Getty T.J. Hockenson celebrates a 2022 touchdown in Minnesota.
While many Detroit Lions fans are focusing on the fact that the season is seemingly on the brink again following a 1-4 start, that doesn’t mean players themselves have given up at all.
Tight end T.J. Hockenson was ready to send that message to his team after the frustrating performance. While things may look dark right now, the Lions have plenty of time to find solutions and wins.
Speaking to the media after Detroit’s frustrating 29-0 loss, Hockenson was asked about the message moving forward, and as he said, it’s all about improvement and finding a way to win.
“I mean, listen, we’re five games in. We got 12 left. That’s a whole college season, so we got a lot of time to move this thing to the point where we need to, but we gotta get the first one. That’s just the the message to everybody in here is, ‘hey let’s get the first one and we’ll see where it goes from there,'” he said.
“We got to move forward. It’s something that we have this week to look back, but after this week, it’s here on out, we got to move forward. We got to win some games. We got to move the ball. We got to do a lot, so I’m actually looking forward to this week and and seeing what we can do.”
Finding a way forward to more wins will involve cleaning up some of the messes that have already occurred for the team, and Hockenson knows he is not absolved from that discussion after Week 5.
Hockenson Blanked in Frustrating Week 5
A week after having a career day on the field, Hockenson was shut down completely by the Patriots. He only collected one catch for six yards, and was far from the impactful player he seemed in Week 4.
Afterward, Hockenson simply chose to give credit to New England for finding a very effective way to limit his overall impact on the game given how they chose to play him on the field.
“I mean that’s real tough. That’s a credit to them too, I mean, they’re a very moving front. They do a lot of things up front and then for me, to get out on a route was tough because their ends were just not too worried about the rush and just hammering me. So it was one of those things where we were ready, but it was definitely different for sure,” he said.
After Hockenson’s major week, calls were made to get him more involved as part of the offense. Whether it was New England taking him away or the team looking in different directions, it simply never played out for the Lions in Week 5.
Moving forward, the focus will have to be on finding a way to keep Hockenson engaged for Ben Johnson, the team’s top coordinator.
Hockenson: Lions Have to Analyze Short Yard Struggle
While most folks were pointing the finger at Dan Campbell for his erratic decision making on fourth down after the game, Hockenson took a different approach. He blamed the offense for not being able to execute on the field.
“That’s obviously something that you need to get as an offense. That’s something we pride ourselves in is coach trusting us to get it on third down, fourth down and when you’re not able to do that, (it hurts),” he said. “Everybody in here wants to win. We have a lot of winners on our team, we have a lot of guys that have come from winning programs. We’ve got a lot of guys that just want to win so bad and when it doesn’t work, it just weighs heavy. When you don’t convert, it weighs heavy but you just have to move on.”
Part of moving on involves finding a new way forward for the Lions. That will be the goal now for the team, and as he said, the Lions just need to find a way to make things happen when called upon to step up.
“Early in the game, it’s like ‘alright, hey we got the next one, we got the next one.’ Then we just need to do it. That’s easy to talk about, it’s harder to do. That’s something that we’re gonna look at for sure,” he said.
As Hockenson seems to know, the Lions have to stay in the moment and find a way through their troubles. There’s plenty of time left to do this for the team, providing they can get themselves over the hump.
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