The NFC-Best Lions Can Win in Many Ways

Every week is different in Detroit, which is just how Dan Campbell likes it.

Goff had a perfect game Monday night, including a touchdown catch on a trick play. / Lon Horwedel-Imagn Images

The Detroit Lions are the best team in the NFC, at least at the moment, and their 42–29 defeat of the previously unbeaten Seattle Seahawks on Monday night helps explain why. The Lions’ defense got gashed repeatedly, but the offense carried them. In the Lions’ first two wins this year, the offense struggled but the defense carried them. The best NFL teams can win in a variety of ways while maintaining a consistent ethos. That is what the Lions have built.

“We knew this was coming offensively,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said afterward. “You can’t worry about this and that. You just work. Every week is going to be different. You find a way to win the one in front of you.”

Jared Goff completed all 18 of his attempts for 292 yards and two touchdowns (yet somehow did not have a perfect passer rating). He also caught a touchdown pass from Amon-Ra St. Brown. Goff said afterward that he had never been perfect or caught a touchdown pass at any level of football, and yet …

“I just gave the game ball to somebody else, so I feel awful,” Campbell said. “I knew he had played a heck of a game. I did not realize he was perfect.”

He gave one, instead, to Jameson Williams, and the reason reveals a lot about the franchise. Williams made the game’s biggest play, a 70-yard touchdown catch featuring 45 yards of sprinting past Seahawks and 25 yards of celebrating. But Campbell gave him a game ball because “a number of blocks in this game that Jamo [executed] really caught our eye.”

First-round picks tend to get too much attention, but in the Lions’ case, they tell the story of the franchise under Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes. Their first two first-rounders, Penei Sewell and Aidan Hutchinson, are superstars. Their next one, Williams, looked like he might bust, and with a less functional franchise, he might have. But the Lions nurtured Williams without coddling him, and he has worked his way to near stardom.

In 2023, the Lions invited ridicule by taking Jahmyr Gibbs at No. 12, which is supposedly too high for a running back. But everything about that pick was savvy. First, the Lions let fan favorite Jamaal Williams leave for New Orleans and traded their other back, D’Andre Swift, to Philadelphia. Then, they signed David Montgomery and drafted Gibbs, trusting their own evaluations and desires over public sentiment. Williams has done very little, Swift is now with the Chicago Bears, and Gibbs and Montgomery are weapons any team would like to have.

“You find a better back than those two guys in the league right now,” Goff said.

The Lions ignored perception again when they drafted linebacker Jack Campbell in the first round, and he has become a solid player. Then, this year, they used a first-rounder on cornerback Terrion Arnold, in part because of his relentless physicality. Arnold has discovered that in the NFL, relentless, physical cornerbacks draw a lot of penalty flags. Arnold’s issues in that area were predictable, but they are also correctable. When the Lions chose him, they were implicitly following the advice of thousands of wise coaches: It’s easier to get a feisty player to tone it down than to get a soft player to toughen up.

The Lions committed 12 penalties against the Seahawks. But as Campbell said, “We played ball, man. I’m not discouraged by that one bit. I’m just not. We can’t survive 12 penalties every game. But I know this: We needed to be physical.”

They will live with Arnold’s interference and holding because they are mistakes of aggression, and he will learn from them. The culture that embraces Arnold is the same one that saw something special in Montgomery when most of the league did not.

“This guy is unbelievable,” Campbell said. “The play is never over with him. It’s just not. He’ll keep any play alive.”

The Lions can do everything well, but in the NFL, nobody really does everything well consistently. Last year, Kansas City had an average offensive team for most of the season, which is hard to do when Patrick Mahomes is your quarterback. Kansas City won the Super Bowl anyway.

There was a time when franchise philosophies were defined by scheme or run/pass ratio. The league moves too fast for that now, and there is too much parity. The Lions are not trying to win by establishing the run or making big plays or dominating on defense; they are winning all of those ways, but the how depends on the matchup and flow of the game. No matter what task is required, the Lions have talented, ultra-competitive, physical players who can perform it. They are 3–1 entering their bye week. As Campbell said: Every week will be different. They like it that way.