Ref-Gate Turns Vikings Game Into Do or Die For Detroit Lions Season

As a fan, there were moments Monday night where I questioned whether I’ll ever invest as much emotion into the NFL again. I began to doubt whether what I was watching was genuine and worth my time anymore. Even as someone who’s played the game for six years. I can’t imagine what might be going through the Detroit Lions players’ minds this week, because this only happens in the NFL.

While there can be a lot of takeaways from what happened on Monday Night Football, most all of them pertain to that game alone. What I’m more concerned about is how Ref-Gate affects the rest of the season for the Detroit Lions.

Player buy-in is real, season momentum is real, and Detroit Lions history is real. After getting cheated by the same officials who are supposed to keep the game fair, and with the same old Lions history in mind. It would be extremely easy for the players to start buying into that history rather than the new direction Matt Patricia has been selling for a year and a half, but with mediocre results in the standings.

This franchise has been so frequently on the short end of the stick in the most ridiculous of ways on calls, division titles, and even playoff games.

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You have to question the legitimacy of the outcomes of some of these high profile games when the Lions are playing an NFL or Vegas darling. I tend to think most conspiracy theories are for the less intelligent, but you have to be the less intelligent not to question who certain NFL officials are listening to, especially if you’ve been watching the Detroit Lions for some time.

Like Matthew Stafford‘s wife Kelly Stafford, as according to Justin Rodgers of the Detroit Free Press, had this to say after RefGate;

"“Last post and then i think I’ll be done caring, but after re-watching this game on TV, someone in Vegas is controlling these refs, or maybe someone at the top,”"

You can just feel the pendulum swinging back to same old Lions if they don’t pull off a victory Sunday, and history shows there is no coming back from being Lionized. Whether or not they have a great attitude this week at practice, bad attitude, good practice, bad practice, good game, bad game, all means very little compared to the importance the Detroit Lions just scoring more points than the Vikings on Sunday.

If they lose Sunday, I think you take away some of that buy-in that Matt Patricia and staff were finally starting to get from the Lions players, and when players don’t buy in a very slippery slope in Detroit. With a loss Sunday, it would be a month straight of losing culture, including the bye week. Not suitable for any NFL locker room, especially one that’s still developing it’s confidence and is as fragile as the Detroit Lions.

I don’t usually like to make game predictions, but because I don’t think this is the same old Lions and the importance of the game. I think the Lions win Sunday comfortably establishing themselves again as a contender in the NFC with what is looking to be a much more relaxed schedule down the stretch until the season finale verse Green Bay at Ford Field.

With a loss, they are by no means out of the playoff race mathematically, just a major, major step back for the morale of this Lions team.