What more can you say about these Lions, who do not care what you say in the first place. But if you want their honest opinion, "it's bulls**t," said Alex Anzalone, the idea that the defense isn't good enough for the team to win the Super Bowl. That was on Thursday. Three days later, Anzalone returned from a broken forearm and the Lions broke the Vikings, holding them to their fewest points of the season in the biggest game of the year. So what about that idea now?
"You tell me," Anzalone said with a grin. "I haven’t gone on Twitter or anything yet. Tonight was a statement. I think it was an opportunity to change the narrative against a really good offense, great weapons, great running back, a quarterback that’s really hot right now."
Sam Darnold is hot no more. The Vikings came to Detroit with designs of ripping the 1 seed from the Lions' hands, and left bruised and battered and beaten into submission. They bent the knee on their final offensive snap. It was vindication for Aaron Glenn's defense, which is missing limbs but hasn't lost its soul. Glenn struck his usual pose throughout the game, reclining on a sideline bench while the offense was on the field. DJ Reader stopped by now and then to "tap my dog on the chest and just tell him, 'Keep calling that stuff, man. Keep dialing it up, AG, we’re gonna go out and rock for you.'"
At one point late in the first half, Reader swallowed Aaron Jones at the line of scrimmage, got up and wagged a finger in the air. It felt like a gesture for the critics. The Lions were favored in the battle for the North, but only because of their offense. Their depleted defense was supposed to get torn apart by Darnold and his cast of weapons. The "agenda was pushed all week," said Reader, "that we were just going to struggle." The mammoth defensive tackle used it as fuel.
"I always have, just the doubt. But people are going to doubt you your whole life. That’s their job, people in the media, especially when they don’t like the product that you’re putting out there. But F 'em. It’s our product, sh*t. We’re out there doing our thing, and we’re going to keep going," Reader said.
Twice the Vikings sniffed the end zone, once thanks to an interception by Jared Goff. They never entered it, stopped both times on downs. In a clash of Coach of the Year candidates, Dan Campbell lured Kevin O'Connell into playing the Lions' game and going for it near the goal line. It backfired for the Vikings when Glenn's defense shut the door. Minnesota went 0-for-4 in the red zone, 0-for-3 on fourth down. Glenn will soon be a head coach, but his job isn't finished in Detroit.
"That guy puts in so much time, devotes himself to understanding his players, so he knew to put us in the right situations and the right game plan," said Terrion Arnold. "The dude is a genius."
Arnold went down in the third quarter with a foot injury, leaving the Lions without their top two corners against one of the best receiving duos in the NFL. Amik Robertson was already playing his tail off against Justin Jefferson, battling him for every yard like they were high school rivals again in Louisiana. No one on Detroit's defense has made a bigger statement than its smallest player since replacing Carlton Davis III on the outside. And when Arnold left, Kindle Vildor stepped in and helped hold down Jordan Addison. Jefferson and Addison combined for 54 yards, their lowest output of the season.
"We showed everybody that all that talk that 'the Lions can’t keep this up, the injuries, they’re not the same defense' -- check the scoreboard," said Arnold, who expects to be able to play in Detroit's divisional round game.
It read 31-9 by the end, as fireworks exploded inside Ford Field. The Lions' secondary pasted Minnesota's receivers all night, like the blue and silver streamers that clung to the seats long after the fans had left. Even when Darnold had time, he had trouble finding open targets. He also shriveled in the red zone like he had fizzled at prior stops.
The Lions did get after him, just enough, with a mix of blitzes and one-on-one rushes. Their two sacks came fittingly from a pair of midseason imports in Za'Darius Smith and Al-Quadin Muhammad, brought in to help make up for all the losses up front. There was Aidan Hutchinson on the sideline, pumping up the crowd before Muhammad buried Darnold to force another Vikings punt as the Lions were pulling away.
And back in the middle of the defense, Anzalone wiped out tight end T.J. Hockenson and led the team in tackles. Kerby Joseph beamed when asked about Anzalone's return and said, "Our defensive captain, man." Glenn is their leader, "and the guys just rallied around his game plan," said Anzalone.
"Guys were sticky in coverage and playing with aggression and playing with confidence, and that’s what we do. We play a lot of man coverage — a lot — and not a lot of teams are willing to do that or have the guys to do that," said Anzalone.
In Robertson, Joseph, Arnold and Brian Branch, the Lions still have an identity in the backend. They are unafraid. Joseph said the idea that the defense is bound to crumble is "super insulting, because they’re basically saying, like, we're not good enough. Like, I’m not good enough, TA not good enough, BB not good enough. We still got guys. And whoever comes in here, they know what’s up. They know what time it is, man."
"A lot of the media, man, they were saying the injuries were an excuse to say that we’re not a top-10 defense no more," said Joseph. "I feel like this game showed that we’re still capable of that."
Praise for the defense came from every corner of the offense. Jared Goff couldn't stress it enough when he spoke at the podium, reminding anyone who cared to listen that his teammates on the other side of the ball do not care how many starters they're missing: "They just keep coming." When Taylor Decker brought it up in the locker room, Penei Sewell cackled in delight a couple stalls down. Decker, the Lions' longest-tenured player, echoed Reader and said this for those who didn't think Detroit could hang with Minnesota: "F**k 'em."
"That’s how I feel about it, counting our defense out and talking bad about them," Decker said. "They were incredible today, at all levels. ... It’s weird when other people want to use the injuries as an excuse for us when we don’t use that excuse. And this is coming from an offensive player. Our defense, they were out there playing fearless. They were playing with their hair on fire, flying around to make plays. They weren’t going to play scared. I mean, it was incredible. That was the best defensive performance I think I've seen. We know that their offense is high-powered, we know that this was a high-stakes game, and they were just kicking ass out there."
The Lions lost the turnover battle and won the game, a fanciful notion when the night began. Turnovers were supposed to be their only chance of getting stops. Instead, they did it the hard way, which is the only way they've come to know. They stood their ground on third and fourth down because "we had to defend our territory," said Robertson. This den is theirs and their claws are sharp, as the Vikings can attest.