Lions refuse to break in primetime overtime battle against Rams
DETROIT — One of the greatest compliments you can pay the Detroit Lions organization is that they are no longer judged on a curve.
Moral victories? A thing of the past. The coddling after crushing, closely fought defeats? That’s dead too. Winning breeds expectations, pressure, new standards and a level of play you’re used to and held to. It’s everything that comes with being the contenders these Lions think they are.
But one thing will never go away? The feeling after a hard-fought victory. Just like Sunday against the Los Angeles Rams in overtime.
A damn good win photo.twitter.com/FLQf8dHd9C
—Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 9, 2024
“A win’s a win,” Lions head coach Dan Campbell told his team after Detroit’s 26-20 victory over Los Angeles. “That team gave us everything they had, man. That’s what they did. They threw it at us, man. And give them some credit. … But the bottom line is, man, it’s tough to break us right now. In fact, you’re not going to.”
Sequels are rarely better than the original. Given what happened on this court just eight months ago, you couldn’t expect a game like this to reach such levels — even before the most anticipated season in franchise history.
That 24-23 playoff win over the Rams banished demons. It made tears flow down the faces of people in the state of Michigan and beyond. It made people in this city wish their deceased loved ones were here to witness it with them. And most importantly, it breathed new life into this organization — it let the league know that the Lions had arrived.
What we saw Sunday night was a continuation of the January run, in a few ways. The Lions hosted a nationally televised prime-time game to open the season. A pregame segment on the broadcast featured Hall of Famer Calvin Johnson, who recounted the past year and the year ahead. It all adds up to what the Lions have become: a team with the expectations of a contender. They’re no longer sneaking up on anyone.
As such, there will be more scrutiny. More eyes. You’re going to get the best of everyone, week in, week out. And if you’re not ready for it, people are going to wonder if you’re built for this or not.
The Lions got that from the Rams on Sunday. Detroit’s vaunted rushing attack was held in check early. An offensive line considered one of the best in football was shaky at times. Detroit’s two star pass-catchers — Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta — were limited to a combined seven receptions for 58 yards. Jared Goff threw one interception and dropped another.
On defense, missed tackles, sloppy angles to the ball, dropped interceptions, costly penalties and a failure to unsettle old friend Matthew Stafford nearly ruined the party that was Ford Field. Add to that the fact that the Rams played most of the game without their starting cornerback, their top three offensive tackles, a starting guard and star wide receiver Puka Nacua, and it’s fair to criticize how this game unfolded for the Lions.
“Okay, start here,” Campbell said after the game. “Man, I give that team a lot of credit, what Sean (McVay) did with that team, getting them here. I thought they had a great game plan, they adapted well to some of the things we threw at them, and they just kept coming, they fought and they battled. I respect that, I really do. That quarterback, Stafford, played great and played hard and just kept stepping up and making unbelievable throws. I just give them a lot of credit.
“…But we are hard to break. We did what we had to do.”
Indeed, Campbell’s Lions are. And what made this game even more fascinating is that Detroit’s stars weren’t the ones leading the charge for much of this game. This team got key contributions from new faces and new contributors.
Marcus Davenport, a forgotten man in this league as injuries took their toll on his body, signed here to resurrect his career and be the missing piece. Lions DC Aaron Glenn coached Davenport in New Orleans and knows what kind of player he can be when healthy. In many ways, he’s the blueprint for what the Lions want opposite Aidan Hutchinson — a big, powerful edge-setter with a bull rush that would make a matador quake in fear. His fingerprints were all over this game, finishing with a half-sack, four QB hits and pressure all night long.
The 2022 No. 12 pick, Jameson Williams, who’s still working to live up to his reputation three years in, certainly looked like it tonight. With the offense stagnant for much of the night, it was Williams who kept them afloat. How many times can you say that in his young career? His 52-yard touchdown showed off all the tools the Lions fell in love with two years ago: the speed, the separation, the bravado. He finished the night with a career-high 121 yards on five receptions for 134 yards of offense. He received his first-ever game ball after the night. And he doesn’t plan on letting it go anytime soon.
“It means a lot, you know?” Williams said. “I’ve put a lot of work into it, not just this year. It’s been continuous work since I’ve been in the league, and it’s just time to show it. It’s the first game, it’s just the beginning. We’ve got 16 more in the regular season, playoffs, we’ve got a lot more ball to play. It’s just the beginning.”
New precious possession photo.twitter.com/XRL4TPUTjB
—Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 9, 2024
Jake Bates, the UFL-turned-NFL kicker, made his regular-season debut. A rocky training camp left some wondering how effective Bates would be on the sport’s biggest stage, at a position that’s as mental as it is physical. But Bates is no stranger to the field. He made a name for himself throwing clutch kicks for the Michigan Panthers. He did the same for his new franchise, going 2-for-2 on extra points and 2-for-2 on field goals — including a game-tying 32-yarder with 17 seconds left in regulation.
When the lights came up and it mattered most, you saw the true identity of this football team. A stone-cold Detroit offense, held to just seven second-half points until the final minutes, put together the drive it needed—and set up Bates to tie the score at 20 apiece. On the Rams’ ensuing possession, with 17 seconds left and all three timeouts in their arsenal, it was Hutchinson’s turn to make a play. He ended regulation with a sack, allowing a red-hot Stafford to pierce the hearts of Lions fans everywhere and ruin a building he knows all too well.
Aidan Hutchinson sends it to OT with the sack#LARvsDET | 📺 NBC photo.twitter.com/ZLEj4lO4jr
—Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 9, 2024
That led to what turned out to be a thrilling finish. When the Lions won the toss in overtime and elected to receive, they went back to their roots and ran the ball.
A win of 12. A rush to 21. A win of nine. The Rams could only watch as the Lions played bully ball and got closer and closer to the end.
On the final play of the night, with the ball on LA’s 1-yard line, Goff turned to running back David Montgomery with a message.
“This is scoring” Goff told Montgomery.
Let’s take a look at the tape.
All courage, all struggle.
Walk it off, @montgomerdavid 🙌 photo.twitter.com/kyOHTX0TtV
—Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 9, 2024
Montgomery’s 1-yard run gave the Lions a 26-20 walk-off win and a 1-0 start to the season. It was sloppy, there’s no doubt about it. Campbell attributed some of it to rust. The film won’t look good to many upon closer inspection, and there’s a lot of cleaning up to do before next Sunday’s matchup between another team the Lions faced in last year’s playoff run — the 1-0 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
If that win didn’t feel right to you, as a Lions fan, then your expectations for this team have changed. In many ways, that means the Lions are exactly where they need to be. The fact that we can sit here and discuss a win that looked like a loss, and probably would have been a loss for so many Lions teams in the past, underscores the point.
This team remains hard to break. Don’t underestimate its power in the long run.
(Photo of David Montgomery celebrating scoring the winning touchdown: Nic Antaya/Getty Images)
