MINNEAPOLIS — The foreshadowing came days ago, before coming to life Sunday afternoon.
Asked on Friday how an unbeaten Vikings team they would soon face had managed to stay unbeaten, Lions coach Dan Campbell boiled it down to a matter of composure. He’d watch teams on Minnesota’s schedule lose theirs, then lose the game. For his Lions to have a chance in a hostile environment against the NFC North leaders, they’d need to take this thing down to the wire. This wasn’t going to be a 38-point win. This wasn’t going to be a 40-point offensive explosion. The goal was simply to keep it close in the fourth quarter and emerge at the end as the last one standing.
Campbell has a knack for predicting how games like this are going to go because he’s seen it all in this league. His goal has been to find players wired the same way so they can thrive in scripts just like the one we saw Sunday. It’s why the Lions were able to leave Minnesota with a much-needed 31-29 victory over the Vikings.
And why they’re not going anywhere, in case that was up for debate.
“It was going to come down to the wire,” Campbell said. “The team knew this. We talked about patience. Patience. Keep your composure. Communication. Attitude. Our guys did that. We hung in there, and we didn’t bat an eye. … Great team win. Complementary football across the board. Offense, defense, special teams when we need it most. Really proud of these guys. It’s a huge win on the road, tough environment. … Don’t want to say must-win, but we needed that in a lot of ways.”
It’s hard to think of a Week 7 contest as a must-win game, but this was as close as it gets given the implications of a meeting like this. The Vikings, fresh off a bye, were a perfect 5-0. They led the league in point differential entering the week. They were one of two remaining unbeaten teams. They were at home, atop the standings, with a chance to create further distance in a division that looks like the NFL’s best.
GO DEEPER
Goff outduels Vikings, Darnold as Lions win 31-29: Takeaways
It’s rare to see a team come off a win so dominant, look like one of the best the league has to offer, and still wonder what to make of it. But that’s sort of what the Lions faced this week, after the loss of Aidan Hutchinson. They dropped in several power rankings. They were questioned on national sports shows. But life goes on in Allen Park, Mich. For the Lions, this was a chance to take command of this division and remind the NFL that they’re more than a one-man show.
But they had to be careful. This was the exact game others before them have tried to win but lost, after losing their composure.
Take the first drive of the game, for example. Two holding penalties (one declined), a sack and a botched fake punt on Detroit’s opening possession led to a disastrous start and gave the Vikings the ball at the Detroit 34. They scored two plays later on a 34-yard touchdown run by Aaron Jones to give the Vikings a 7-0 lead. The Lions followed that up with a three-and-out and another sack allowed. The Vikings added a field goal to make it 10-0, Minnesota, in the first.
Nothing was going right for the Lions’ offense, and as well as Minnesota played early, much of it was self-inflicted. Penalties. Questionable coaching decisions. Missed assignments. Simply doing too much. It’s not how you stay in games, and in many ways, it felt like the Lions were doing everything Campbell warned them about. A false start penalty on fourth-and-1 from the Detroit 39-yard line might’ve saved the Lions from themselves. They were ready to line up and go for it, perhaps feeling the pressure of this one snowballing.
A stop would’ve put the Vikings back in business, with a chance to make it 17-0 and send Lions fans outside to take care of the yard work and chores they’d been putting off.
Instead, a punt, and a chance to regroup.
“That was our own doing a little bit,” Campbell said of the early start. “Look, they were playing well, believe me. They were playing good defense. But there’s a couple things — we felt like we should have gotten some conversions. We should have made some plays there that were our own errors, especially two different series there. So once we felt like we got it cleaned up, we just needed a conversion. Once that happened, we got to rolling there a little bit. And that’s sometimes all it takes.”
Campbell knows the Lions have the talent, coaching staff and experience to win just about every game on their schedule. They’re at a point where they often beat themselves more than opponents beat them. The difference between a win or a loss in Year 4 of this operation is often being able to right their wrongs quickly enough to avoid playing catch-up against teams that maintain composure, which is why that was the word of the week.
But seeing the Lions respond the way they did showed the sort of resiliency we’ve come to expect from Campbell’s Lions. It’s a staple of their culture, a product of the roster they’ve assembled and a testament to how these guys play the game.
If you knock ’em down, they’ll stare daggers at you from the ground, wipe the blood off their lip and jump to their feet, ready to go again. It’s what they do.
