The Lions find themselves in a 1-3 hole to start the season and they have no one to blame but themselves. Despite the poor start though, Lions head coach Jim Schwartz doesn't think this hole is too deep to climb out of."One-and-three – not exactly not exactly the start that we envisioned," he said Monday, a day after the Lions' 20-13 loss to the Vikings. "We can certainly work our way out of it."
Schwartz has seen it before, in 2002, in his second season as the Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator. That season the Titans started 1-4 and still made the playoffs.
"I mean, last year the Giants lost four in a row, five of six," he said. "The teams that have succeeded were teams that were able to correct their mistakes and were able to persevere through tough times. I wasn't in New York last year but I can't imagine what it was like to lose four in a row, five of six.
"But you know what they did? They persevered through it. They corrected some mistakes and they got on a roll. We can do the same things. If we're tough minded, as players, as coaches. If we correct the mistakes that we've made, then we can dig ourselves out of the hole.
There was a stretch in the middle of last season when this Lions team lost three of four. The only difference was that they started 5-0 and it didn't look as bad in the standings. The Lions will need a bit of a role reversal this year. The start is what it is, now the Lions need to get on a roll similar to their start last season or they're in trouble of becoming irrelevant by November.
"They are all things that we can correct," Schwartz said.
"We've had four non-red zone scores. That's not us. We've dropped I think four different touchdown passes. We have guys that have good hands that will catch those balls. We only have nine sacks so far. We have a very good defensive line and we'll get more. We have zero interceptions so far.
"We've given up four special teams scores. You know, there have been a lot of things that have happened that are not indicative of where this team will be after 16 games and like I said we need to get those teams corrected. We have the talent to be able to do it. The only thing that matters is us being able to do it this year and not anything that happened in the past."
The Lions will have a practice on Wednesday before the players are off for the Bye Week and will then reconvene Tuesday to start preparing for the Eagles.
"I think we control what's going on," tight end
"We dropped some games. But it's really early. It's not time to give up and we're never going to give up."
Schwartz said Monday that it's a simple formula, really. Either mistakes get corrected in a hurry or the hole becomes too big to get out of.
"There are things that need to be corrected and if we do them we'll have a very good chance to dig ourselves out of the hole and to where we want to be," he said. "If we don't then we won't."
