Pride of Detroit
The Detroit Lions’ lost to a third-string, undrafted rookie quarterback who completed eight passes for 51 yards—just barely enough to offset the 48 yards of sack yardage he lost.
That’s how bad the Lions’ offense was against the Minnesota Vikings in their (essentially) season-ending loss on Christmas. Let’s break it all down in our penultimate report card of the Lions’ 2025 season.
Goff had a fantastic drive where he made a few incredible plays that helped the Lions convert a third-and-16, a third-and-9, a third-and-15, and a fourth-and-goal from the 4-yard line. Everything else was a pretty big disaster. Goff was sacked five times—sometimes his fault, often not—and turned the ball over four times. The only thing the Lions really needed to do to win this game is win the field position battle, and Goff’s turnovers explicitly lost Detroit the game.
Speaking of turnovers, Jahmyr Gibbs’ fumble was extremely costly. The Lions were just crossing over into Vikings territory when Gibbs coughed up the ball, taking away one of Detroit’s few scoring opportunities on the day.
Against an aggressive defensive front, pass protection was going to be key for the running backs in this game, and they did not step up to the plate.
Montgomery, to his credit, did run tough and converted a fourth-and-1 he had no business converting, but Detroit’s running game is too far gone that even those physical yards amounted to a paltry 2.5 yards per carry for Montgomery and 2.3 yards per carry for the team.
Giovanni Ricci had a brutal false start when the Lions were attempting to go for it fourth down. The tight ends continue to look lost in both run blocking and pass protection. And they offered exactly zero catches for 0 yards in this game.
This team may miss Sam LaPorta and Brock Wright more than they miss Frank Ragnow.
There wasn’t anything offensively bad from this unit, but they failed to make a big enough impact in this game. Goff was holding onto the ball far too long, and I am assuming that’s because the receivers weren’t getting open enough.
That said, Isaac TeSlaa made a nice touchdown grab.
The offensive line is an absolute disaster. Detroit made an interesting decision by starting Kingsley Eguakun at center with a healthy Graham Glasgow, and it resulted in three critical errors. There were two failed quarterback/center exchanges that resulted in turnovers, and Eguakun was also called for a false start on a fourth down attempt (admittedly a poor call).
But there’s nothing positive to say about anyone else, either. The Lions gave up five sacks, got absolutely zero push in the run game (longest run was 8 yards), and just looked overmatched against a defense missing its best pass rusher.
Aidan Hutchinson had two sacks. Al-Quadin Muhammad had two sacks. Tyleik Williams even added one. All evening, Detroit...
