What an absolute ROLLER COASTER ride we went on Thursday night! Football is back! And so is our high blood pressure! We saw some great things, some not so great things, but overall as a fan base we should be ecstatic with a win over the current world champion Kansas City Chiefs! Here are some of the things I noticed that night:

Jared Goff: JG16 looked real good. Not the greatest performance ever, not MVP type stuff, but he looked good. Jared played smart with the ball, and took some calculated risks at times of need, while throwing it away when there was nothing there. 22/35, 253 yards, 1 TD. Really good stuff. He picked up right where he left off in Green Bay last season. No matter how loud that crowd got in Arrowhead, Jared put the blinders on and went to work. He remained focused on the task at hand and kept progressing the offense down the field, putting everyone in position to make a play and produce. Those types of little things don’t show up in the box score, but as a fan, you really appreciate seeing that. It’s times like this that show you no matter how bright the lights may get, we should expect to see the same guy out there, and that’s a comforting feeling, no doubt about it.

DEFENSE: Holy shit, we held someone to under 20 points! Last season this unit was literally the worst ranked defense in football, this year they’re off to an excellent start! I understand Toney dropped some passes and Kelce was out, but that’s still Pat Mahomes on the other side of the field. They brought pressure throughout the game, and took advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Brian Branch showed the other 31 teams in the league what a mistake they made passing up on him, after intercepting that pass and sprinting into the endzone with a pick 6, he was actually measured as the fastest guy on the field that night, 20.7 MPH!!! There were plenty of game-saving plays made that night other than the pick 6, but to sum it up the defense looked really good and the rookies were a MAJOR part of that.

Officiating: I’m not going to complain so much because the Lions did win this game. But c’mon man, that officiating was truly a joke from top to bottom. Right tackle #74 (Jawaan Taylor) was lining up in the backfield for the Chiefs all night in anticipation of Aiden Hutchinson flying off the edge and coming for the quarterback. I didn’t have as much a problem with that as I did with the false starts Taylor was committing each time Kansas City was in an obvious passing situation. He was 1 step ahead of Hutchinson with those false starts not getting called and that truly was the difference between plays as you saw on each replay Hutchinson was always inches away from the sack. What hurts about that is not just that it was committed and not called, but that an official is standing there each and every play on the sideline watching him and not calling it. There was also plenty of suspect holding calls on the Chiefs offensive line that never got called, same frustration there with a back judge standing right there and watching it in front of his face. As a Lions fan you’re used to getting hosed by officials, but its a harder pill to swallow when its on national TV In the first game of the year. But was I said, Detroit won the game so it’s all good, but going forward as the players shake off the rust, we should hope the referees knock off some of that rust as well.

For the most part Thursday was great, honestly probably the biggest win for the franchise in the past 30 or so years, maybe at least since 2011 when the team beat the Chargers on Christmas Eve to end their well over a decade long playoff drought. Hopefully this is a prelude of what is to come with this Lions team, and If I get a chance later this week, I can go into more depth of what we saw out of Gibbs and CJ Gardner Johnson as well. For now enjoy this 1-0 start, thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and GO LIONS!