Of all the times for this team to try and be aggressive, this has to rank among the worst. But Sunday's loss can hardly be hung on the shoulders of Sam Martin.
That said, it may have been a bad idea, or at the least a bad time to attempt it. But the fake field goal that resulted in the punter attempting to run the ball on 4th and 5 and failing miserably at it was hardly the deciding factor behind the Lions' 37-27 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
It was a bad call on the part of Jim Schwartz, certainly, but not for the reasons most would suggest. Conventional wisdom says you always take the points on the road, but that doesn't account for weather conditions being less than favorable, nor a kicker that barely hit a 35-yarder earlier in the game.
No, the problem in my mind isn't going for it on 4th down. It's putting the ball in the hands of a guy who has never run the ball and clearly has no business running the ball, on a day where even guys who are getting paid to run the ball are struggling to hold on to it. Even had it not been for the fumble, Martin still would have come up short.
Which brings us to one of the big culprits behind this loss: The fact that nobody could hold on to the ball to save their lives. Jeremy Ross and Kevin Ogletree dropped what should have been easily caught passes. Reggie Bush struggled the entire game to hold onto the ball, getting benched for rookie Theo Riddick in the 4th quarter. Obviously, field conditions didn't help much there, but this has been an ongoing problem for Bush all season; he has had more drops and fumbles than any other tailback in the league this year.
Matthew Stafford isn't entirely absolved of blame here, either; for as much as he threw perfect passes to Ross and Ogletree only to see them dropped, there is one particularly bad pass that stands out: an under-thrown ball to a wide-open Calvin Johnson that ended up being picked off by Will Allen, which resulted in the Steelers extending their lead.
But it was the one thing that was the biggest concern going into Sunday's game which proved to be the Lions' undoing in the end: the pass defense, or lack thereof. Even for a team which has allowed it's quarterback to be sacked the second-most of any in the league, due in large part to Ben Roethlisberger's tendency to hold onto the ball for too long and an O-line being held together with little more than paper clips and chewing gum, the Lions failed to exploit this, managing only one sack on Sunday.
The secondary continues to be the most glaring weakness on this team, allowing an 8th receiver this season, Antonio Brown, to rack up 100 yards against them. And Roethlisberger's stats speak for themselves: 367 yards, 4 TD's, and no interceptions, with a season-high 119.4 passer rating. Entirely inexcusable, and it's a weakness that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later if this team intends to do anything in the playoffs this year.
All in all, there's still plenty of time for most of these issues to be taken care of, and keep in mind: For all their flaws, and all the fans repeating the "Same Old Lions" mantra (I picture these people sitting around pining for Wayne Fontes, listening to the Smiths, and thinking about how bleak and meaningless their lives are), this team is still first place in the NFC North. Next week brings in the abysmal Tampa Bay Buccaneers to Ford Field. If ever there were a must-win game for this team, this is undoubtedly it. As it stands, the odds of the Lions winning the division are still fairly favorable, but not if they lose yet another game that clearly they should win.
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