Pride of Detroit
The Detroit Lions (7-4) needed overtime to get a win over the New York Giants (2-10), but wins are hard to come by in the NFL, and so it’s important not to dismiss this win too quickly.
On the surface, a win over a team with the Giants’ record would be easily dismissed in the media. But the Giants are a team playing with nothing to lose, and they have a lot of close calls on their resume. They have close losses to the Lions, Broncos (9-2), Bears (8-3), and Packers (7-3-1), and their two wins have come over the Eagles (8-3) and Chargers (7-4).
In this week’s National Power Rankings, we see some writers acknowledge the win for what it is, while others can’t get past the box score. Let’s take a look at how things shook out in this week’s power rankings.
Somewhere in Detroit, Jahmyr Gibbs is still running untouched.
I’m choosing to ignore how easily the Giants moved the ball on Detroit’s defense—especially considering how much credit I gave Detroit’s defensive coordinator, Kelvin Sheppard, earlier this season. Instead, I’m going to spend my time watching highlights from Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs’s 264-yard and three-touchdown performance. He did all of that on 26 total touches.
Gibbs’s speed is uncanny and game-breaking, and he holds three of the top five mile-per-hour marks this season, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. The way he scored the go-ahead touchdown in overtime on Sunday illustrates why we can never count Detroit out, even though this season hasn’t been as smooth as head coach Dan Campbell would’ve liked.
The Lions were briefly trapped in the Jameis Winston vortex, a kind of siren song that has chewed up and spat out strong teams. But true to their character, the team managed to survive and nab the all-too-predictable gutting interception that Winston was going to inevitably lay up. Detroit’s offense takes almost no deep shots despite having a troika of excellent deep ball wide receivers. I think there is still another evolution to this team in 2025.
Seeing the defense get torched by Jameis Winston at home wasn’t encouraging. Jahmyr Gibbs saved the Lions from what would have been a terrible loss. It’s getting harder to buy the inconsistent Lions as a title contender. Thursday’s game against the Packers will be telling.
The Lions needed a twisting 59-yard field goal from Jake Bates and a 69-yard OT touchdown from Jahmyr Gibbs to survive against the Giants, and it felt more like relief than jubilation at game’s end. Everything has seemingly become more difficult for Detroit, even things we used to take for granted, like Jared Goff’s pass protection and Amon-Ra St. Brown’s ability to catch...
