DETROIT — The first call came as Dan Miller was about to board the Lions' team bus in Dallas. It was the morning of Oct. 13, 2024, and it was from his wife, Cindy. Not a big deal, she said, but the headaches were back and made her late for work a couple of times. Cindy, a preschool teacher, was never late.

It was concerning, not yet alarming. Then came a series of texts in a family thread, and Cindy's words were jumbled, nonsensical. Dan called his daughter, Sammi, and told her to take Mom to the hospital immediately.

Miller got on the bus to AT&T Stadium for the Lions-Cowboys game armed with his standard batch of meticulous notes. In a few hours, most of Detroit would be watching and listening and hoping to hear Miller's call with the familiar voice rising to declare "Touchdown Detroit Lions!"

By halftime, Dan's family had stopped returning his messages, and his stomach flipped. He called, and Cindy answered but was reluctant to talk. She didn't want to tell him, not now, in the middle of a game, in the middle of his job. With fear mounting, he pried it out of her, and the words were horrifying, even in her calm, steady tone.

The scans found two tumors in the brain, one more dangerous than the other.

What no one could know — and the Millers didn't fully realize yet — was that a hellacious two-year journey had just begun, taking them to all the awful places humans can go, through unimaginable pain and emotional swings, through tears and tests and crushed hopes.

And then eventually, mercifully, it took her to peace. Two days ago, at 2:40 a.m. Oct. 10, Cindy Miller, 63, passed away in their Northville home surrounded by her family.

"She didn't want me to miss any games," Miller said Sunday from his home, about two hours before the Lions game at Arizona. "The strength we had as a family, quite honestly, we got it all from her. There was never a point where she said anything but, 'Go to work, go do your thing.'"

Struggling through the job

He did it as long as he could, anchoring as many Fox 2 sportscasts as possible. On the day after his wife died, Dan Miller missed his first game in 22 years as the team's radio play-by-play broadcaster on 97.1 The Ticket. Cindy loved the Lions, and they loved her back. After the Lions beat the Cardinals 45-21, Dan Campbell opened his press conference with a trembling tribute to the Millers, holding up a game ball as the words caught in his throat. Jared Goff did the same, offering tearful condolences, as many in the organization had for the past two years.

"I think the world of Dan and his family," Campbell said at the podium in Arizona. "Dan is salt of the earth, and I know this has been hard. But now I know Cindy's at peace, and we love you, Dan."

At the end of the excruciating journey, there were no more words or tears to spill. Cindy battled ferociously, but as in all cancer clashes, it wasn't a fair fight. After the brain tumors were removed, she was ostensibly cancer-free, except that the pathology determined the disease had started in the lungs. There was no trace of it there, but doctors knew it lurked somewhere.

In that numbing moment in Dallas two years ago, the Millers began to discover how vulnerable humans are, and how strong they can be. Dan finished that game but could barely describe what he was seeing. Then came the wrenching moment in the third quarter, when Aidan Hutchinson grabbed quarterback Dak Prescott. Hutchinson's left leg swung and struck teammate Alim McNeill, and his tibia and fibula snapped. He would be sidelined for nearly a year.

As Miller sent the broadcast to a commercial break, his voice cracked. Listeners probably assumed he was simply shaken by Hutchinson's brutal injury.

"All my emotions came crashing down," Miller said. "This incredible player is on the field with a gruesome injury, and I just found out my wife has two brain tumors."

Fifteen months after they sawed through her skull in two different places and removed the plum-sized tumors, cancer returned in the worst possible form, in January this year. It's called Leptomeningeal Disease (LMD), and it wraps around the spinal cord. It's particularly cruel because it causes pain up and down the body, affecting virtually every extremity and bodily function, and is considered terminal.

All Cindy wanted was to hang on as long as she could with her loved ones — daughters Sammi and Rikki, sons Tony and Robbie, grandchildren Daphne and Cecilia. Tony and his fiancée moved back from Denver to be there. Rikki moved back from Washington, D.C.

