Titans Beat Lions In Overtime, 44-41, Despite Detroit’s Hail Mary

Sean Yuille of SB Nation’s Detroit Lions blog, Pride of Detroit, writes that the main story line for the Detroit Lions should not be their offensive comeback, but instead the offensive, defensive and special teams inefficiency which cost them the game in the end.

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Now at a frustrating 1-2 on the season as their quarterback’s status currently hangs in the balance, the Lions need to hope that Stafford’s leg will not keep him out of a key divisional game with Minnesota in Week 4. Although a proven veteran like Hill performed admirably in Stafford’s absence and could be a decent one-week replacement, the Lions simply cannot afford to play without their talented signal caller at this point in the season.

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Making matters worse, Stafford strained a leg muscle trying to chase down the fumble return.

The big winner: Rob Bironas

Prior to the injury Stafford was 22-for-42, passing for 278 yards, and a touchdown. Detroit’s offense was playing well, but they struggled on special teams, which led to a large Tennessee lead on two kick returns for touchdowns.

Normally the Lions would be dead to rights without Stafford, but Hill threw two touchdown passes within the final 18 seconds to take the game to overtime, where the two teams currently reside.

A hail mary, a successful one, is exciting enough, but a hail mary that succeeds when it shouldn’t is amazing.

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With a few more plays like that, Reynaud could end up being the most popular Darius since Darius Rucker of Hootie And The Blowfish fame.

For Tennessee, task one will be getting production out of embattled running back Chris Johnson.

Sunday’s game kicks off at 1 p.m. ET, with coverage being handled by FOX. The Lions are currently favored by 3 points.

The Titans opened as 3.5-point home underdogs, according to the betting odds for Week 3 at most online shops, as they look to snap an 0-2 ATS mark on the season.

If trends continue, this is the spot for Tennessee to do it. Detroit is 0-6 ATS in its past six road games. And the OVER is also seeing considerable action, given Detroit’s penchant for road scoring (10-1-2 in their past 13 road games).

Detroit is more on the level of the Patriots and Chargers than on that of the Titans, so this game may not be all that close. At the very least, the Lions should win, even if it’s not to the degree of the other two teams that have matched up against Tennessee. For the most part, national pundits agree.

At ESPN, nine out of the ten experts like Detroit, with two yet to make their picks. Meanwhile, all three Yahoo! experts have settled on the Lions. Finally, CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco was the only one of their writers to pick Tennessee.