Lions center Dominic Raiola says his team still has a chance to make the playoffs, despite a 4-5 start. And he doesn’t appreciate suggestions otherwise.
“I think what makes me upset more is people are writing us off because of whatever,” Raiola told the Detroit Free Press. “But then the Saints are 4-5 and they’re right in the hunt. How the [bleep] does that work out? I don’t know. Whatever. We’re 4-5, too. So they’re basically writing us off.”
There are a couple of flaws in Raiola’s reasoning. For starters, not many people are actually predicting that the Saints are going to make the playoffs. People are saying the Saints are playing better now than they did at the start of the season, but no one thinks the Saints are going to catch the Falcons in the NFC South, and few people think the Saints are going to pass all the teams in front of them in the wild card race, either.
Furthermore, the Lions’ schedule over the last seven games is brutal, with six games remaining against teams with winning records. The easier portion of the Lions’ schedule is already behind them, and if they couldn’t emerge from the start of the season with a winning record, it seems unlikely that they’re going to experience a dramatic turnaround over the last seven weeks.
But if Raiola wants everyone to stop writing the Lions off, there’s a simple thing he and his teammates can do over the next week: Beat the Packers on Sunday, then beat the Texans on Thanksgiving. Do that, and everyone will start talking about how the Lions are a 6-5 playoff contender.