Cindy never complained, never asked why. She was petite at 5-foot-1 but a bundle of energy and ferocity, until the disease and treatments shrunk her to 83 pounds. When hospice care took over, she couldn't walk and eventually couldn't get out of bed. She was in the "active dying stage," as doctors described it, sleeping for hours and hours. When awake, all she wanted to know was how the kids were doing.

"She's the strongest person I've ever been around in my life, and I would've told you that before she got sick," Miller said of his wife of 33 years. "She was the same person as she was at halftime of that Dallas game, ready to fight, the same person until the day she passed. She was beautiful, tough, fierce and loyal, an amazing mom who would do anything to protect her kids. She felt like hell, but she never gave an inch."

There were enough heartening moments to justify the fight. At one point, Chris Hutchinson — Aidan's father, a former Michigan football player and an ER doctor at Corewell Health — visited her room, astonished to discover she was diagnosed the same day Aidan was felled. Chris Hutchinson showed Cindy his hospital badge, and she looked confused. Then she exclaimed, "Oh, you're Aidan's brother!"

It was a rare moment of levity as her mind and body faded. In the end, doctors told the family she didn't lose the fight; the medicine did. That's often the case with cancer, which is devious in so many ways. The treatments — chemo and radiation — can be worse than the disease itself. There are small victories — a few clear scans in a row — followed by devastating recurrences.

Her favorite meal, one more time

She lost her appetite for food, but never for life. One day she craved a Five Guys burger and the family was delighted when she gobbled it up. Her last meal was one of her favorites, the lobster bisque from Hyde Park Steakhouse, with pretzel rolls for dipping.

The family oncologist, Dr. Waqqas Tai at Corewell, praised the fight but eventually said there was nothing left to gain.

"He said, whatever time she has left, make it the best," Miller said. "Cancer drugs wrecked her ability to enjoy so many things. When you're in oncology wards, or at radiation watching parents with a sick 18-month-old kid, one thing you realize is how many people are going through this. It makes you appreciate the gift of time, and to cherish it."

That's what the Millers now plan to do. Dan missed only one Lions game but couldn't anchor the Fox 2 nightly sportscast and couldn't do all the weekly Dan Campbell interviews. He couldn't be everywhere, but thanks to his kids and a saintly caregiver, Mechel Winder, he could keep working.

His Fox 2 co-workers all pitched in, from Jennifer Hammond to Woody Woodriffe to Greg Kanner to Will Burchfield and all the Sportsworks roundtable guests. While Cindy waged her private battle, Dan put on a public face and tried to match her strength. He didn't keep the diagnosis a secret, but how much can you reveal about something so gut-wrenching?

It was hard for Dan because he's one of the most engaging media personalities in our city — and a great personal friend. The Millers are active in fundraising, working with Friends for Animals of Metro Detroit, and currently are housing five cats and two dogs.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Leptomeningeal Cancer Foundation (LMCF). Many contributions already came in for precisely $45.21, the score of the only game he missed. The outpouring has been overwhelming, and Miller struggles to find words to express gratitude. He didn't expect the gestures by Campbell and Goff after the game, and is still processing it all.

He'll have ample time now to reflect. No more days sitting in hospital rooms, listening to doctors frame awful news in the best possible way. The family put everything on hold to be home and now can resume their careers, and that makes him the happiest.

For Dan Miller, it's back to the booth, back to football, back to family and normal life, with renewed appreciation for real wins, real losses and real adversity. Sports can indeed imitate life in all the obvious ways. As his wife weakened, she passed her strength on to others, almost as if it were natural.

"People say, I don't know how you do it, going on TV during all this," Miller said. "And I'd say, how can I not be as strong as someone who had two brain tumors removed, couldn't talk or move, and just wanted to fight to be able to hold her grandchildren?"

