Dan Campbell was wrestling with the decision in his sleep. After watching the Vikings beat the Packers on Sunday and knowing that the Lions had little to gain Monday night against the 49ers, Campbell started to wonder whether he should play his starters or rest them before a winner-take-all showdown with the Vikings -- especially with Detroit's roster already ravaged by injuries.
He stuck to his guns, as he said he would, in a 40-34 win in San Francisco that gave the Lions a small measure of revenge after last season's loss at Levi's Stadium in the NFC title game.
"Woke up at 2 (a.m.) or whatever it was this morning and yeah, it was on my mind," Campbell said after Detroit pushed its record to 14-2. "I thought a lot about it, I thought about it leading up to the game, I thought about it last night, I told the staff. But I ended up settling on, the right thing to do was play these guys, because we owed it to the team.
"It’s just one of those positions we were in. It’s hard to say who you’re going to sit, and it’s not fair to ask guys to play that haven’t been prepared to play. So yeah, that was tough."
Campbell said there was "nothing easy" about the decision, even though he came out last Monday and said the Lions were bringing everything in their arsenal to San Francisco regardless of what the game meant in the standings. Part of Campbell's dilemma was that the starters got the game-like reps in practice because the Lions had to prepare as if they could have a chance to clinch the NFC North. That would have been the case had the Packers beat the Vikings.
"For example, (Hendon) Hooker’s not getting those reps. Those are (Jared) Goff’s reps, because we don’t know, and that’s just one example," Campbell said. "So, I just don’t believe it’s fair to put in a guy who’s not prepared to play, especially a young player. And then, you can only sit six guys, so who are those six? And then the other guys who don’t (sit), is it fair to them that we’re not using everything we got?
"We flew out here, we prepared this way, we came out to win and that’s ultimately what it came to. And yeah, you do, you cross your fingers that nobody gets hurt. I mean, it’s tough, and we were fortunate. We got out and now it’s on to the next one."
One of the upsides to deploying their starters is that the Lions sharpened themselves before the biggest game of the year, particularly on offense. Sunday night's collision with the Vikings, who are also 14-2, will decide the division and the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
And while the Lions are a day behind Minnesota in preparation and recovery after playing Monday night, "there were things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did," Campbell said.
"We cleaned a lot of things up offensively, I thought. Defensively, we talked about getting takeaways, we got takeaways, so that will always serve you well going into next week. And look, we knew what this is. You’re out on the West Coast, you go, man, it’s all good, that’s what we do, you know what I mean?" Campbell said with a smile. "This is what we do. Like, we love it hard. And this is our deal right now. So we’re looking forward to this, everything about this week."