Our second Christmas Day game will be an NFC North rematch between the 7-8 Minnesota Vikings and the 8-7 Detroit Lions. After the controversial loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, the Lions are on their last legs and need a win to keep their season alive; otherwise, they'll be eliminated from playoff contention. Though the Vikes are already out of the playoff hunt, they can play spoiler and end their longtime rival's season.
Detroit's most recent game was mired in controversy. Down by five on the final play of the game, Lions quarterback Jared Goff completed a pass to wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who then lateralled the ball back to Goff, who carried it into the end zone for a touchdown. However, the play was nullified by a non-reviewable offensive pass interference penalty on St. Brown, ending the game and giving the Steelers the 29-24 win.
“We weren't able to close it out. And - at the end of the day - that's on us. I mean, we did that,” said Lions coach Dan Campbell during the postgame press conference. “We're the ones who put ourselves in that position where we had to try to score on the last play. Some of the efforts were outstanding, and it was just too little, too late.”
“I mean, it is the call. It is what it is. Those are the rules. You can't change ‘em,” Amon-Ra St. Brown told reporters. “But it never comes down to one play. It's never just because of that play. There were plenty of plays throughout that game that we could have made. And, we had calls go our way, too, throughout that last drive. So, it goes both ways.”
That wasn't the only questionable call on that drive. A few plays earlier, the Lions had a touchdown taken off the board because wide receiver Isaac TeSlaa was penalized for offensive pass interference.
“We've been on the right side of a lot of these. We've been on the wrong side of a lot of these,” Jared Goff said after the game. “I think - a few plays prior - the one on TeSlaa was a little bit more, in my head, up for interpretation. But - listen man – they’ve got to make the calls. And, I promise you, if I was sitting on the other side of that right now, we'd be saying great job.”
In Detroit, there were Super Bowl expectations after the Lions finished with a 15-2 record last season. Now, though, Detroit is fighting for its playoff life and could miss the postseason for the first time in three years.
“Look, it's frustrating,” Campbell said on Sunday. “We just lost two in a row, so that's the word. I don't know. I don't know what all this is or isn't. I know we’ve got two left, and I just want to see us finish, man. I just want to finish our style of football with two to go and try to play four straight quarters of good football, clean football, efficient football. That's what I want to do. And, we're on a short week now. We’ve got Minnesota. We're back in tomorrow and got to have a game plan ready for these guys, and we’ve got to be ready to go out to Minneapolis, put it all together, and execute.”
Though the Vikings came away from their most recent game with a win, they also suffered a loss because quarterback J.J. McCarthy had to leave the matchup with a hand injury. He has already been ruled out of Thursday's game with a hairline fracture.
“Got some further imaging, and it was discovered he does have a very, very small hairline fracture that was discovered in his hand. We are not expecting to have him this week,” said Minnesota head coach Kevin O’Connell on Tuesday. “I do not think this is anything that will require surgery. Recovery is kind of similar to a bone bruise… We'll keep you guys posted about his availability next week.”
With McCarthy out, backup quarterback Max Brosmer is expected to make his second start of the season. He threw four interceptions in his first start, a 26-0 loss to the Seattle Seahawks.
“The good news is he had a preparation week before he played against Seattle. Learned a lot in that opportunity, and I thought applied a lot of the principles of the rhythm and progressions he was going through,” O’Connell said. “Everything was very sequenced up and timed up with his feet. And [he] had some really nice plays from a standpoint of progressions, finding completions here or there.”
Brosmer knows that he didn't have his best performance against Seattle. He doesn't want that to be what his NFL career is remembered for.
“My dream has been to play in the NFL for a long time. To define myself by one game wouldn't be fair to the younger me watching me play football in the NFL,” Brosmer told reporters on Tuesday. “I think it's really difficult to be in that situation - to come out and continue to work and prepare the same way - because you look back like, ‘Oh, do I have to change my preparation or tweak small things?’ And that's ultimately what you do, just tweak some really small things. And the more you try to fix issues, and the bigger steps you try to take, is usually when you start to fall back a little bit… I'm just grateful to be here. I'm excited to keep competing with the guys this weekend.”
While the Vikings are out of playoff contention, they still want to finish the season well, especially with their final two regular-season games taking place at home.
“Our team is really excited to be back home, playing on Thursday, playing in a game a lot of folks will be watching. It's a chance for us to continue to put on display the growth of this team, the mindset of this team,” O’Connell said. “Despite circumstances, these guys want to win every football game we’ve got left, and it's going to be a really massive challenge. Dan's going to have his team ready to go. It's going to be physical. It's going to be 60 minutes of NFC North football. This game means a lot to us, and we're putting everything we've got into it knowing we get a chance to play in front of our great fans again at U.S. Bank Stadium here to close the season a couple times.”
Prediction for Detroit Lions (-7.5) @ Minnesota Vikings
There’s not much to talk about here. The Lions will kill an inexperienced quarterback like Max Brosmer. In the National Football League, Brosmer has completed 26 of 39 passes for 178 yards, zero touchdowns, and four interceptions. That equates to a passer rating of 37.07. If you threw the football into the ground every play, you would wind up with a passer rating of 39.58. On top of that, both of Minnesota's running backs are questionable to play due to injuries. This game is going to be a slaughter.
Prediction: Lions 35 - 10 Vikings
How to watch Detroit Lions (-7.5) @ Minnesota Vikings
Lions @ Vikings starts at 4:30 p.m. EDT at U.S. Bank Stadium. You can watch it on Netflix.
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