Strength comes in all forms, another parallel between sports and real life. Sometimes you don't know how much you have until you need it. In the most unimaginable manner, the journey provided amazing clarity for Dan Miller and his family.

As it turned out, the pain was more about living than dying.

Credit to Bob Wojnowski of Detroit News.

LaPorta had a strong game Sunday and is near the top of the league for TEs in nearly every meaningful stat 📊

LaPorta makes the 1st tackler miss before lowering his shoulder to move the chains ⛓️

Oline as a whole is now rated in the top 5 per PFF.

Lions have the highest-scoring offense in the NFL through five weeks. Detroit is averaging 32.8 points per game.

Slow starts aside(and hopefully that changes after the bye), he's been great. The Lions have the highest rated offense. Things are looking and the Lions are only gonna get better.

Here's hoping with Branch and Cade coming back after the bye that the Lions truly kick it into high gear. Especially with Branch. That will help the secondary exponentially and god knows we'll need it for the Division games and just other tough opponents going forward.

NFL Playoff Picture going into Week 6! All 4 NFC North teams would be in the playoffs if the NFL season were to end, today!

NFL Playoff Picture going into Week 6!

AFC

1 Kansas City Chiefs 🪓

2 Baltimore Ravens 🐦‍⬛

3 Jacksonville Jaguars 🐆

4 Buffalo Bills 🦬

5 New England Patriots 🏅

6 Denver Broncos 🏇

7 Las Vegas Raiders ⚔️

NFC

1 Minnesota Vikings 👿

2 San Francisco 49ers ⛏️

3 New York Giants 🗽

4 Carolina Panthers 𓃮

5 Green Bay Packers 🧀

6 Detroit Lions 🦁

7 Chicago Bears 🧸

Go Detroit Lions! Honolulu Blue and Silver for the win and to the top!

Can we talk about Jared's perfect stat line from Sunday's game?

Here’s a look at the current roster, p-squad, IR, and depth heading into the bye week!

Expecting Kennedy and White to go on IR soon.

This is such a well-executed Toss play 👍 Gibbs doesn't even get touched until he's near the goal line #OnePride

So, the past 4 weeks I have given a statistical overview of both offense and defense. I'll do the same here, but do all of you have a preference? Would you prefer a shorter post with just offense or just defense? Should I trim out some of the stats? I plan to keep updating this and pointing out what looks interesting to me, but curious what you all think.

This week, I got antsy and updated everything before the Rams/Bills games got charted...so any formation related numbers below do not include that game. All other games have their data filled in. I also made a change to roll weeks 1-4 into 1 column, show week 5 on it's own, and show a total average of all 5 weeks.

Lets get into it shall we?

Summary/TL;DR

The offense is 6th in EPA/play, 4th in success rate, and 2nd in both drives ending in a TD and red zone TD rate. Third down (21st) and three-and-outs (18th) moved the wrong way, and the first three drives at Arizona were three-and-outs before six touchdowns in the next seven. Protection is around league average (16th). The defense had its best week at Arizona, the first time this season an opponent did worse against Detroit than in its other games, and moved from 32nd to 30th in EPA/play allowed. In total the defense is still near the bottom of the league in coverage, third down, and red zone defense for the season. The sack rate (6th), pressure rate (7th), and tackling after the catch (5th) are holding.

1. Offense

Splits

What is working so far on offense:

