Jets Have a Turkey of a Holiday, Lose to Lions

PONTIAC, Mich. —  Mark Gastineau, the wild turkey of the New York Jets, said he knew exactly how the poor birds felt. “I had a horrible Thanksgiving,” he said.

The Jets came into Thursday’s game with the best record in the American Football Conference and the second-best record in football (tied with the Rams), but they were carved up by the Detroit Lions, 31-20. How bad were they? “As bad as bad can be,” Gastineau said.

Sure, they were short-handed, playing without running back Freeman McNeil. But that did not excuse the offensive line letting the Lions sack quarterback Ken O’Brien seven times. Nor did it excuse the defensive line letting Eric Hipple throw four touchdown passes. Nor did it excuse the secondary’s letting 33-year-old Leonard Thompson get loose for three touchdown catches.

Well, maybe there was nothing New York could do to defeat the home team here at the Silverdome, where the roof has been known to cave in on visiting players, figuratively, and on Detroit players, literally.

Since the ceiling was repaired this summer, after collapsing under drifts of snow, the Lions are 6-0 at the Silverdome and 1-6 on the road, having lost six away games in a row. Since the building opened in 1975, they are 50-29-1 at home and 19-61 out of town.

We have here a team that lost at Tampa Bay a week ago to a team that had a record of 1-10. That same Tampa team lost the previous week to the Jets, 62-28.

No one understands it. No one can explain it. “I promise you we will eventually get better on the road,” first-year Lion Coach Darryl Rogers said, thinking of seasons to come. “I don’t know how we’re going to get any better at home.”

He did not have to say another word to convince Gastineau, the Jet defensive end who got one sack--his team’s only sack--and had little chance to dance.

“If the Lions ever get where they can play on the road the way they play at home, they’ll be murder,” Gastineau said. “They sure did whip us. I’m just glad I already ate my turkey dinner yesterday, because I sure don’t feel like eating it tonight after dealing with those guys.”

The Lions (7-6) were expected to suffer a letdown after having damaged their playoff chances at Tampa. But four days later, here they were, pushing the Jets (9-4) all over the field. Defensive end William Gay sacked O’Brien three times by himself.

When Gay whacked the ball out of O’Brien’s hand on the game’s first series, Detroit’s Steve Baack recovered at the Jet 39. The Lions soon took a 3-0 lead, which would have been 7-0 had tight end Rob Rubick not dropped a perfect pass at the goal line.

By halftime, it was 17-3. Hipple, the Downey, Calif., native who had one of his best passing days as a pro, hit Thompson on a 25-yard touchdown pass play and Mark Nichols on a 38-yard scoring play. In the second half, he and Thompson did two encores, from 8 yards and from 44.

All O’Brien, statistically the NFL’s leading passer, could counter with was a 35-yard scoring pass to Al Toon in the third quarter, after the Lions already were ahead, 24-3, and an 8-yarder to Mickey Shuler with 46 seconds remaining in the game.

It was not as if the ankle bruise that kept McNeil from playing completely wrecked the New York rushing game. Johnny Hector did pick up 114 yards by himself, which was a lot more than the Lions did (66 yards) as a team.

It was just that the Jets never did seem to be in the game. “We were not ready to play,” Coach Joe Walton said. “I don’t know if it was the three-day week or what, but we were definitely not ready to play.”

Gastineau said: “We could have sat home Sunday and kicked back and watched TV and watched the other teams try to catch us. Now we’re right back in a situation where every single game counts.”

New York and Detroit are two of the teams that still have a shot at keeping the Chicago Bears from completing an undefeated regular season. The Bears have to visit both teams--and it has been proven how difficult the Lions are to beat in their own den.

Hipple, Thompson and other Lions said that even after beating them, they still considered the Jets to be a Super Bowl-caliber team. “Very much so,” Hipple said. “With O’Brien, and their defense, and when McNeil gets back, that’s an outstanding team. Their offensive line is actually good, too, although you couldn’t tell that off of the game you saw today.”

Same could be said for the secondary. The Jet defensive backs spent the entire afternoon trying to locate Thompson, who is one of the lesser-known 11-year veterans the NFL has produced.

“I’ve had three-TD games before, but very far and very few,” Thompson said. “When you’re my age, you don’t know if you’re coming back, so you’d better showcase your skills while you still can. It’s like you know you still got it, but you still gotta show it. Havin’ it and showin’ it are two different things.

“Sometimes I get up in the morning and ache all over and say, ‘Old man, what you still doing in this game? You ought to be in a swimming pool or on a beach someplace.’ Then I play a game like this and I feel like an absolute youngster--or at least like I still got a few games left in me.”

Home games, preferably.