leaned on their elite units to kill our offense and do just enough on the other side to put us away. Then offensive teams like the Rams and Chiefs (AFC I know but making a point) have gone the other way and manhandled our defence to a point that allows them to win shoot outs even when we can fight back.

I know we can manipulate the stats to make this look like we are not actually so bad and everyone is overreacting and what not, but Mr Realism trusts his eyes and what they show him, and they show him a team that SO FAR, just cannot adapt to the teams in it's league of quality, and for that reason, Mr Realism believes that the Lions don't deserve to go to the playoffs cause you have to, at some point, show the quality and consistency to put those around you away, which they have not done. HOWEVER........the NFL does not always work on who deserves what.......

Welcome in Mr Optimistic!

'I don't give a damn about the regular season, just get a ticket to the dance and play your best football then'.......

That's a quote from me, at the beginning of the season, and I would be a hypocrite to ignore that now.

Despite me just now in detail explaining why I don't think the Lions deserve to go to the playoffs, that does not mean that they can't make it. For everything I have just said about how teams on our level have found ways to expose us, and how we have not lived up to our lofty aspirations from past years in the regular season, do you know how much of that matters when you punch your ticket to the playoffs?

ABSOLUTELY ZERO!

The Lions won 15 games last year and got a bye. That meant absolutely nothing in the end. The pure fact of the matter is when the playoffs begins, every single team is starting from scratch, all your past vices and virtues matter naught. Your opponent does not care about how many games you won, how many points your scored, how many good or bad games you had, the only thing they care about is been better than you for the 60 minutes that decide the fate of your season. And that is precisely where we are at as a team. It's not about how we got there, it's about what we do when we get there.

If the Lions do get to the playoffs, they will be riding a 3 game win streak, which in itself is gonna show the resolution of one problem......Consistency! The Lions have not won back to back games since week 5, they've been playing hopscotch between win and loss for over 2 months now which is not good for consistency of play and it is showing with this team. Its aura that it can't be beaten is not there right now, but they have a chance to correct that. The Steelers are fighting for the AFC North and we have traditionally struggled with their defence, and then we have to go back to back road games in the NFC North potentially culminating in an opportunity to knock former OC Ben Johnson and his Chicago Bears out of the playoffs. The confidence that you would derive from those 3 wins is massive, and it sets you up with exactly the right mentality heading in to the playoffs.

And building on the mentality point, Detroit is not some newcomer to the playoffs any more, it's now battle hardened when it comes to them. The players have experienced the exhilarating highs of been an underdog making the NFC Championship game, and they have experience the devastating lows of been a #1 seed getting bounced at the first chance of asking. These experiences matter. The players remember, and it's these experiences that build the foundation to eventually going the whole way and winning a Lombardi. I'm not saying it happens this year, but whether they go in as a #7 seed having to fight their entire journey on the road, or a #3 seed under pressure to deliver in front of it's own fans to wash away the stink of this season, they will be prepared for all scenarios. They are no longer rookies, they are grown ups!

We also have to look at the team and it's issues. The Offensive Line. Consistency has been an issue, and it's not been helped by injury. But as it stands we are slated to enter January with a full contingent. Christian Mahogany is due back any time now which is going to help the left guard situation and they have enough time to get him back in and up to speed, and through this all we still sport the #1 scoring offense in the NFL which everyone seems to have forgotten about. We sport the most dangerous set of skill players in the nation all of whom are on absolute fire right now and If we make the playoffs there is not a team in there that on our day we cannot outscore, that in itself gives you a fighting chance every week!

Defensively we have to be more optimistic than realistic. Kelvin Sheppard had a magnificent start to the season but in the last few months we have slowly been getting found out more and more. The secondary, for the second season in a row, is going to be an injury barnacle on the bottom of our playoff ship. There's no personnel coming back and the Legion of Whom is gonna have to step up. The front 7 is where we live or die. Thankfully we have invested heavily in our run defense fortifications and although the Rams nuked it, there are few teams who can truly establish on us the way they did, that will always give you a fighting chance. Injuries are clearly still bothering us. Alim McNeill is still working his way back from the ACL tear and is clearly not at his best (AND STOP PLAYING HIM AT EDGE) and DJ Reed and Davenport seem to also be still recovering and not at their best. Hopefully come playoff time our main playmakers are going to be back to 100% which will help us greatly. But in all honesty, I actually think the defense is good enough for what we need, they just need to execute better in high leverage. Against the Rams, Hallett missed a 1 vs 1 on Williams on a 4th and 1, thats a drive turned away. DJ Reed gave up one of the worst 4th down completions Ive ever seen, allowing Puca to just bump him and get a yard to catch and convert, if he acts like the $16 million man we paid for that's broken up and that is 2 drives turned away and 10 points off the board, also not letting a team go 75 yards in 25 seconds to get the FG before half, that's 13 points saved. The point is they ARE creating chances to get the opposition off the field, they are just not taking them. If that's an issue we can get fixed heading into the playoffs, that gives us enough of a chance to win.

We have an ELITE UNIT in our offense, and we have a defence that if just makes a few more critical plays will be good enough, and that is all you need to have success in the playoffs. Yes this is an optimistic take hence Mr Optimism, but it also rooted in realism. This team for the vast part of it's existence has, when challenged, always answered the call and no matter how hard the situation in front of us gets, you bet 100% I'll believe in this team to stand up and be counted. Yes this scenario requires a lot of things to be fixed in a short amount of time, but again we only need to get them right when playoff football starts, and we have 3 more opportunities to start trending in the right direction before that call needs to be answered.

Whoever gets Detroit in the playoffs, they are not facing up against a team that lost 6 games, or lost a lot of it's higher profile games, that's struggling for consistency or is vulnerable. They are going to be on a field facing Jared Goff, Penei Sewell, Amon Ra St Brown, Jameson Williams, Aidan Hutchinson, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell, Alim McNeill and a whole host of other Detroit Lions who are gonna be there for one purpose and one purpose only.......to kick their ass or die trying! And to beat a team like that, your gonna have to face hell and play like you've never played before to put them away.

The Detroit Lions don't deserve to make the playoffs, but if they do, teams are going to regret giving them a second chance!

And on that, Mr Realism and Mr Optimistic agree!