Mitch Albom: Brave new world for Detroit Lions as they wrestle with when to pull stars

First, the excellence. The Detroit Lions entered Ford Field on Sunday and landed in one of those movie-like treasure chambers, where the gold is stacked as high as sand dunes.

Everywhere they turned, it was jewels and gems. Seven straight touchdowns. A franchise record 645 yards of offense. A final score of 52-6 over the Jacksonville Jaguars, thanks largely to a defense that treated the visitors like Popeye treats a spinach can: squeeze, pop, gulp.

But.

There’s always a little “but,” right? This one has come up a couple times this season. And it’s why it’s not easy being Dan Campbell these days. Call it “The Preservation Question.”

Here were the Lions deep into a game that was already decided, late third quarter, first-and-goal, 5 yards out. Jared Goff dropped back and waited for a receiver to come open. One second. Two seconds. Brock Wright, his tight end, was wiggling free in the end zone.

Goff spotted him. What he didn’t spot was an unblocked 6-foot-7 defensive end, Arik Armstead, charging towards him from behind. Armstead is a former first-round draft pick of the 49ers. He has 34½ sacks in his career. He was within a few feet of an easy No. 35½ when Goff let go of the ball.

Armstead pulled up — thankfully — and merely shoved Goff from behind, and Goff jogged away harmlessly. But had the quarterback taken two seconds longer, had he pumped before throwing, he would likely have taken the full force of the hulking Armstead blindly into his spine.

And that could have changed the season.

It didn’t. Wright caught the pass and the crowd went berserk for the touchdown— yet another touchdown, on a day when the Lions broke the franchise record for margin of victory (46 points.)

And there’s the dilemma. Goff’s TD toss took the score from 35-6 to 42-6. It wasn’t needed to secure a win. It wasn’t needed to put the game out of reach. This is the conundrum Campbell now faces with these new, sparkling Lions.

When is it time to take your best players out?

Pull-your-stars conundrum

“This is another one of those bizarre things that (we’re) running into,” Campbell admitted of the pull-your-stars issue, after the record shattering win moved the Lions to 9-1 but also saw them lose their defensive anchor, linebacker Alex Anzalone, for 6-8 weeks with a broken forearm. “Normally this doesn’t happen. This is like the third time … this season.”

So how does he decide?

“There’s a number of things,” Campbell said “you want to know that you finished on a good note. You found a rhythm, you keep the rhythm. OK, now the time says, ‘let’s get ‘em out.’

“What’s hard is (that) you’re playing pretty good, then you take this dip and then it starts to taste bad… and does that bleed into the next week?’’

You could tell by how he answered that he was grappling with the issue. That’s because there is no perfect answer. Especially here in Detroit, where this is all new and there is irony in a fan base that spent decades waiting for a team to be worth watching now wrestling with pulling its best players early.

But the Lions this year are after something bigger than a pile-on victory against an also-ran like Jacksonville. They want a Super Bowl. And the reality in the NFL is that while it’s “team-team-team” 90 percent of the time, there are moments where the mantra must be “star-star-star.” Certain players and positions just tilt the balance disproportionately.

No easy solution

On Detroit, that starts with Goff. First and foremost. The Lions lose him, their 2024 dreams are gone. Yet there he was Sunday, not only at 42-6, but again in the fourth quarter, leading a nearly four-minute, 95-yard drive and making it 49-6. He wasn’t replaced until less than 10 minutes remained in the game.

That may sound like a lot of time. Maybe it is. On the other hand, Goff could have sat at halftime and the game would still have been won. And he definitely wasn’t needed to make a 36-point margin a 43-point margin. More than a few Detroit fans watching no doubt were saying, “Why is he still in there?”

Campbell, obviously thinking a lot about this, came back after another question to add a thought.

“Man,” he said, “I do not want to let the fear of injury take away from our identity. That will always be most important for me. The minute you start worrying about injuries that’s when bad things happen.”

That’s true. It’s also true that sometimes they happen anyhow. Anzalone, a key to the defense, was lost on a routine play just before halftime. And of course, Aidan Hutchinson is gone for the year already, as are several other excellent players.

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Unwavering attitude

But a Campbell-coached team will be a Campbell attitude team. And he knows better than all of us. He’s proving that with the wins. Sometimes, he explained, it’s a question of bodies. You must have ready players to put out there. For example, Campbell said, he’d sometimes like to yank Penei Sewell out of games that are well-decided, but backup linemen are in short supply.

So it’s play hard, right to the end. Don’t expect to see many early departures of Goff or other potential irreplaceables like Jahmyr Gibbs or Amon Ra St. Brown.

For his part, Goff said, “I don’t think … there is a right or wrong answer to that. It’s quite the luxury to have in the NFL to be able to take out players ever.”

True enough. But the nervous Detroit fans who still can’t believe the Lions are rolling out incredible performances like Sunday’s will likely want to err on pulling the chips off the table. That’s why we’re watching and the players are playing.

“Did you know Armstead was charging behind you on that touchdown?” Goff was asked.

“No,” he admitted, “Was he close?”

Too close for some. Not for others. Meanwhile, the Lions continue to blow away expectations with a team that Campbell described as “the right balance of electricity and … sledgehammer.”

READ MORE: Lions hit new level of perfection in Jaguars win, like eating cherry pie in Traverse City

If only we could build a steel cage around some of them.

 Mitch Albom will talk Lions football and other sports Monday with Bernie Smilovitz in a special live event at Emagine Royal Oak at 7 p.m. Proceeds go to charity. Tickets at Emagine-entertainment.com.