I have been following NFL football for nearly two decades. I have never seen what the NFC heavyweight Detroit Lions accomplished on Sunday against the lowly Tennessee Titans.
After Detroit’s 52-14 win was cemented into the scoring books, I’m definitely not alone in that regard.
The Lions scored 52 points and had just 225 yards of offense. That is not a typo. They converted only three third downs on offense, but they somehow scored 50-plus points anyway. That’s because the Lions had nearly 300 combined kick and punt return yards, while punter Jack Fox dominated the field position battle by averaging 60 yards a punt.
Despite doing almost nothing on offense, this was officially the best scoring output for the Lions in decades. Ah, the power of the glorious third phase:
The @Lions have scored 50 points in a game for the fourth time in team history, and first time since Nov. 27, 1997.#OnePride pic.twitter.com/xQYjZXFYrA
— Detroit Lions PR (@LionsPR) October 27, 2024
As crazy as this offense-to-point statistic is, it wasn’t even the most unbelievable Detroit outcome of the day. With Jared Goff finishing with less than 100 net passing yards, the Lions officially became the first NFL team to score at least 50 points with almost no passing production since 1955.
Eat your heart out, old-school Chicago Bears:
Detroit currently has 52 points, and 55 net passing yards.
The last team to put up 50+ points with less than 100 passing yards was the Bears….in 1955.
— Brett Kollmann (@BrettKollmann) October 27, 2024
Man. Do you know what the lesson is here? Don’t mess with these Lions.