Game recap: Detroit Lions 28, New Orleans Saints 13

You can even remove the three interceptions and the Detroit defense did their job well. The Lions saw on film that Bell would sometimes peek inside, and wouldn’t get all the way over the top to help along the sideline.

DETROIT is 1-11 ATS in road games after having won 6 or 7 out of their last 8 games.

When the Saints weren’t shooting themselves in both feet, the Lions were covering their receivers better than any team all year.

Overall, Sunday’s game was one of the best, if not the best, games the Lions have played this 2016-17 season. The Lions went for two but failed, due to an incomplete pass, to maintain their 12-point lead.

And how could anyone forget the touchdown to Tate, a delicately placed touch pass while being pelted by a 300lb lineman in the biggest moment of the game? “He’s just got that playmaking ability in critical situations”.

The Saints were back to 11 personnel (one back, one tight end) on two-thirds of their snaps, after featuring more two-and-three tight sets in recent weeks. With Marvin Jones ruled out for the Lions, he could be extremely active in the team’s passing attack in Week 13.

This Saints team was coming off of 49 points against what was supposed to be a formidable Rams defense, so looking at this game ahead of time everyone thought the same thing.

In the final seconds of the second quarter, Brees hit Coby Fleener in the hands at the goal line with a strike over the middle. “I knew that really from the first time I met him and I talked to him about football”, Stafford explained.

Brees admitted that he tried to force the ball too much.

The Lions improved to 8-4 on the season. The Lions used their next possession to run down the clock to under three minutes. That led to a 27-yard field goal by Prater to make it 19-6 with 1:42 to play in the third quarter. He made an exceptional 66-yard catch to score a touchdown early in the fourth quarter. Hill is a great low-priced pick this week as the Falcons shouldn’t have trouble putting up points, so Kansas City will have to throw the ball. Stafford’s pass to T.J. Jones on a 2-point attempt fell incomplete. After the New Orleans Saints dropped the dreaded “turd in the punch bowl” game on an unsuspecting Mercedes Benz Superdome crowd, she proved moms are always right.

Lions 28-13: Detroit took over with great field position due to a poor punt by Thomas Morstead. They need a big win to get closer to the Falcons in the NFC South race. A’Shawn Robinson and Haloti Ngata each batted down a pass intended for an open receiver, Ziggy Ansah and Ngata blew up a screen pass, and Robinson and Kerry Hyder each made plays to stop a pair of screens for short gains.

This was a statement game for the Lions defense. Neither team was committed to the ground game, as the leading rusher on the day was the Lions’ Zach Zenner with 40 yards on nine carries. I continued to believe the defense wasn’t for real and the offense would eventually be bogged down by a complete lack of a running game.

“He’s surprisingly athletic”, said Saints rookie defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins, a first-round pick out of Louisville who faced Winston when he was at Florida State. The next play was a screen to Travaris Cadet that brought the Saints all the way down to the Lions’ 26.