Vietnam Daily News

Detroit motors into play-offs

Written by Dailynews.vn Monday, 26 December 2011 05:16

The Detroit Lions booked their place in the play-offs for the first time since 1999 with a 38-10 win over the San Diego Chargers.

Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford threw three touchdown passes in the first half to set the Lions on their way to a third straight win.

Detroit (10-5) have won three straight after a seven-game slump to earn an NFC wild card, just three years after going 0-16.

Stafford finished with 373 yards passing to give him 4,518 this year, breaking Scott Mitchell's single-season team record from 1995, when the Lions last won 10 games.

Stafford led a victory-lap parade around the perimeter of Ford Field, high-fiving ecstatic fans.

"You could just get a sense of how much it meant to them," Stafford said. "It was fun to give them that kind of joy."

The Lions will go for their 11th victory and try to improve their play-off seeding next week against Super Bowl favourites and defending champions Green Bay, a team they haven't beaten on the road since 1991.

The Chargers needed to extend their winning streak to four games to keep their postseason hopes alive, but defeat and Cincinnati's victory means they miss the postseason for a second straight year after making it five times in six seasons before that.

Source: www1.skysports.com/news/12040/7394728/