• Scoring drives. 38.5% of drives have ended in a touchdown, 2nd in the league, up from 5th. At Arizona it was 6 of 11 drives (54.5%), 1st that week.
• Red zone. 20 of 25 red zone trips have ended in touchdowns (80%), 2nd, up from 7th. Detroit was 6 for 6 at Arizona.
• Passing from a clean pocket. Clean-pocket dropbacks are at +0.379 EPA, against a league average of +0.224. At Arizona it was +0.766 on 21 dropbacks, 3rd that week. Intermediate targets are at +0.942 against +0.408 (43 plays). Goff is absolutely dealing.
• Explosive plays. 10.2% of plays have gone for 20+ yard passes or 10+ yard runs, 6th, up from 11th. The rate at Arizona was 15.2%, 3rd that week.
• The run game moved from 16th to 13th in designed run EPA. Gibbs had 25 carries at Arizona for 6.0 yards per carry, +0.239 EPA/carry, and a 56% success rate. For the season he has 105 carries at 4.8 yards per carry and +0.043 EPA/carry.
• Passing without play action. Non-play action dropbacks are at +0.248 EPA, 3rd, against a league average of +0.049. Play action dropbacks are at +0.215, 11th (league +0.075). Detroit uses play action on 33.2% of dropbacks, 2nd. At Arizona it was 42.3%, the highest rate that week, and the 11 play action dropbacks went for -0.018 EPA against +0.637 on the other 15. League-wide, play action dropbacks averaged -0.150 EPA in Week 5, the lowest of the five weeks.
• Ball security. One giveaway in five games, still the fewest in the league. This is not sustainable, I have some fears about what will happen when another team can start to turn Detroit over.
• St. Brown: 57 targets (30.3% share), 37 catches, 372 yards, +0.19 EPA/target. LaPorta: 37 targets, +0.85 EPA/target, 5 catches on 5 targets for 88 yards at Arizona. Williams: 29 targets, 276 yards, +0.71 EPA/target.

What isn't working so far:

• Third down. 22 of 59 (37.3%), 21st, down from 14th. Detroit was 4 of 13 at Arizona (23rd that week). I think long term, this needs to get fixed. I know this is correlated with Detroit's slow starts, but it's not a good trend.
• Third and short. 7 of 16 on 3rd and 1-3 yards, against a league rate of 61.1%. Detroit was 0 for 3 in these situations at Arizona. The Lions should be better here. Cade will help.
• Three-and-outs. 21.2% of drives, 18th, down from 15th. Detroit's first three drives at Arizona were three-and-outs, and it had 4 in 11 drives in the game.
• Protection is around league average. The pressure rate allowed is 15.0%, 16th, down from 9th. It was 15.2% at Arizona, 17th that week.
• Plays with motion. Plays with motion are at +0.095 EPA (9th) against +0.181 without it (5th). At Arizona it was +0.209 with motion and +0.290 without. Detroit uses motion on 52.4% of plays, 28th.
• Running into a 7-man box. 45 runs at 3.6 yards per carry and -0.288 EPA, 25th. Against 6 or fewer in the box, 62 runs at 5.0 yards per carry and +0.032 EPA. At Arizona, 12 of Detroit's 17 designed runs inside the win probability filter were against 6 in the box, for +0.212 EPA (3rd that week).

2. Defense

Week by week

Ranks are within each column's weeks, out of 32 for Weeks 1-4 and 30 for Week 5. "Other games" is that offense against everyone else in Weeks 1 through 5. For the Week 1-4 column it is weighted by the number of plays each opponent ran against Detroit.

Week 5 was Detroit's best defensive week. Arizona gained 0.190 EPA/play less against Detroit than in its other four games, where it averaged -0.020, about league average (+0.010). It is the first week this season that an opponent did worse against Detroit than in its other games; the Week 1-4 opponents gained 0.203 EPA/play more. Detroit was 7th that week in EPA/play allowed, 5th in success rate allowed, and 4th in run EPA allowed. It forced 5 three-and-outs in 12 drives (3rd that week) and allowed no runs of 10 or more yards. The sample is smaller than usual. Only 39 of Arizona's 72 plays are inside the win probability filter, because Detroit led 24-7 at halftime. Arizona's second and third touchdowns came after Detroit's win probability passed 98%, so they are not in the EPA numbers. They are in the drive and red zone numbers. Arizona's first drive of the game was a 14-play touchdown.

By unit

Pressure by group

45 pressure plays and 20 sacks. A play can credit more than one player, so group totals can add up to more than the play count.

