Detroit Lions win, end 19 game losing streak

For the first time since December 23rd, 2007 the Detroit Lions have won a NFL regular season game. They went on a streak of losing 19th straight regular season games which ties them for the second longest losing streak in the NFL. For the team, and its fans, finally the losing streak is over. The Lions showed, flashes of the team they want to become today taking it to the hapless Washington Redskins and wining 19-14. While they are still a bad football team, at the very least they are better then a year ago when they went winless.

There are a lot of good things the Lions organization can take away from this game. The most important of them being the play of rookie QB Matthew Stafford. Through his first two games Stafford showed little promise or ability to justify his overall number one pick draft status or the guaranteed 42 million dollars the Lions will pay him. In today’s game Stafford came through with a pretty good, just bordering on great performance.

While Stafford is still having accuracy issues, his game stats for Sunday were very good. Stafford went 21 of 36 for 241 yards and a touchdown. More importantly he did not throw an interception and his play with 2:33 to go was one of the best of his young career. Matthew his WR Will Heller for a 24 yard completion that iced this game for the Lions.

On top of that, Lions RB Kevin Smith rushed fro his third career 100 yard game, so the Lions offense is starting to come together and their defense was able to shut down the Redskin attack for the entire first half. While this does not make them a great team, it is a giant step in the right direction.