The Detroit Lions (14-2) could have chosen to sit their starters on Monday night to get ready for their Week 18 winner take all matchup against the Minnesota Vikings for first place in their division, but did not, and the roadmap for the rest of their season came into focus.
Coach Dan Campbell and the Lions approached it with the same sort of importance and attitude that has defined his tenure with the organization and also the way he went about his business as a player.
Campbell acknowledged that he thought long and hard about resting some starters but decided it would put the backups who had not prepared in a compromising position and the starters who still would have had to play. It all worked out in the end, with the Lions accomplishing both things, coming out with the win and leaving Santa Clara healthy.
“I ended up settling on the right thing to do was playing those guys,” he said. “We owed it to the team. … That was tough. I think the biggest thing is there was things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did.”
The Lions can put up points with the best of them. And they will have to do just that if they want to make it to and ultimately win the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
The Lions’ offense was superb and a defense that has been ravaged by injuries had a difficult time slowing Brock Purdy and the San Francisco 49ers down, though they came up with a couple of key second-half interceptions by Kerby Joseph. The Lions won by six, 40-34, with the offense flowing like they have done all season under coordinator Ben Johnson, racking up plenty of yards, big plays and points. That is the formula they will have to use to win, starting with a massive Week 18 showdown beginning with the Vikings on Sunday night.
Embed from Getty ImagesJared Goff threw three touchdown passes and the Lions tuned up for their Week 18 division showdown.
“That’s the only way we know. It’s just go and find a way to win,” Goff said. “This is what ended our season last year. There’s a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them even though in a lot of ways it was meaningless for them and it was meaningless for us.”
The Lions’ win helped them in one way, in terms of their clinching scenario. If the Vikings and Lions tie, Detroit will take the NFC North. The Lions got that small edge due to Monday night’s win. They will go into the regular-season finally needing a win or tie to win the division and No. 1 seed in the conference. Minnesota will capture the division and be the NFC’s top seed if they win in Week 18. The Vikings and Lions are on a collision course and both going into the game with 14-2 records. That game next week, number 272 on the schedule, will feature the most combined wins for any regular-season game in NFL history.
The loser of that matchup, with extremely high stakes, will be locked into the No. 5 seed and will be on the road during wild-card weekend.
As for Monday night, coach Campbell saw the upside of playing the game as usual. The biggest lesson might have been that the Lions’ defense is going to have to rely on creating turnovers because they are too injured to hold down many playoff-caliber offenses.
The good news for the Lions is maybe their offense is good enough to outscore each team they will face the rest of the season.
The 49ers had one more game in front of a national audience before their season ends and they go on a vacation, and they were ready to go.
San Francisco drove downfield and scored when rookie first-round draft pick Ricky Pearsall caught a pass from Purdy in the end zone for a touchdown. The Lions responded immediately with a touchdown of their own to Jameson Williams, but the 49ers found it just as easy to move the ball downfield on their second drive. Purdy connected with fullback Kyle Juszczyk for a score.
One play into the second quarter, the 49ers had 121 yards and two touchdowns on two possessions. Purdy threw for 377 yards passing, completing 27-of-35 passes, though he left the game in the final minutes with a concerning right elbow injury, suffered on a sack. Backup Joshua Dobbs came off the bench and immediately led a touchdown drive.
The Lions’ defense is far from elite, you would not confuse them with the 1985 Bears, but the offense is spectacular. Williams got his second touchdown on a fantastic play, as Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a short pass and then lateraled it to Williams at full speed. Williams beat the 49ers’ secondary for a 41-yard touchdown. The Lions have a seemingly endless bag of trick plays.
The Lions’ offense is not much of a question at all. That is why Johnson is up for a number of head coaching jobs. The defense is a different story. Midway through the second quarter, each quarterback had a perfect 158.3 passer rating. That is great for Goff and not so good for the Lions’ defense.
The 49ers were moving the ball in the second half but Lions safety Joseph made a couple of big plays to turn the game in Detroit’s favor.
“I still had that chip on my shoulder from last year,” Joseph said. “We were so close and we just came up short.”
Joseph’s first interception led to a touchdown. St. Brown scored on a fourth down to give the Lions a 31-28 lead. Then, in the fourth quarter, with the 49ers driving and trailing 34-28, Joseph intercepted Purdy again on a pass over the middle. Jahmyr Gibbs scored on a 30-yard touchdown run to put the game away after that.
“We weren’t able to slow them down enough on defense,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “That’s a real good offense, but we still have to slow them down a little bit more. That was the difference in the game. We had to win in it in a shootout. I thought the difference was our two turnovers.”
The Lions’ offense is so good that if Detroit’s defense can win the turnover battle, that might be enough to win. Detroit might not have won without Joseph’s two picks, so give the defense credit for coming up with the big plays when it counted most.
The Lions’ defense will be challenged to repeat that next week against Sam Darnold and a Vikings offense that has been potent all season, and particularly hot lately. The Vikings have a very good defense, coached by Brian Flores, but the Lions have moved the ball on everyone this season.
The final game of the 2024 regular season will be a barn burner with massive stakes. Maybe the only sure thing is we will see a lot of points, from both teams.
