Last week I said I wanted to see a clean game before I’d believe the Lions were ready for a team as good as Minnesota. I didn’t get a clean game. I got a win anyway. Detroit beat the Vikings 19-15 at Ford Field, handed them their first loss of the season, and moved to 5-2.
This one was won on the ground. The Lions ran for 230 yards on 39 carries against a defense that had been giving up about 12 points a game. Gibbs had 153 yards on 23 carries, including a 30-yard touchdown straight up the middle in the third quarter, and Sione Vaki chipped in 65 more. I’ve spent most of this season watching Goff and the receivers carry the offense, so it was strange and kind of great to watch Detroit just line up and push a good defense around.
The go-ahead drive was the best stretch of the day. Minnesota had just taken a 15-12 lead with under nine minutes left, and the Lions answered by going 69 yards in seven plays, five of them runs. Goff finished it with a 7-yard touchdown to Jameson Williams, and the Vikings never got close again. After Minnesota punted with three minutes to go, Gibbs ripped off runs of 14 and 8 yards, the Vikings burned all three timeouts trying to stop the clock, and Goff took two knees.
The passing game was quiet. Goff went 18-of-25 for 176 yards with a touchdown and an interception, and he got sacked four times. Minnesota’s front is a big reason they started 6-0, and it showed whenever the Lions got into obvious passing downs. Leaning on the run made a lot of sense against this group.
It could have been more comfortable. Amon-Ra St. Brown and Williams both drew taunting flags in the first quarter, and the one on Williams pushed the Lions back 15 yards on a drive that ended in a field goal. Penei Sewell was flagged for two false starts and a hold. Detroit finished with seven penalties for 76 yards. They also missed the two-point try after the Gibbs touchdown, which is why Minnesota’s touchdown and two-point conversion in the fourth quarter put the Vikings ahead instead of just tying it. Against this opponent, all of those small things mattered.
Now the usual check on the defense. Minnesota came in averaging about 21 points and 282 yards a game. They got 15 points and 266 yards. That’s a little under their normal, which is fine, though the Vikings offense was never the scary part of that team. Kyler Murray went 17-of-29 for 210 yards and two touchdowns, and the one real breakdown was a 51-yard completion to Jordan Addison that set up their go-ahead score. D.J. Reed had an interception late in the first half, and the defense got a fourth-down stop at the Detroit 25 early in the fourth quarter. That makes three straight weeks of holding an offense to roughly its usual output. I’ll call that steady and leave it there until they do it against an offense that can actually hurt them.
The bigger takeaway is the run game. Minnesota’s defense had been the best unit in the division, and the Lions ran on it for four quarters. If that holds up, this offense gets a lot harder to deal with, because teams can’t sit back and only worry about St. Brown and Williams anymore.
Detroit is 5-2, a game behind the 6-1 Vikings, with the head-to-head win in hand for now. Next up is a trip to Miami, which is 1-6, and then New England at home. The Lions should win both, and this is also the kind of stretch where they’ve let teams hang around this year. I’d like to see them put one away early for a change.
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