What we learned in Week 15: The Lions are lesser gods of chaos, Titans are untrustable, and Tyler Huntley? Pretty good.
The Detroit Lions were a 13.5-point underdog, at home, against the Arizona Cardinals Sunday morning. It was a line that made sense; Detroit was 1-11-1 on the season. The Cardinals were in contention for the NFC’s top seed.
And yet, Arizona was the team in Michigan looking like the team whose high points on the year were beating Kirk Cousins and memes about biting kneecaps. The Cardinals fell behind by double-digits early and never recovered in a 30-12 loss.
The Lions came away with the upset of the year by flying to the ball on defense and torching a top five defense for its most points scored since Week 1. The Cardinals’ 12 points were their lowest scoring output under Kyler Murray in 2021.
Murray had an opportunity to throw himself into the spotlight of this year’s MVP race. Instead he was soundly outplayed by Jared Goff:
Detroit seemed to know where Murray’s passes were going each time he dropped back to pass. Seven of his 41 attempts were swatted down in coverage. He completed all 10 of his pass attempts at or behind the line of scrimmage for 73 yards and was just 13 for 31 for 184 yards and a 59.1 passer rating when he turned his sights at least one yard downfield.
This wasn’t the product of getting chased by Aaron Donald or throwing into Jalen Ramsey’s coverage. This was an effort led by Charles Harris, AJ Parker, and Amani Oruwariye.
Unsung heroes came through on the other side of the ball as well. Craig Reynolds came into the season as Detroit’s fifth-string running back. He was called back up from the practice squad this week after rushing for 83 yards in his Lions debut the week prior. He responded with 112 yards on 26 carries — more than doubling his career totals over his previous 2.5 seasons in the league.
Goff spent the bulk of 2021 justifying the Rams’ decision to trade him away but had his finest game of the season. Two of this three touchdown passes traveled more than 20 yards downfield.
Those two deep balls went to fourth-round pick Amon-Ra St. Brown and recent Titans castoff Josh Reynolds, who combined for 14 catches (on 17 targets) and 158 receiving yards. The third touchdown came from fullback and special teams ace Jason Cabinda, who doubled his season count for receptions in the process.
The Cardinals, formerly 10-3, lost a game in which 80 percent of their opponents’ offense came from three guys who were either available to claim off waivers this fall or in the first 111 picks of last spring’s draft.
Fortunately for Arizona, there’s a silver lining to the loss that dropped it to fourth in the NFC’s pecking order. Teams in their position that lost to the worst team in the league have gone on to win the Super Bowl 100 percent of the time.
Kliff Kingsbury: playing chess while the rest of the league aligns its checkers.