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ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The Detroit Lions might be trending toward a playoff berth and off to their best start since 1993, but don’t let their first-year coach, Jim Caldwell, know any of that. He wants no part of it and is not embracing any sort of excitement toward a potential playoff berth down the road. "We don’t have it. We’re wearing the white mask around here, so we don’t have to worry about it," Caldwell said. "It’s like I said every week, we don’t give out any awards or anything after nine games of the season. We haven’t done anything yet. "We’ve been playing well. We’ve been playing tough and that kind of stuff, but it’s a long season. It’s a journey and we’re still on that journey." What can aid Caldwell in helping his team keep in line with his thought process is the team’s schedule over the rest of November. They go to Arizona and New England the next two weeks, and neither team has lost at home this season. Then they have a short turnaround to face a reeling Chicago team, but a Bears team with talent and one that would love to hinder their rival’s strong season. Caldwell, though, says he’s never been caught looking ahead during a potential playoff push, and because he never has, he doesn’t believe his team will, either. Of course, many of these Detroit players were in a similar situation last season and could have gotten caught looking toward a potential playoff berth instead of trying to make sure they made the playoffs first. The Lions, of course, did not, finishing the season at 7-9 leading to the firing of Jim Schwartz and hiring of Caldwell. "You might want to ask somebody who has (looked ahead) because it hasn’t been me," Caldwell said. "And it won’t be this team. We’ll make certain, so I couldn’t tell you to be honest with you." While Caldwell is adamant about that, his players who have been here longer than him understand the significance of what Detroit is doing. Besides their best opening record since the Barry Sanders and Rodney Peete team of 1993, Caldwell is off to the second-best start of any Lions coach in history just behind Potsy Clark, who went 8-1 in 1931. Of course, the Lions weren’t even the Lions then -- they were in their second year of existence as the Portsmouth Spartans and finished 11-3. But for this group of Lions, for these guys who have been part of this franchise for a few years, they are already at levels they have not been at before. "I’ve never been 7-2 in my career," said longtime Lions center Dominic Raiola said. "So that’s a big thing, too." Raiola, though, has been part of fast starts before, only to see it crumble. So he knows that in order for him to reach the playoffs for the second time in his career, Detroit needs to keep doing what it has been all season.
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