Sad sacks — Lions offer up Stafford for sacrifice

A pattern of futility

“We were just inept for a stretch,” Lions coach Jim Caldwell said. That’s accurate.

But it was a long stretch.

It basically started after the first quarter. The Lions had two nice drives, scoring consecutive touchdowns by mixing up plays, using misdirection, everything they had been criticized for lacking in recent losses. They had the Vikings on their heels.

But then Minnesota adjusted. That’s what good teams do. They see what you’re doing, they call schemes of their own. The Vikings sacked Stafford on his first drive of the second quarter. Detroit punted.

They did it again on the next drive. The Lions settled for a field goal.

They did it on the next drive. The Lions punted.

You get the pattern.

A 17-6 lead became a 28-19 loss. The Lions went pointless the last 35 minutes. They seemed to have one page in their playbook, and once the Vikings ate it, they were like campers without a tent. Series after series, they exited quickly, with Stafford gamely trudging off the field.

“It’s nerve-racking as a receiver because your quarterback is on the ground so much,” Golden Tate said. “You keep getting hit like that, one of these times he’s not going to get up.”

Exactly.

The road to nowhere

Now this begins with the offensive line, obviously, but it’s not just that. Running backs missed assignments. Tight ends and receivers, too. Mostly, the blame falls on the staff, which simply got embarrassed. The Vikings toyed with the Lions, showing blitz, bringing it, not bringing it, sending linebackers or safeties. The Lions looks liked kids lost in the middle of a parade.

“We kind of figured out what they were doing,” said Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway. “Our coaching staff does a great job doing that.”

What’s worse, the Vikings beat the Lions this way in Week 2, jangling Stafford’s ribs in the process. The onus was on the Detroit brain trust to keep a repeat from happening Sunday afternoon.

Instead, on Detroit’s home field, it was even worse. Whenever there was a glimmer of hope, the Lions shot themselves in the toes. A third-down penalty kept a Vikings scoring drive alive. A dumb step out of bounds by Eric Ebron added time to a Minnesota end-of-the-half drive. The Lions defense would stop, stop, then let up a huge play — like a 75-yard run by Adrian Peterson.

Late in the game, the Lions sprung to life like a creature on Dr. Frankenstein’s table, and actually had four chances to punch it in from the 1 for a possible touchdown and onside kick. Four chances — and they couldn’t get in! Two of the hand-offs went to George Winn and Michael Burton, hardly regulars in the offense.

“Two of our brutes,” Caldwell explained.

Not compared to the ones in purple.

You don’t need film. You don’t need highlights. This is a too-familiar script in a too-familiar franchise, and the promise of something new is fading rapidly into the muck of the old.

Someone asked Caldwell whether next week’s game in London might be some sort of escape.

“There’s no escape in our game,” he said.

Tell us something we didn’t know.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at mitchalbom.com. Catch “The Mitch Albom Show” 5-7 p.m. weekdays on WJR-AM (760). Follow him on Twitter @mitchalbom. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/mitch-albom.