The Lions were eliminated from the playoff hunt in humiliating fashion on Sunday when they failed to protect their home field against a bad Giants team and lost 23-20 in overtime.
That made five losses in six games for the Lions, so it’s not like the need to play better came out of left field in Detroit. Despite the fact that the Lions had no future without a win on Sunday, linebacker DeAndre Levy said that he thinks the team got caught looking past the Giants.
“I think we just got ahead of ourselves and we created a situation,” Levy said, via MLive.com. “I think we thought, being in the position we were in, we thought it would be handed to us. As players, we’ve got to tighten up, we’ve got to approach every game one game at a time.”
Levy also said he felt the team’s veteran leaders were responsible for the team’s lack of focus in Week 16. It’s a similar note to the one that running back Reggie Bush sounded last week about the team’s lack of discipline falling on players instead of on coach Jim Schwartz. The loyalty is all well and good, but things like discipline and focus very much fall into the column of a head coach’s responsibility. That would explain why Schwartz’s future in Detroit looks bleak with one game left in the season.