The Lions Won the One They Needed
Coming into Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings, the Detroit Lions absolutely needed the victory. Dan Campbell’s team has been projected to win the NFC North division from the get-go, and seeing the Vikings race out to a 5-0 record has put some serious questions into that reality. Leaving U.S. Bank Stadium with a win was not only a good thing for the Lions but was necessary.
The Lions Won the One They Needed
To date, the Minnesota Vikings 2024 schedule has been an absolute gauntlet. They had yet to find a loss until the Lions handed them one and had Detroit not handled business; things could have gotten ugly within the division. Detroit is also having a strong start to the year, but they now own a necessary tiebreaker in the early going.
Suggesting that the Lions faced a must-win game early doesn’t mean Minnesota could afford to hand them a victory. Of course, Kevin O’Connell would have preferred to see his team come out ahead. The Vikings went back and forth with Detroit on Sunday, and despite coming up just a bit short, that game was theirs for the taking, too.
Coming out of a bye week, it would have been great for the Vikings to keep their winning ways rolling. They also were without a key defensive starter and didn’t get either T.J. Hockenson or Dalton Risner for their first game of the season. Before the contest, it seemed like it didn’t really matter which of the two tilts against Detroit Minnesota won. Although winning on the road will be more difficult, these two clubs seem very tightly matched.
There are certainly some things that Kevin O’Connell and his coaching staff need to clean up from their team. They will have a shortened time span to do so with a Thursday Night Football matchup against the Los Angeles Rams looming. That also presents a soft landing spot in that Sean McVay’s team has struggled to remain competitive all year. They may get Cooper Kupp back for the action, but Minnesota is still expected to emerge victorious.
There was never any reason to believe the Vikings would run the table. 17-0 wasn’t happening, so a quality loss is hardly a death sentence. Minnesota will get an opportunity to beat the Lions later this year, and they can go back to playing a more free and loose style of action.
On the flip side, if there was a game Detroit needed to win, it was that one.
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Ted Schwerzler is a blogger from the Twin Cities that is focused on all things Minnesota Twins and Minnesota Vikings. He’s active on Twitter and writes daily for Minnesota Sports Fan. As a former college athlete and avid sports fan, covering our pro teams with a passion has always seemed like such a natural outlet.
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