DETROIT – On the surface, a three-game winning streak doesn’t necessarily mean much in the NFL.
The Detroit Lions won three games in a row twice last season and didn’t make the playoffs. They had a pair of three-game streaks in 2015 before finishing 7-9. Even the 2010 Lions -- just two years removed from going 0-16 -- ripped off four straight wins after starting the year 2-10.
Sometimes mediocre teams win three games in a row. But that’s not what’s going on with these Lions.
Nope, this is different.
The Lions haven’t just won three games in a row. They’ve embarrassed three straight rosters full of professional athletes. Two of those teams consider themselves playoff contenders, but they didn’t even belong on the same field as the Lions.
That doesn’t happen very often in the NFL.
It started with the Atlanta Falcons, a team that came to Detroit with a 2-0 record. The Falcons thrive off of running the football with bruising backs Bijan Robinson and Tyler Allgeier.
Well, the Lions weren’t intimidated, even after their disappointing loss to the Seahawks the previous week. The Falcons gained just 183 total yards, averaged 2.2 yards per rush, and failed to reach the end zone in their game against the Lions.
The 20-6 final score doesn’t do justice to how dominant Detroit was in that game.
Then, the next week, the Lions went on the road to one of the most iconic venues in the sport, Lambeau Field, to take on a division rival with first place on the line. The stakes don’t get much higher than that, right?
It was hard to tell if you watched from the Green Bay Packers’ perspective. The Lions scored on four straight drives going into halftime to take a 24-3 lead and had Cheeseheads booing their team into the locker room.
By the end of the night, the Lions had racked up 401 yards of total offense while holding the Packers to 230. They made Green Bay look completely outmatched in the trenches, hitting the quarterback 11 times on defense while rushing for 4.9 yards per carry on offense.
Once again, the Lions won by 14, but once again, the game was never really that close.
Sunday was a similarly dominant effort, though a pair of meaningless touchdown drives in garbage time helped the Panthers make it look much more respectable.
The Lions looked like the Kings of the Jungle, playing with their food until it was time to feast. Bait the rookie quarterback into a deep ball just so Jerry Jacobs can pick it off? Cool. Double reverse flea flicker just for the heck of it? Why not!
Detroit did whatever it wanted to the Panthers on both sides of the ball. Heading into the fourth quarter, the Lions led 35-10 and had held the Panthers under 200 yards of total offense.
There’s a segment of the fan base that’s waiting for reality to kick in, for the Same Old Lions to pop out of the shadows and snatch this newfound happiness from their grasp.
That simply isn’t going to happen. Teams can fake their way into a few wins in the NFL -- just look at what the Vikings did all of last season. But there’s no faking what the Lions have done to the Falcons, Packers, and Panthers the past three weeks.
It takes a really good team to make professional football players look so overmatched.
The schedule is about to get much tougher, and the Lions aren’t going to finish the season 16-1. But it couldn’t be more obvious that Detroit has a legitimate Super Bowl contender for the first time in decades.