Dan Campbell knew what this was by halftime. He barked it into the CBS cameras.

“We gotta calm down … and then we GOTTA GO! We can’t be messing around!”

Exactly. When playing a team that is 1-6, a good team often finds itself inexplicably fumbling and bumbling. It’s like when you can’t get that first piece of plastic to peel off the box. You start normal, then you try your fingernails, then you get frustrated, and you wind up screaming to yourself, “Why is this so damn hard?”

That was the Detroit Lions for much of Sunday’s game in Miami against the low-win but high-effort Dolphins. Detroit’s first drive used up nearly seven minutes but ended with a sack of Jared Goff on third-and-goal. A field goal had to suffice.

Their second drive ended in an interception, when Goff was pressured and a defender hit his arm as he tried to pass.

Their third drive ended with a punt.

Their fourth drive, after starting with great field position, fizzled when Jahmyr Gibbs was yanked down twice in a row for three-yard losses and Goff was pressured into a scramble.

Another field goal.

The NFL’s highest-flying offense was hovering very close to the ground.

Fortunately, Miami couldn’t take advantage. They punted twice, notched a field goal, and wasted an 11-play drive with a doink off the uprights by their kicker, Zane Gonzalez.

Halftime ended at Lions 6, Miami 3. Which is what led Campbell to his “we can’t be messing around” critique, which I’m sure he delivered in the locker room with a fervor that would have scared the average TV viewer.

And eventually, they did stop messing around. And they finally brought home a 19-9 win that may have certain critics attacking them for, well, not being able to get the plastic off a box faster than that.

They’d be wrong.

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Settling in

Remember, this is a team coming off an emotional injury to one of their most beloved and important players, linebacker Jack Campbell. It swirled around practice all week. When one football player sees another football player face down and not moving, it stays with them − believe me. Dealing with Campbell’s health uncertainly, then getting a positive message from him midweek, then having to focus on an opponent that should be easy to beat … well, all that is a perfect recipe for the old trap game, where you go home shaking your head saying, “How did we lose to them?”

That didn’t happen Sunday against the Dolphins, and the Lions first deserve credit for that. Four plays into the second half, safety Chuck Clark snagged a Malik Willis pass and turned into a running back, cutting angles and using blocks. He returned the ball 34 yards to the Miami 26. For a maligned secondary, it was a sweet moment and a turnaround, one that invoked Campbell’s “no more messing around.”

The Lions scored points on their ensuring drive, and their next drive, and their next, and Jared Goff, on a subpar day, hit just enough of a string of big passes. And Jahmyr Gibbs, on a subpar day, scooted past everyone for an eight-yard TD, the only touchdown in the game. And Jake Bates, after a subpar kickoff that was like watching a blimp go down, made all four field goal attempts. And next thing you knew, the Lions had the ball and a 19-9 lead. All they had to do was keep possession, and they did, with Goff executing a quarterback sneak on a fourth-and-1 with under two minutes to play – Detroit’s fourth out of four fourth down tries.

That’s a lot of fours.

“I thought [Miami] rushed really well and tackled really well,” said Goff in the postgame press conference when asked about Detroit sluggish offense. “We certainly had our opportunities to blow it open a little bit earlier than that and didn’t take advantage of them. Some self-inflicted wounds, some penalties pre-snap. … It took us a minute to get going there, obviously, but when we did, we did enough to win.”

Or as Campbell put it to the media, more succinctly: “It took us a minute to get in it.”

That’s a song lyric.

Get used to this

Here’s the other thing, folks: This year’s Lions are not complete enough, deep enough, or healthy enough to go on some win-every-game-by-20-or-more streak. There are holes that spring in the boat on a weekly basis. On Sunday, the offensive line, which had been a strong point earlier in the year, was continuously overrun by Miami’s average defense. The Dolphins sacked Goff three times in the first half, pressured him into one interception and harassed him into bad passes or throwaways all day.

That same offensive line couldn’t open holes for Detroit’s best weapon, Gibbs, who was consistently dragged down and had only one big escape burst for 16 yards. Take that away, and Gibbs averaged 3 yards a carry and a total of 74 yards, which is OK for mortals, but not for Superman.

Rookie tackle Blake Miller had a rough game, getting beat on defenders coming for Goff. Miles Frazier was a surprise starter in place of Christian Mahogany. Cade Mays was out. They say the most important part of an effective offensive line is consistency and familiarity. Detroit doesn’t have that luxury right now.

And while the defense was stellar in keeping the Dolphins out of the end zone and made the big plays late, which is what winning teams do, the Lions can’t count on every opponent drawing 11 penalties for 87 yards, most of which sent the Miami offense backwards.

The fact is, every week will be a challenge for these Lions – now minus their defensive leader, Campbell.

The other fact is they have risen to the challenge now, six out of eight times.

“It’s been six different ways [of winning] and four in a row now in four different ways,” Goff said. “That’s the hallmark of a good team, when you’re able to find different ways to win repeatedly.”

Meanwhile, the Lions do have something unique. There was a locker set for Jack Campbell in their locker room in Miami. And according to Dan Campbell, “That locker’s travelling.”

Don’t downplay that. Many a team has used a fallen teammate as rocket fuel for the season, and the Lions may do the same. Just don’t expect it to be easy against the weaker teams, any more than you expect to be dominated by the stronger ones.

Sometimes winning games is just remembering to do as Campbell said: Calm down, get going and stop messing around. Which is why you get that plastic off the box eventually, even if, as with Sunday’s game, it seems like it shouldn’t have been that hard.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: Lions won’t have many easy wins. But does it matter?

Reporting by Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press

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