The Detroit Lions haven’t won back-to-back games in more than a year − since they won four straight after dropping their opener last September − and Dan Campbell said that needs to change if his team is going to accomplish its goals this fall.
“Yeah, I mean, that's tough, man,” Campbell said. “You don't want to do this roller coaster. It can get frustrating. And inevitably, if we really want to be the team we need to be – that we need to be, we want to be − you've got to win back-to-back games, man. And you’ve got to do it more than once a year.”
For most of Campbell’s tenure in Detroit, the Lions have had no problem stringing together wins.
They won three straight twice in the second half of 2022 season as part of an 8-2 finish, had winning streaks
of two, three and four games in 2023, and won a franchise-record 11 straight on the way to a 15-2 record in 2024.
But consistency has been a problem this season, with the Lions alternating wins and losses apart from a three-game losing streak that cost them a playoff spot last December.
This year, the Lions opened with a too-close-for-comfort win over the New Orleans Saints in their opener, lost on the road in Week 2 to the Buffalo Bills, bounced back to beat the New York Jets at home and followed with a loss to the Carolina Panthers and win over the Arizona Cardinals before the bye.
If the Lions (3-2) can stack wins together the next few weeks, they’ll play themselves into contention in the NFC North and set themselves up nicely for a playoff spot.
One of just seven teams with a winning record in the NFC, the Lions host the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings in key division games the next two weeks, then visit the Miami Dolphins, one of two remaining winless teams in the NFL (along with the Los Angeles Chargers).
“Every winning team I've been a part of, you start stacking wins and even after a loss, you'll stack a couple more,” Campbell said. “So we've got to find that again, see if we can get these back-to-back wins. We're capable. We’ve just got to play 60 minutes of football. And we've got to play better than we did at Arizona, that's the truth, versus these guys. We're going to have to play a lot better, and we can and we should.”
Ready for Jacobs
Packers running back Josh Jacobs had his pseudo suspension lifted Monday, Oct. 19, and could make his season debut this week against the Lions.
Jacobs did not play the first six games of this season while the NFL investigated his role in a domestic violence incident. The Packers (4-2) have a one-game exemption before they need to add him to the active roster.
Green Bay currently ranks last in the NFL in rushing at 59.8 yards per game. Campbell said Jacobs’ potential return this week won’t dramatically impact how the Packers run the ball, but it will influence the volume and tenor of their running game.
“Just having him brings a different element,” Campbell said. “There's a kind of a downhill explosive element that'll certainly help. So I think more than that it's just about understanding that [if] he plays, the attitude that it'll bring and we can't let him get going. They just call it a little bit more than they have, probably.”
Jacobs has averaged 4.2 yards per carry his two seasons in Green Bay and ran for 2,258 yards and 28 touchdowns the past two years.
MarShawn Lloyd leads the Packers with 122 yards on 48 carries (2.5 ypc) this season.
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Going streaking? Detroit Lions looking for first back-to-back wins in over a year
