DETROIT (Michigan News Source) – Seven weeks ago, the Detroit Lions were 1-6 with a lot of naysayers of what they were doing. Dan Campbell knew exactly what he had and where they were going. Six weeks have gone by and the Lions have won five of their last six with a very close loss to AFC leader Buffalo, 28-25. After today, the Lions are making the naysayers eat crow after knocking off the second best team in the NFC, the Minnesota Vikings, 34-23.
“Gentlemen, this is outstanding,” said head coach Dan Campbell in the locker room after the game. “You talk about you guys been ready to go, you guys have been ready to go for six weeks. You guys came out and set the tone for the day and that’s exactly what you did. I want you guys to enjoy this as you have earned. We are earning all of them right now.”
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A big key to the offensive success is quarter Jared Goff who is playing his best football right now. He went 27-of-39 for 330 yards and three touchdowns. Adding to already dangerous offense, first-round draft pick Jameson Williams saw the field for the second time this season and his first catch was for a 41-yard touchdown. DJ Chark continued to be a threat, too, with 94 yards receiving on six catches and a touchdown. Josh Reynolds recorded the other touchdowns in the third quarter for the 21-7 lead.
Campbell says on Goff, “He’s playing outstanding. He’s a direct link as to why we are playing better. He’s playing really good football. He’s taking care of the football, making big throws. He’s been highly accurate and there’s a lot of faith in him.”
The offense has been rolling strong scoring 30 or more points in all five wins in the last six weeks. The past two weeks they have combined for 74 points putting up 40 last week vs. Jacksonville.
Offensive lineman Taylor Decker comments, “It’s about as good as it’s felt my entire career here, about as confident as we’ve ever been. We’re just meeting challenges head-on, week-in week-out meeting challenges head-on. It just feels good. I’ve spoken about it before when we had a couple of wins, really early where it kind of just validates the work that we put in. Kind of reinforces the fact we’re doing the right thing.”
It takes a complete team to do what Campbell is doing with the team and defense shined in the win over Minnesota. They shut down the Vikings rushing game allowing just 22 yards on 17 rushing attempts. They also recorded four sacks on the day from Jerry Jacobs, Aidan Hutchinson, James Houston, and Isaiah Buggs. In the locker room, Campbell gave Buggs a game ball for his sack fumble just before halftime.
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Campbell was ecstatic about his team saying today why he came to Detroit, “It’s one of the reasons why I wanted to be here because I knew this could be a special place. This is one of the those areas where you get a winner here in Detroit, it’ll be something special. It’s not like that everywhere.”
This season is already something special with the way the Lions are playing and in the hunt for a playoff spot. If they keep winning, they could make the playoffs for the first time since 2017 and would be only the second team in NFL history to start off 1-6 and make the playoffs. That’s pretty special.
Hopefully the crow tastes good to the naysayers because Detroit isn’t going back to where they were as they move up the NFC ladder.
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