Here we go, it all comes down to this. The Detroit Lions will host the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday Night Football in Week 18 and the winner takes the NFC North title and the first seed in the NFC. The latter guarantees home-field advantage in the playoffs. This game means everything to the Lions, in the past that has been a big problem.
We’ve seen movies like this before. The Lions go into the final week of the season with a chance to take the division. We’ve actually seen this movie twice in very recent history. The Lions lost in both movies as if they were the antagonists of the film or something.
You go back to 2014, when the Lions were having one of the best seasons they had in a long time. They had just wrapped up their 11th win over the Vikings, and now they had to go into Lambeau in Week 17 and beat the Packers to take the division title. They lost 30-20.
Fast forward just a couple of years into the future and the Lions play the Packers in Week 17 for a chance to win the division in a down season for the NFC North. Whoever wound up 10-6 was taking the crown. The Lions lost 31-24.
Now, we go into this next movie and have to find out if this is a trilogy or if the Lions are doing a reboot in which they’re the protagonists. This is a huge game for the Lions—absolutely huge.
The big differences here is that the Lions aren’t fighting to win the division for the first time in well over 20 years. They’re fighting to win it for the second year in a row for the first time in franchise history. They’re also a Lions’ team that has never lost the final game of the year under Dan Campbell. This is also a Lions team that has never lost to the Vikings at home under Dan Campbell.
The last big thing is that this is seemingly what the Lions have wanted all along. This is a big football game, and Campbell and the Lions love big football games. That should make a big difference this time around.