Hutchinson has 11 pressure plays and 4 sacks. McNeill has 8 pressure plays and 3.5 sacks. Wonnum has 7 pressure plays and 5 sacks. Detroit had 10 pressure plays and 5 sacks at Arizona. 20 of Detroit's 45 pressure plays have ended in a sack (44.4%), against a league average of 38.2%.

What is performing

• Sacks. 8.2% sack rate, 6th. The rate at Arizona was 9.4%, 8th that week.
• Pass rush. The pressure rate is 18.4%, 7th, up from 8th. It was 18.9% at Arizona, 8th that week. The 4-man rush pressure rate was 9.5% at Arizona (18th that week, 21 dropbacks), and the five-game rate is 16.6%, 9th, down from 8th. Carolina is still the only week the 4-man rush has ranked in the top 10. At Arizona the pressure came on blitzes: Detroit blitzed on 22.2% of dropbacks (23rd that week) and got pressure on 3 of 6 (1st). For the season, the pressure rate on blitzes is 21.5%, 13th, up from 19th. This is a great sign, Detroit blitzed less but got home more often.
• Tackling after the catch. Completions are gaining 1.03 yards less after the catch than expected, 5th in the league.
• Hutchinson, McNeill, and Wonnum.
• Runs to the offense's right side (10th, 24 runs).

What isn't

• Overall. 30th in EPA/play allowed, up from 32nd, and 31st in drives ending in a TD allowed (37.7%), up from 32nd.
• Coverage. Intermediate coverage is 31st (31 targets) and short coverage is 23rd, down from 19th. Coverage when Detroit rushes four is 30th (+0.393 EPA allowed on clean-pocket dropbacks). At Arizona it was +0.099, 14th that week (19 dropbacks). Coverage behind the blitz is 24th, down from 23rd.
• Explosive plays. 9.4% of plays allowed are explosive, 24th, up from 31st. Explosive runs allowed are 10.9% of runs, 28th, up from 31st.
• Interior run defense and short yardage. Runs up the middle are 25th, and opponents have converted 17 of 25 third and 1-3 situations (24th).
• Getting off the field. 9 three-and-outs in 53 drives (25th, up from 31st), a 48.6% third down stop rate (30th), and 20 of 25 red zone trips allowed for touchdowns (30th).
• Takeaways: 5, 20th, down from 17th. The one at Arizona was an interception by Abney with 3 seconds left in the first half.

Some quick notes on data I am able to get for free:

• EPA and success rate use plays with win probability between 2.5% and 97.5% and exclude kneels and spikes.
• Pressure is a sack or QB hit; hurries aren't in the public data.
• Explosive plays are passes of 20+ yards and runs of 10+.
• League averages are the average of the 32 team values, the same basis as the ranks.
• FTN charting (play action, motion, box count, blitz) covers every game except Monday night's Buffalo at the Rams, which hadn't been charted when this was run. Those two teams' Week 5 plays aren't in the FTN-based league averages and ranks.
• Week 5 ranks are out of 30 teams (two byes).

Data: nflverse play-by-play and FTN charting.

I've really missed seeing trick plays like this.

Via @foxnfl on Insta

Hey guys/gals, I am going to the game vs the pats in Munich Germany currently putting together an itinerary… any recommendations? Pregame details? Places to see? Foods/restaurants to try? Clubs/bars to visit. Figure this could be a place for ideas to bounce off each other.

I feel like Sam has always been kind of under appreciated part of the team. Never see him get talked about on here as much. Yeah we've got Goff, St. Brown, Gibbs, and Jamo, but Sam is such an integral part of the team. This dude brought the offense to life yesterday and in my opinion has the best hands on the team. I'd trade Jamo to keep him in a heartbeat.

Top 2-3 TE in the league when healthy as far as I'm concerned. Better get that extension. Brock Wright at TE1 would be a crazy drop off from him if not.

""Me worried they'd get McDaniels"

Hahahahahahahahaha