Open thread: What is your biggest concern with the Lions going forward?

After the loss to the Packers on Thanksgiving, the Lions have six regular season games left before the playoffs begin. What is your biggest concern as they approach the home stretch?

Well, that was a wild week of football for the Detroit Lions. Two really sloppy games in a span of five days. One miraculous comeback victory against the Chicago Bears in the final minutes of the game, and one pretty ugly loss to the Green Bay Packers on Thanksgiving day leaves the Lions at 8-3 and atop the NFC North standings.

Part of me is leaning on the fact that this is the NFL, and any team can beat anyone on any given Sunday. With that said, there have been elements of the Lions’ play over the last two games that are pretty concerning—especially when you consider that they are currently jockeying for playoff seeding in the NFC.

Sure, the defense had its issues against the Los Angeles Chargers, Bears, and Packers. They aren’t pressuring opposing quarterbacks enough, and receivers are finding plenty of room to operate against a Lions’ secondary that is undermanned due to injuries to the likes of C.J. Gardner-Johnson and Emmanuel Moseley.

Offensively the Lions have had issues the last two games at finding a rhythm, and turnovers have routinely put the defense in tough situations.

Today’s Question of the Day is:

What is your biggest concern with the Lions over the last six weeks of the regular season?

My Answer: To me, this answer has to be Lions’ quarterback Jared Goff. Don’t get me wrong, he looked terrific in the win over the Chargers. He and the rest of the offense were the reason the Lions were able to leave Los Angeles with a win. But similarly to most of the games Goff thrives in, the Chargers didn’t make things difficult on him. They rarely generated pressure, allowing Goff to operate comfortably from the pocket.

Against the Bears and the Packers, that changed big time. Both defenses were able to hurry Goff, and in doing so, forced Goff into making several errors. Three interceptions against the Bears (should have probably been four or five), and three fumbles lost against the Packers.

Six turnovers in two weeks is too much for just about any quarterback. And for a veteran like Goff, it is simply inexcusable.

Some of the bad habits we saw in 2021 and the beginning of 2022 have been showing back up. Panicking under pressure, throwing ill-advised passes, attempting to scramble, and being loose with the football which led to the fumbles.

Even through his stretch of near-dominant play dating back to the second half of 2022 and the first half of 2023, I always wondered how Goff would handle these moments when they came. As great as the Lions’ offensive line is, they are going to have off days, or at the very least—days when they can’t keep Goff perfectly clean.

He still has too many moments like this where he panics under pressure, and as much as I love offensive coordinator Ben Johnson’s system—once in a while, Goff is going to have to make a play outside of structure. Things aren’t going to be perfect all of the time because this is the NFL, and not everything is going to go according to plan every single snap.

After the aforementioned injuries suffered to the Lions’ defense earlier in the year, we knew that if this team was going to make a deep postseason push—it was likely going to be on the backs of their high-powered offense. And for the record, I still think that is very possible,

But for that to happen, the Lions’ offense—led by their veteran quarterback—has to start limiting turnovers again and get back to their efficient ways.

What about you? What is your biggest concern with the Lions over the last six weeks of the regular season? Let us know in the comments by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.