Lions Beat Redskins 37-25

It was a game filled with exciting moments. A game filled with times of aggravation. You will find fans who will sound as if the Lions played awesome and fans who can do nothing but complain about what the Lions did wrong. In the end however, the Detroit Lions beat the Washington Redskins for a second year in a row.

It was Matthew Stafford's first game back and his numbers look pretty good. Throwing for 212 yards and one interception, he also had 4 touchdown passes. Stafford was erratic. He had passes behind his receivers and well over their heads. Twice he tucked the ball down and could have gotten a first down if he would have continued to run but instead he stopped at the line of scrimmage and threw it for an incompletion. He was inaccurate enough that I wonder if he might have taken a step backwards in his development as he looked more like he did last year than he did in the preseason. But in the end, he was accurate when he needed to be and connected for 4 touchdown passes.

Calvin Johnson continued his recent roll of tearing up defenses. With 9 catches and 101 yards, Johnson added another 3 touchdowns to his season totals, bring it to 8 touchdowns for the year. Johnson has now had touchdowns in 4 continuous games in which he has had a total of 7 in that time.

As impressive as Stafford's 4 touchdowns is, or Johnson's 3 receiving touchdowns is, they were not the true stars of the game. The Lions defensive line came off the bye week and simply dominated from start to finish. Kyle Vanden Bosch, Cliff Avril, and Suh all had two sacks, but it was Ndamukong Suh that topped them both as his 2 sacks brought his total to 6.6 on the year and he added a fumble recovery he returned for a touchdown to put the game away as well.

Suh has been astounding the entire season, on pace to have one of the best seasons ever for a rookie if he was a defensive end. To be a defensive tackle and do what he is doing is simply amazing. It is hard to believe that there were actually Lions fans who wanted them to draft Gerald McCoy over Ndamukong Suh.

For the most part the Lions defense dominated Washington's offense. The Lions offense had its moments of good as well as looking pretty lethargic again. Yet the only reason this game was even close was the terrible play of the Detroit special teams as they could not cover Brandon Banks on returns. Banks had 2 punt returns for over 20 yards and three of his kick returns were for 46 yards, 96 yards for a touchdown, and 27 yards. Due to the lack of coverage skills, the Redskins started far too many drives in Lions territory.

All in all however, it was a good game to start the second half of the season after the bye-week. Stafford made some good plays, the defense looked solid and it gives the fans hope for more wins to come.