The Detroit Lions have found plenty of ways to lose in their history, but suddenly, the 2022 team is finding ways to win.
During Week 15, Detroit gritted out a game where they struggled most of the day. Offensively, the Lions only put up 359 yards and scored one touchdown. Defensively, they allowed a struggling Zach Wilson to throw two touchdown passes against them.
Yet still, Detroit was in position to win in the fourth quarter, and they never wavered. From a big play on fourth down to Brock Wright for the lead, to a clutch sack in the moment for the defense leading to a missed field goal, nearly everything went right that usually goes wrong.
As center Frank Ragnow explained to the media on Sunday, December 18, there’s been a change in mindset which has led to this explosion. Now, the Lions know how to close all kinds of games, which is an asset that helps them be the winners they have felt like they could become.
“It feels like so many times in the years past where we find a way to lose, and I think good teams really learn how to win. We’re finding ways to win when it isn’t pretty, and that kind of says a lot about this team and this culture,” he told the media afterward.
In terms of where the team is at mentally, Ragnow went on to make a pretty bold statement. As he said, he thinks the Lions have now arrived in terms of finding a way to win close games and believe they can and will get the job done in crunch time.
“I think we’re there, yeah. We’re going to each game expecting the win for sure, but at the end of the game, there is definitely a confidence about us on that last drive like, ‘hey we’re going to go down (and) we’re going to do this,'” Ragnow said to the media.
Teams in the past may have collapsed late, but this team has managed to come out the other side after taking notable lumps in 2021 as well as early in the 2022 season.
That could prove Ragnow’s point correct in the end, and it’s very clear listening to their veteran leader that the squad is brimming with confidence. That’s only more the case listening to Dan Campbell.
Dan Campbell: Lions Players Now Believers
What is the secret for this run? According to Campbell, the Lions have had to discover plenty of ways to win recently, which has led to them developing some much-needed confidence in crunch time.
Speaking after the game, Campbell admitted the gritty, unseemly victory represented yet another big growth moment for the team considering how it happened and what had to play out for it to happen.
“A win feels great. The guys, they believe,” he told the media afterward. “They believe and now, here we go, this is it’s another win but it was a different way to win, and we had to find a different way to win. Another way to win. Every time that happens, you just continue to grow and you start figuring things out and your confidence grows.”
As Ragnow himself said, the team’s confidence is brimming, and as a result, they could be poised to do some big damage down the stretch.
Ragnow: ‘Something There’ With Lions’ Confidence
Describing how a team knows they are suddenly geared to win games can be tough for a player to quantify, but it’s clear that Ragnow seems to know it when he sees it from his squad.
A big reason for that? He’s been in locker rooms where teams haven’t got the job done consistently in crunch time. As he said, there was a special feeling in the huddle near the end of the game that the mission was going to be accomplished.
“There’s been a lot of games in my career in years past where we found a way to to make the mistake to lose that game and for us to kind of go in that huddle and march down the field and kind of feel like ‘hey we’re gonna go win this thing,’ it’s kind of hard to describe, right? But there is definitely something there,” Ragnow admitted.
Sometimes, it seems as if winning is a simple matter of confidence. The Lions keep seeing themselves get the job done, and as a result, the ball is rolling in a big way.
If the Lions are truthfully over the hump with figuring out how to win as Ragnow and Campbell seem to think, that could mean exciting times ahead for the franchise.
Lions Grinder Believes Team Over Confidence Hump: ‘We’re There’