The Lions' emotional win over the Vikings last Sunday ended with a dustup as Detroit was kneeling out the clock.
After Jared Goff took his final knee with the Lions in victory formation, defensive linemen Jalen Redmond, Dominique Orange and Levi Drake Rodriguez converged on Detroit's offensive line. After Penei Sewell pushed back Rodriguez and Scruggs shoved Orange, both Redmond and the rookie Orange came back for more, and one of them -- it's not entirely clear which one -- caught Goff with a heavy hand to the face.
Goff's head snapped back from the blow. He was drawn out of the pile by Christian Mahogany and the scrum quickly ended.
Asked what happened, Goff said Tuesday on 97.1 The Ticket, "You saw it. Looks like I got punched in the face, is what happened. They wanted to do whatever they want to do on the kneel-down when the game’s over, and there were some words, and I’m sure there will be a fine for somebody."
Jared Goff got smacked in the face and kept having to get dragged away from the scrum. https://t.co/FxRbwvZo3b
— Henry McKenna (@henrycmckenna) November 1, 2026
Goff also touched on the two taunting penalties the Lions received in the first quarter, the first on Amon-Ra St. Brown for standing over a defender after an eight-yard run by Sione Vaki, the second on Jameson Williams for spinning the ball in front of a defender after a 46-yard catch.
Asked if he thought the officials were trying to get back at the Lions for their exuberant but unpenalized celebration the week prior after a key penalty on Green Bay late in the game (a celebration that the NFL happily promoted on its official social accounts, by the way), Goff said, "I don’t know if it was them getting back at us."
"We were warned not to do certain things, and I don’t know if what we did even merited (the penalties) regardless of the warning, so whatever, we’ll deal with it," he said. "We toe the line and you don’t want to step over it, but I think they were looking for something that game, certainly."
