The only thing more improbable than the Detroit Lions being 4-0 might be the way they have pulled out their last two victories.
The historically bumbling franchise submitted further proof of how far they have come by wiping out a 24-point, third-quarter deficit for a 34-30 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. No NFL team had ever won a road game after trailing by 24 points.
Just a week after turning a 20-point half-time deficit into an overtime win, the Lions topped themselves with a performance everyone in the locker room could savour.
"Any time you come back from 20-something, you're doing some kind of stealing," the quarterback Matthew Stafford told ESPN.com. "We played good in the second half to come back and steal it."
The Lions get a national stage next Monday night when they play host to the Chicago Bears. The following weekend they are home to San Francisco. They will be favourites to win both games.
The Lions, 6-0? They are trying not to think too far ahead. "We haven't done anything yet," said Nate Burleson, the receiver.
By Detroit standards they have. This is a franchise that last won a championship in 1957, that has not won a play-off game since 1991, has not had a winning record in 10 years and, in 2008, was the first team in NFL history to suffer a 0-16 season.
That winless record led to the top pick in the 2009 college draft, and Detroit got something right by drafting Stafford, whose two touchdown passes to Calvin Johnson in the fourth quarter proved decisive on Sunday.
Detroit's defence started the comeback with two interceptions of Tony Romo that were returned for touchdowns.
Johnson said the Lions need to stop digging holes for themselves. "We still have a lot of stuff to clean up," he said. "The way we've started the last two weeks, that's really unacceptable."
The defeat was a bitter one for the Cowboys, who are 2-2.
"Over the next week or two, it's going to be difficult to look back at it, but at some point here we're going to move on," Romo said. "There's a lot of guys doing a lot of good things. We'll evaluate it and get better from it."
Romo passed for 331 yards and three touchdowns, but he threw three interceptions the Lions turned into 21 points.
* Associated Press
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
In numbers: China in Dubai
The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2018/19: 120,000
Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
The biog
Name: Timothy Husband
Nationality: New Zealand
Education: Degree in zoology at The University of Sydney
Favourite book: Lemurs of Madagascar by Russell A Mittermeier
Favourite music: Billy Joel
Weekends and holidays: Talking about animals or visiting his farm in Australia
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The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
