Game 14: Lions at Oakland Raiders

Megafantastic.

It's been awhile since the Lions had me literally on the edge of my seat at the end of a game. Today's 28-27 win over the Oakland Raiders was just such a game. I would like to thank Suh and his Suh sized thumb for catching a piece of that football while it was on it's way for what would've been an NFL record long field goal (and a win). What a fantastic play.

The Lions were down 14-27 well past the halfway mark of the 4th quarter when another fantastic player took the conservative gloves off and starting driving his team down the field. Stafford ended up 29 of 52 for 391 yards and 4 TD's. That puts him at 33 TD's so far on the year and THAT makes him the quarterback with the most TD's in a season ever for the Detroit Lions (topping the former record holder Scott Mitchell who's 1995 record of 32 is now in 2nd place). Plus there are still 2 more games to play... time to set that bar higher!

Matt Stafford also garnered enough yards to leap Kitna's 2007 yardage record putting him in 3rd place, behind only Kitna's 2006 and Mitchell's 1995 yardage records. My math tells me that Stafford needs only 64 yards to get into 2nd place and 194 yards to take over 1st place. Basically, this means that after next weekends game against the Chargers Matthew Stafford will hold both the yardage and touchdown records for one season for a Lions Quarterback (all time) and he is only 23 years of age. Fantastic!

Several of the receivers dropped passes in the final minutes of the game but eventually the true stars of the game (if not the team) started making the plays needed to score points. Megatron (Calvin Johnson) eventually took over all the clutch duties as he finishes the game with 9 receptions for 214 yards and 2 TD's. Most of those fantastic plays were in the final 5 minutes of the game. It's enough yards to rank 3rd most in Lions franchise history and it was the highest total since Richard Johnson had 248 in 1989. Megatron is only 1 TD behind the record best Wide Receiver in Lions history with the most TDs in a single season (Cloyce Box has 15 and the record he set back in 1952). While CJ may break the single season TD record for a Lions WR he is quite a ways behind the yardage record holder, Herman Moore, who set that bar in 1995 with 1686 yards (CJ is currently at 1335 and is now in 4th place behind Herman Moore, Brett Perriman and Germane Crowell).

Jason Hanson kicked all 4 extra points and didn't get a chance to kick any field goals, but he too set a mega-record when he became only the 6th player in NFL History with 2,000 career points. He is the first player to score 2,000 points with 1 franchise. He is also the only player on the Lions roster originally drafted by the Lions who has had a winning season before this year. The Lions are at 9-5, their first winning season since 1999, and the first winning season for guys like Backus, Raiola, and all the rest. Their first winning season in the NFL, ever. That's MEGA-Fantastic!

The team is also setting records, for example, the Lions are the first team in NFL history to come back and win 4 games when down 13(+) points in 1 season.

By the way, if there are any Lions you'd like to see go to the probowl the voting ends Monday Night (19th of December) at http://www.NFL.com/probowl

The Lions now have a 2 game lead over the other teams looking to make the playoffs with the wildcard designation... with only 2 games left they can clinch their spot with one more win. Due to some tiebreaker they have and some they do not they are not yet guaranteed to make the playoffs at 9-7, but they are very very close. If the season ended today they'd have to play their first playoff game in 13 years on the left coast against the San Fransisco 49ers, doesn't that bring back some other 1990ish like memories?

Be that as it may, the next game is in Detroit against the San Diego Chargers who just won a few minutes ago against the Ravens and who are notorious for winning in December, then again, the Lions last regular season game is against the Packers at Lambeau Field, so it's up to the fans to be loud ALL GAME LONG next weekend!!! I don't care what the score is or who did what wrong, the Chargers must be continually harassed by the Detroit Lions Fans all game long. It is CRITICAL!

Let's all give ourselves a Mega-Fantastic Christmas and help the Lions make the playoffs next Saturday!