Detroit Lions knew it was ‘win or go home’ against Panthers

The Detroit Lions know the score. They can read the standings. They know the reality of the situation.

They can’t afford many more losses, if any at all, if they hope to keep their slim playoff hopes alive.

“Every week now, week in and week out, our backs are against the wall,” linebacker Jarrad Davis said after Sunday’s 20-19 win over the Carolina Panthers. “That’s it. Our back is against the wall.

“So you’ve got to come out, you’ve got to make it happen by any means. And that’s what we did today. We came out and he had to fight.”

Davis had struggled in pass coverage during the Lions’ three-game losing streak. But Sunday, Davis played very well. He helped stifle the Panthers’ run game and led the Lions with six tackles, including a sack.

“We had to fight,” Davis said. “And we put ourselves in that situation, so now we’ve got to be the ones to get ourselves out of that hole.”

None of the players are calling these game must-wins just yet. They usually reserve that for when they’re faced with the absolute final mathematical certainty of being eliminated. So it was a bit surprising they even acknowledged that entering Sunday’s game at 3-6 there wasn’t much wiggle room.

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“It’s the NFL, the margin for error is slim anyway,” safety Glover Quin said. “We have put ourselves in a situation where we’ve got to win.”

Davis painted a starker picture. He was all emotion Sunday. He did a somersault after his sack and then spoke emphatically and unequivocally about the Lions’ dire situation.

“We knew it was win or go home,” he said. “We’re already down six games. So we’ve got to win. We have to win. And we have to come to work like that every single week.

“Backs against the wall. We’re at our lowest point right now. And if everybody doesn’t get on that train, then we’re not going to be in the picture.”

Davis is right. He didn’t say the Lions have to win out. But he didn’t need to. Everyone can see the standings and see how far the Lions trail the teams in the thick of the playoff hunt. Basically, the Lions have to be flawless and need a lot of teams in front of them to be horrible.

But maybe what the end of this season is really going to be about is players like Davis playing better and at least giving the Lions a chance to win. Davis said it was “embarrassing” to allow teams recently to run the ball on them at will. Those type of words and feelings aren’t evoked often in the NFL. But it was indicative of the mood the Lions have been experiencing recently.

“We needed it,” defensive tackle Ricky Jean Francois said of the win. “We needed to get that taste out of our mouth. We needed that losing taste to leave us because it’s bad walking around, the facility’s quiet, people not enjoying themselves, you don’t see smiles or anything.

“But we’ve got to keep consistently doing this to keep that type of energy in our building, that type of energy on the field.”

Losing is sometimes necessary in the grand scheme. It allows teams to draft great players like Calvin Johnson and Ndamukong Suh. But it never feels good for players, coaches and fans. You definitely don’t see a lot of smiles from anyone while it’s happening.

This is the dilemma for Lions fans. Public sentiment has turned against coach Matt Patricia and general manager Bob Quinn so much that president Rod Wood had to do some damage control by calling both of them “great” in a Sunday morning television interview.

I posted a Twitter poll before the game asking fans to grade Patricia and Quinn. About 40 percent gave them a C and another 40 percent gave them a D or F. After the win, the numbers changed dramatically and 20 percent of fans were giving them a B.

The problem is that you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be unhappy with the regime but expect things to change if they tack on a few more wins at the end of the season.

Give the Lions — executives, coaches and players — full credit for beating Carolina. They deserve it. They played well enough to beat a good team on a bad day.

Maybe they can keep finding ways, even as the injuries pile up, to keep winning. If that happens, maybe that’s enough to prove this regime is the one you actually want, the one that keeps playing hard no matter what’s at stake.

Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.