Getty Matt Prater celebrates his game winning field goal.
The Detroit Lions have started the 2020 season in the worst way possible, but all of that is forgotten temporarily after a big win against the Arizona Cardinals.
After all the misery, the Lions certainly earned the 26-23 win, and it’s a reason for the fans to be happy. As former NFL executive Andrew Brandt wrote on Twitter, the Lions deserved the big last second victory which temporarily saved the 2020 season.
Lions fans deserve that..
Certainly, after all the blown leads and close losses, Detroit fans deserved a reason to feel good and they have that reason now in the form of a victory. Perhaps it’s odd to see a former rival executive giving the Lions and their fans some love, but even Brandt sees how much the fans have struggled.
For one week, all that doesn’t matter.
Jeff Daniels Breaks Down Lions Fan Frustration
Actor Jeff Daniels grew up in Michigan as a rabid Lions fan. He’s been with the team for decades in addition to all Detroit teams. He sticks with the Lions even to this day, but as he admitted, it’s getting tough to do so in 2020 given all the ways the team has toyed with his emotions lately.
Joining The Rich Eisen Show, Daniels explained more about his love for the team, but felt the need to get most of the frustrations he’s experienced over the last few weeks off his chest completely. His thoughts likely echoed scores of Lions fans in the state and across the world.
Like #Lions fans everywhere, the great @Jeff_Daniels is just wondering what different way this team can let him down on a weekly basis:
Daniels said:
“They break your heart, they don’t just lose, they break your heart in doing so. You can’t be ahead 17-3 or whatever it was or 23-6 or something. You just know, if you lean towards ‘we’re gonna win’ you’re going to get your heart broken. It’s just, you think we’re cursed I don’t know, but it’s getting difficult. It’s getting real difficult.”
As for whether or not Daniels is giving up on the Lions for good, the answer of course is no. Still, he’s also not devoting much undivided attention to them given the outcome of some of their games lately. As he said, he keeps tabs of the action, but tries not to get too emotionally invested in the outcome given how devastating they’ve become.
“They’re on in the background, let me put it that way. It’s hard to sit there leaning forward into the television set when you know you’re going to get your heart broken. So sometimes you leave them on in the event something crazy happens like we’re ahead by 2 touchdowns with 30 seconds to go, but still, hang on. But generally, these first 2 games, it’s been the same thing, like ‘then in the second half, we’re going to break your heart.’ It’s like okay, okay.”
Detroit has had a tough start to the season in which people demanded and expected more, and Daniels’ own frustration sums up the feelings of Detroit fans perfectly at the moment. Most everybody feels the same way who follows the team closely, and the frustration with the start to the season has been palpable.
That’s true whether you’re an average fan or one of Hollywood’s finest.
Adrian Peterson: Lions Can Make Run
Peterson, even in spite of the tough start, still thinks the Lions can do some damage this season. As he said, there are plenty of games left for the Lions to make a run and start to turn things around. Peterson hinted the team can still finish with a great record when meeting with the media, and laid out the plan moving forward.
As he said, it only involves working hard in the room:
“Taking it was 2 divisional games, that sucks. It put us in the hole, but the good thing is we see those guys again and we can even up the series 1-1. Not looking ahead, but that’s something to keep in mind and it’s a long season. There’s 14 more games out there, but who’s to say we can’t go 14-2? Who to say we won’t go 12-4? There’s a lot of football left, the only thing we can focus on now is correcting the things we did bad and becoming a better team overall.”
Certainly, those records are still out there for the Lions, even though fans and others would be skeptical of them getting that job done in the end. Detroit will face a middle part of the schedule that seems doable after their tough 4 game start to the season. If somehow the Lions could claw back to .500 heading into the bye week, it would go a long way toward proving Peterson’s point and getting things on track.
The Lions are close to that goal than they were a week ago, and their fans deserve the happiness that comes as a result.
READ NEXT: Lions’ Jeff Okudah Nabs First Career Interception