In the NFL, you don’t expect to be playing your best ball in Week 1, but you also don’t want to come out so flat that you kill the vibes and start with a loss. For the Detroit Lions, they did what great teams do. They didn’t play their best game—not even close—but they found a way to scrape by and secure a win anyway.
If they want to make another postseason run this year, there is a lot that the Lions need to clean up, but it’s very early, and coach Dan Campbell is aware that they’ve got a lot of work to do.