The Lions proved they were the worthy NFC North champions, successfully vanquishing the visiting Minnesota Vikings in Week 18. Detroit’s 30-20 home win in the regular-season finale lifted the Lions to a 12-5 finish while saddling the Vikings to a 7-10 record.
It was a surprisingly eventful game for a matchup that didn’t have a lot of critical playoff implications. Here are some of the notable takeaways from watching the game in real time.
Defense made plays when needed
It wasn’t a clean game for the Lions defense. In fact, it might have been the unit’s worst all-around performance in weeks. But they made enough timely plays to hold the Vikings to 20 points despite surrendering 448 total yards and 24 first downs.
The Lions defense successfully stopped the Vikings on their first seven third-down attempts. Detroit also got off the field after the seventh by stopping the Vikings on 4th-and-3. There were four sacks and 13 quarterback hits, per the NFL’s official postgame box score. One of those hits forced the first Lions INT, by Cam Sutton after Ifeatu Melifonwu and Alex Anzalone both heavily pressured Nick Mullens.
Aidan Hutchinson had perhaps his best game of the 2023 season. He had two sacks and also a 12-yard tackle-for-loss on a gadget play, burying Justin Jefferson on what looked like a reverse/RPO play. That huge play turned a 1st-and-goal situation into a 39-yard field goal, a huge lift.
It’s aggravating to see opposing QBs carve up the Lions with the deep pass, something that happens on a weekly basis to Detroit. The defense has to counter that by making some plays of its own, and they did that against the Vikings.
Jared Goff played great
The offense was also largely uneven on the day. The run game was neutralized pretty well by Minnesota, and third downs were a struggle for Detroit, too; the Lions converted just one of their nine attempts.
Thankfully, quarterback Jared Goff had a very impressive game. The final box score line is strong in its own right: 23-for-32, 320 yards, 2 TDs and no INTs. But that doesn’t do justice to how well Goff saw the field and attacked the Vikings defense.
Goff even did some rolling out in this game, and he made a couple of throws outside the pocket that are very out of character. His strike to TE James Mitchell is a throw Goff doesn’t often try. Props to Goff for getting outside his customary comfort zone and making things happen. His team sorely needed it. That Goff did it without giving the ball up and really only having one turnover-worthy play is even more impressive.
On playing the starters and the injury to LaPorta
Losing Sam LaPorta to a knee injury sucks. That’s about as politely as I can say it.
It’s also part of football. And in this specific case, the Lions didn’t really have an option to not play LaPorta or most other starters. Not that Dan Campbell would have sat anyone (more on that in a sec), but simple roster math and NFL rules make it effectively impossible.
Detroit had to declare seven players inactive for the game, per NFL rules. Two of them were injured players: WR Jameson Williams and TE Brock Wright. That leaves five spots to “rest” regular starters. Again, not that Campbell would do that, but that’s as many as the team could possibly sit. One of those five had to be rookie QB Hendon Hooker, too.
Would LaPorta have been one of those four chosen not to play? With Wright being out already, that seems extraordinarily unlikely. That would have left James Mitchell as the only tight end; Anthony Firkser was cut during the week and wasn’t added back to the practice squad until after the Lions had already chosen the two practice squad players to elevate for the game.
Campbell made it abundantly clear that he was playing to win, and not just to keep the faint hopes for the No. 2 seed in the NFC alive. In his postgame press conference, as well as other sound bites over the last couple of weeks, the hyper-competitive coach talked about the importance of playing better and getting the team to play its best football in the postseason. Other teams choose differently, but that’s not Dan Campbell. That’s why he’s a coach of the year candidate and leading a division champion.
Alternately, had the Lions lost with guys like Goff, Hutchinson, Frank Ragnow and Taylor Decker (the four I would project as chosen to be rested) not playing, many of the same fans criticizing Campbell for playing to win would be criticizing him for not playing to win.
Top 3 stars of the game
Third star: Amon-Ra St. Brown – 7 catches, 144 yards and a 70-yad TD catch
Second star: Jared Goff – 23-for-32, 320 yards, 2 TDs and no INTs
First star: Aidan Hutchinson – 4 tackles, 2 sacks, 3 total TFLs and 5 QB hits
Strong honorable mention to LB Jack Campbell for his 12 tackles, including a sack. Campbell’s best game of his rookie season.
Quick hits
–C.J. Gardner-Johnson had an opportunistic interception in his return to go with four tackles. His work in coverage was a work in progress, as is to be expected. Was nice to see No. 2 back on the field.
–The outside cornerbacks covering deep and outside are a very real problem. They don’t help themselves, unfortunately; take the long TD strike from Mullen to Jordan Addison. Cam Sutton is in coverage, but he squats just a little on a short route option, allowing Addison a clean shot deep down the left sideline. The safeties are not good enough in that range of help coverage for Sutton to concede that. This is just one example and it’s not just a Sutton problem, though he’s been guilty of giving up the long routes by pausing just a second to sit on the potential short one quite a bit lately. If the Lions are going to blitz, and they’re doing that very well lately, it necessitates leaving the outside CBs on an island. That island has to cover deep to shallow, not vice versa. Sutton and his other outside partner aren’t doing that well enough. That’s a talent issue and a coaching point that needs to be emphasized more than it’s a defensive scheme problem.
–Jack Fox had his best game of the season punting, and the coverage units were also great. Fox averaged over 53 yards per punt and pinned two of his five kicks inside the Vikings 20.
–Other than the touchdown run, Jahmyr Gibbs (30 yards on 13 carries) had a rough game running the ball. The Vikings tackled well, but Gibbs looked like he wasn’t at full explosiveness too.
–Levi Onwuzurike bagging a sack was not on my game bingo card. He also had a nice penetration that screwed up the timing on another Vikings play. It was Onwuzurike’s first sack of the season and just his second tackle since the bye in Week 9.
-Along with the aforementioned Jack Campbell strong game, this was Josh Paschal’s best all-around game of the season. The second-year DE had two QB hits, a pass defended (on one of those hits), and two tackles. H was winning his battles most of the game.
–Michael Badgley missed an extra point, a definite annoyance. It was a very strange weekend for kickers around the league, including ex-Lions standout Matt Prater missing a clutch kick and third-round rookie Jake Moody missing an extra point and a short field goal for the 49ers. Texans kicker Ka’imi Fairbairn missed his first extra point in over two years on Saturday. There were at least six missed extra points in Week 18. Doesn’t absolve Badgley or excuse his miss, but it is important context–it happens to the best of them.
–First impression was that left guard Jonah Jackson had a much-needed rebound game after some legit clunkers the past few weeks. Graham Glasgow also bounced back nicely from his worst game of the year in Dallas, too.
–Detroit was called for just four penalties for 20 yards, while the Vikings were guilty of eight fouls for 77 yards.
–I love that the Lions went out of their way to get Josh Reynolds his incentive bonus. The players–both current Lions and free agents looking for new teams–will love it too.
