The Lions Keep Defying the Laws of Football Gravity By Knowing Exactly Who They Are

Detroit held on to beat the Green Bay Packers Thursday and clinch a spot in the playoffs by sticking true to the clear-cut identity established by Dan Campbell.

Tim Patrick (17), who scored two touchdowns Thursday, was one of the Lions players that stepped up to keep Detroit's impressive run this season going. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Detroit Lions should have lost Thursday night. Not because they were outplayed; they weren’t. They should have lost because they are injury-riddled and the Packers are really good and because even the best teams lose a few games. That is how the NFL works. Except, maybe, in Detroit this season.

The Lions are not immune to the laws of football gravity. They are just remarkably good at defying them. To understand why, consider a single play in this game: Fourth-and-inches at the Green Bay 21-yard line, 43 seconds left, game tied at 31.

Lions coach Dan Campbell went for it, as he often does. David Montgomery ran for seven yards to set up Jake Bates’s game-winning field goal. It seemed like a simple play and a straightforward decision, and on some level it was both. But it also provides a deeper explanation for why Campbell is such a great coach.

“I knew how I wanted to play this game,” Campbell said. “The team knew it.”

He meant that the Lions needed the offense to max out, because they were missing all sorts of defensive talent., Their best defensive player, Aidan Hutchinson; their leader, linebacker Alex Anzalone; and defensive linemen Josh Paschal, Levi Onwuzurike and D.J. Reader are all injured. On Thursday night, defensive tackle Alim McNeill left the game in the first quarter with a possible concussion. The result, as quarterback Jared Goff said afterward, was that “they had guys out there that got here on Sunday.”

This presented Campbell, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn with an interesting challenge: How do you lean on the offense without putting too much pressure on offensive players or giving the defense any excuses?

“AG did a hell of a job trimming the package down to where these guys can come in and play,” Campbell said. “It’s not like we got guys who have never played ball. We wanted to trim it back to where those guys could play fast. And that was really stipulated: Just cut it loose, man. It’s not going to be perfect. It doesn’t need to be perfect. We knew there may be some errors. I just want to turn on the tape and know the effort and the finish is there.”

Campbell explained that he knew exactly how aggressive he planned to be with his offense against the Packers because of the injuries currently plaguing Detroit's defense. / Junfu Han / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Think about that: Campbell took a situation that should have made them tentative and used it to instill confidence without seeming like a phony. That is really hard. But it worked. And it worked because Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes have instilled an ethos that rivals any in the league.

They isolate guys who play hard, understand the game and embrace physicality, and then they pick the most talented available players from that group. It means passing on some really gifted players. But it also means that the guys who just got there already belonged.

Receiver Tim Patrick, who joined the Lions’ practice squad in late August, scored two touchdowns against Green Bay. When All-Pro receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown was asked about Patrick, he raved about his intelligence and contributions to the run game. Goff said he is comfortable passing to either of his running backs, which he called “rare.” 

The Lions are 12–1. To understand how impressive that is: The Brady-Belichick Patriots only won 12 of their first 13 games twice: In 2004, when they won the Super Bowl, and in ‘07, when they went undefeated until David Tyree’s helmet catch.

The Lions play like not only do they expect to kick your ass, but they know exactly how they will do it—and you don’t. They enjoy it so much that the ramifications almost seem beside the point. Against Seattle in September, Goff completed all 18 of his passes and Campbell didn’t even realize it or give him a game ball. Thursday, Campbell found out the Lions clinched a playoff spot after the game. That sounds ridiculous, but also: Knowing they could clinch a playoff spot would not have changed the game plan, so who cares?

The Lions went for it on fourth down five times against the Packers. I didn’t think any of those decisions was particularly bold—they were all either fourth-and-1 or fourth-and-goal—but as Campbell said: “There is risk with it.

“But,” he added, “I felt like with our guys, it wouldn’t be as big of a risk.”

That’s not bravado. That’s an understanding that he has the highest-scoring team in the league and a play-caller in Johnson who excels at dialing up the right play in high-leverage moments. You can come up with a lot of reasons why the Lions should have lost this game. But when Campbell watches the tape, he’ll see that the effort and finish were there. He might even remember his team clinched a playoff spot.

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