Amon-Ra St. Brown finished the game with 112 yards receiving and a touchdown. (Jeffrey Becker / Imagn Images)
“We just like football,” defensive tackle D.J. Reader said, matter-of-factly. “Nobody’s got doubt. I don’t think anybody on our team has doubt that we’re gonna get it done. I think there’s a lot of outside doubt with what happened last week, losing guys, what we’re gonna be like, but I think inside our building, everybody’s very confident. Guys are super confident about who they are.”
“We knew this game was gonna be like that,” Jahmyr Gibbs said. “Two great teams. Dan told us the whole week, ‘Patience.’ So, you know, everything was gonna fall in line and we was gonna click. We just kept that, took every play at a time.”
And so, the Lions went to work. On their next drive after the punt, they got on the board with a 45-yard touchdown run by Gibbs. It was the longest of his career, on a defense that had only allowed one 20-yard run all season. It provided the jolt of energy the team needed to get back on track. After that, Amon-Ra St. Brown beat his man down the seam for a 35-yard touchdown. The Lions took a 21-10 lead into the half, and their stars proved pivotal in a game like this. Gibbs totaled 160 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns on 19 touches. St. Brown finished with eight receptions for 112 yards and a score. And then, there was Goff.
He’s been playing at an MVP level since Week 3, and his composure in the face of the blitz-heavy Brian Flores defense set the tone for the Lions as they worked their way back. This isn’t the same kid on the losing end of Flores in Super Bowl LIII. He stood unbothered in the pocket. He completed all but three passes on his way to a 280-yard, two-touchdown day. He had all the answers to the tests.
Goff is often viewed as a product of those around him. But this game, and really the last month or so, show his value to this team.
“He’s a stud,” Campbell said of his quarterback. “I just got asked a question, like, what did you see? This goes back to what did you see in ’21, when Brad and I acquired him? What makes it? And the guy’s got arm talent, there’s no question. But it’s what he’s got here (head) and what he’s got here (heart). That’s what makes him a dangerous player and it’s what makes him really one of these guys that you can build around, because he’s a winner, man. He will find a way to win. He’ll find a way to put the offense in a position to win the game. He doesn’t get frazzled. He’s tough. He’s competitive. And he’s just — he’s reliable. He’s reliable. I love the guy, man.”
But the Vikings didn’t go anywhere. They likely won’t go anywhere in this divisional race, either. They’re a well-coached football team with enough talent to make a run come January. They inched their way back slowly with field goals and timely plays — much like the one they received in the fourth quarter. A rare David Montgomery fumble was punched out and recovered by the Vikings for a touchdown to go up 29-28.
How would the Lions respond? If you’ve been following this team for the last two years, you’d know the answer to that well before the final score.
Despite an up-and-down day for the defense, playing its first contest without Hutchinson, they got off the field when it mattered most — forcing a three-and-out with less than three minutes to go. That allowed the offense to take the field, down one, with 2:32 to go. Some chunk plays by Gibbs and St. Brown set the Lions up in field goal range with less than a minute to go. It was a methodical, confident drive — the kind you see from a contender in crunch time. You could see players feeling it on the field, on the sideline. They knew what was coming.
Jake Bates called game.
CLUTCH @jakebates30!#DETvsMIN | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/0h4IAxgA5o
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) October 20, 2024
There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the Lions, now 5-1, even after the sting of losing Hutchinson. For starters, this team’s DNA remains in place, and a game like this was proof of it. In the locker room Sunday, Campbell players echoed his comments from Friday, a sign of a well-run ship.
Here’s what else his team has: the talent and brain power to put up 31 points and 391 yards on a Vikings’ defense that’s made life hell for opposing offensive coordinators. It has constant contributions from guys like Tim Patrick and Kalif Raymond. It appears to have a reliable kicker in Bates, who’s a perfect 10-for-10 this season on field goals. Aaron Glenn might’ve lost a defensive player of the year candidate in Hutchinson, but just might have another in Brian Branch. His interception Sunday gives him four on the season, and he looks like he’s ascending to stardom in front of our eyes. Others like Jack Campbell and Josh Paschal are starting to figure it out, and with the deadline quickly approaching, a move for some pass-rush help could solidify the Lions as a formidable defense the rest of the way.
Oh by the way, Detroit also has a first-place lead in the NFC North and conference at large.
If there was any doubt about the Lions and where they’d go from here, Sunday’s win proved to be reassurance.
(Top photo of Jahmyr Gibbs: Jeffrey Becker / Imagn Images)
