Detroit Lions toss SOL history aside, show necessary grit to win NFC North division

MINNEAPOLIS — Sometimes, you need the bounces. Sometimes, you’re owed the bounces.

And after 30 years of coming up empty in the division, the Detroit Lions finally got some.

Frankly, they made their own bounces, too, which is to say they made their own fortune, and they had to against one of the best defenses in the league.

This was the vision from the start, right?

This is what Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes envisioned. These kind of games. On the road. Late in the season. The playoffs on the line. History at stake.

All that noise and the will to find the composure to survive it. The toughness. The resilience. The playmaking.

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This is how they’ve drafted. This is how they coach. This is how they win. And are winning.

And won again, in one of the tougher venues in the sport, against a rival down a couple quarterbacks but propped up — no, hopped up — on desperation. The Vikings played like it, too.

The Lions just had a little more. That was part of the vision as well.

Now they are NFC North champs, having knocked off Minnesota on Sunday, 30-24. So much for the record books. So much for droughts. So much for SOL. Let’s go ahead and toss that one in the trash.

That’s what they did Sunday afternoon at U.S. Bank Stadium. That’s what they did in the third quarter after Minnesota had grabbed the lead. That’s what they did when their coach made a curious decision late in the second quarter.

They tossed the Same Old Lions moniker aside.

It was third down. The Vikings had the ball at their own 45. They needed 19 yards for a first after Ifeatu Melifonwu sacked Nick Mullens, his second of the half. There were 49 seconds left in the first half. Minnesota seemed willing to let the play clock run down before snapping it, which would’ve effectively ended the half.

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Instead, Campbell called a timeout. The Vikings converted with a pass to Justin Jefferson and had plenty of time to run their offense. They scored.

Campbell has been a consistently aggressive coach, and he generally follows the numbers, especially when he’s going for it on fourth down. And while the probability of picking up a third-and-19 may be low, especially for a team on its fourth-string quarterback, the timeout was an unnecessary risk.

Let the clock run. Head to the locker room up, 17-7.

Minnesota used the late first-half score as a boomerang to start the third, and sailed down the field five plays, the big one a 47-yarder over the top to K.J. Osborn. In less than five minutes of game clock, between the end of the second quarter and the beginning of the third, the Vikings flipped the game, gouging the Lions’ leaky secondary, in part because of an inconsistent pass rush.

But then Campbell took the timeout — and has taken chances all season — not just because he’s trying to cover up weaknesses, but because he believes in his team.

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Believes that they will respond, on the road, in one of the loudest stadiums in the league, on a Christmas Eve game with three decades of history on the line. And they did ...

... on consecutive drives.

Big-boy drives. Focused, precise, division-clinching drives. The kind of drives that are still, let’s be honest, unusual around these parts.

Go 30 years without winning a division and, yeah, you’re not going to see too many drives like what the Lions unspooled in the third quarter.

Well, the second drive technically ended early in the fourth quarter, when Jahmyr Gibbs sizzled through a lane as wide as the Mississippi to score his second touchdown. We’re getting ahead of ourselves, though.

Let’s rewind a bit, and go back to the early third, when the Vikings scored again to take a 21-17 lead. On first down, Goff threw one of his prettiest passes of the day to Kalif Raymond, dropping it over one defender and in front of another.

First down.

And they were off. Six-yard run for Gibbs. Eight-yard pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown. Seven more yards for Gibbs. Seven more for Sam LaPorta.

On it went. No one was hurrying. Or panicking. Or seemingly sweating. Still, the Lions ran their offense. They spread the ball around. They leaned into how they’re built, and showed why Campbell doesn’t mind taking chances on fourth down.

Or calling a timeout when the safe play was to let the clock run.

The Lions finished the drive that began with a pass to Raymond when Goff hit St. Brown in the back of the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown. Thirteen plays they ran. One of them on fourth down. And while the extra point was blocked, the Lions had regained the lead, and momentum.

The defense forced a three-and-out. The Vikings punted. The offense took over.

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Again, it began with a pass, this time 4 yards to St. Brown. He and Goff were finding a rhythm. Two plays later they connected for 25 yards. Then 15 yards. They were rolling. Then running.

And some 14 plays after they started, Gibbs strode over the goal line to give the Lions a 30-21 lead. They followed with another defensive stop. This time an interception.

Then stalled with a chance to put the game away. Three and out.

Minnesota got going. They managed a field goal. And when the Lions took the field on offense, they’d lost their focus.

A false start set them back on second down. Then a delay of game set them back five yards more. Campbell decided to put it in his defense’s hands by calling consecutive runs on second and third and long.

Leave it to the punter and to Aaron Glenn. Bet the division that Mullens couldn’t beat them.

Turns out he couldn’t. Campbell gambled right. And when Melifonwu picked off Mullens near the goal line to seal it, the sideline erupted.

They’d escaped. Their own late-game miscues. A 400-yard day by Mullens. A loose ball that should've been recovered for a fumble but wasn’t when John Cominsky tried to pick it up and run.

Sometimes, you need the bounces. Sometimes, you’re owed the bounces. It’s not easy upending history.

The Lions just did.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: How Detroit Lions stuck to principles to beat Vikings, win NFC North