Week 13 Recap: Lions Win!

They did it! They finally did it! Like most things the Detroit Lions do, it wasn't easy. Week 13 saw the Lions hosting the Minnesota Vikings for the second and last time this season; the first meeting in Minnesota saw the Vikings win via a last second field goal, and also saw Lions head coach Dan Campbell tearfully hype up his team. As for this meeting, the Lions had a big lead, 20-3, but it ended up slipping away, bit by bit, with Justin Jefferson's touchdown giving the Vikings a 27-23 lead with under two minutes left in regulation.

Now, let me get something straight. I am a Green Bay Packers fan. I am a fan of a division rival. Based on that alone, I am not supposed to give a care in the world about the Lions. However, the Lions are a team who have suffered for a long time. Decades. If the Lions lost this game, there was a good chance that they would end up going winless for the second time in less than 15 years, and that's just too much. Plus, they were playing the Vikings. That, alone, gave me all the incentive I needed to pull for the Lions to pull this off, and they did. They reached the red zone, and with four seconds left, Jared Goff's pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown connected in the end zone. Lions win 29-27!

This was the Lions' first win of the season, and it was their first win since December 6, 2020 against the Chicago Bears, while Dan Campbell had his first ever win as head coach in the NFL. I cheered as loudly as I could when that TD was scored, not only because the Lions won, but because the Vikings found a way to embarrass themselves yet again. Now, people see games like this and say, "any given Sunday." Let me explain something. "Any given Sunday" is three things: a myth, a bad movie, and a lame excuse. The Packers would never lose like this to a winless team in December. Neither would the Chiefs, Steelers, or Rams. Those are NFL teams. The Vikings aren't an NFL team. The Vikings are two things: an embarrassment, and a punching bag for Aaron Rodgers. That's it.

Thursday Night Football gave us Taysom Hill starting at QB for the New Orleans Saints against the Dallas Cowboys, who were coached that evening by Dan Quinn, as Mike McCarthy had tested positive for COVID-19. So at last, the man I've referred to as the "Swiss-army knife" of the NFL will make his start at QB, and I was interested to see how he would perform. Hill threw two TD passes, ran for 101 yards, and racked up 264 passing yards, but he threw four interceptions. Those picks weren't the only reason why the Saints lost the game to the Cowboys. The fact that Hill had to represent the team's entire running game was a detriment as well, and New Orleans' defense couldn't do a thing against the Cowboys, who maintained their hold on the NFC East.

With the Packers on a bye, the two teams I kept an eye on were the Arizona Cardinals and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers--the two teams closest to the Packers (one way or the other) in the overall NFC standings. The Bucs won a tight but dominant game over the Falcons, 30-17, to increase their immense hold on the NFC South, as well as keep pace with the Packers and Cardinals in the conference. As for the Cardinals, Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins returned to action, and that plus the fact that they were facing the Chicago Bears made this an easy week for the Cards. Their 33-22 victory in Chicago was the Cards' 10th of the season--the first team this season to reach double digits. The Los Angeles Rams ended their skid with a 37-7 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars, so they are still in pace with the Cards in the NFC West.

Is the Washington Football Team for real? It looks like they might be. They defeated the Las Vegas Raiders, 17-15, for their fourth straight victory, which improved them to the .500 mark. Even better, the San Francisco 49ers' 30-23 loss to the Seattle Seahawks moved Washington up the playoff ladder in the NFC. Defense had been a problem for Washington, but in the but during their winning streak, they surrendered only 70 points--an average of 17.5 points per game. They are two games behind Dallas in the NFC East, and they have a good chance to build up a case for winning the division again--all of their final five games are inside the division. Two vs Dallas, two vs Philadelphia, and one vs the Giants.

Say you're a team who has the greatest kicker of all time. You're down by seven, but you score a clutch TD and only need an extra point to tie it and force OT. Do you kick the PAT or go all in and go for two? The Baltimore Ravens, for some reason, took option B, and it didn't work out too well for them. As a result, the Ravens lost by that one point (20-19) to the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, and that loss ended up knocking them off their perch as the #1 team in the AFC. As for the Steelers, they needed this win, as a loss would doom what little playoff hopes they had. This win came one day after the somewhat surprising news that Ben Roethlisberger could be retiring after this season.

The last two games of the week centered on the AFC playoff picture, with Sunday Night Football seeing the Kansas City Chiefs dominate the Denver Broncos, a 22-9 win to keep them ahead of the Los Angeles Chargers, who won big in Cincinnati. The story, however, came from Monday Night Football, which featured the first meeting of the season between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills. To my surprise, it was the Patriots who emerged victorious in Orchard Park, a 14-10 win thanks to timely defense and yet another in a late batch of subpar performances from Josh Allen. The Patriots' win streak increased to seven, and not only is their AFC East lead now one game larger, but they are in sole possession of the #1 seed in the AFC. If this isn't the definition of "the more things change, the more they stay the same," I don't know what is.

While no teams clinched playoff spots after this week, we do have an elimination. The Houston Texans became the first team to be eliminated from playoff contention, as they dropped to 2-10 with their 31-0 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. It's the first, but not the last. 17 more teams will see their seasons come to an abrupt end. Those are the trials and tribulations of December and early January football.

Week 14 will kick off with the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Minnesota Vikings facing off on Thursday Night Football, while Sunday Night Football will feature the latest chapter in the storied rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears. On Monday Night Football, the Los Angeles Rams and the Arizona Cardinals will face off in a battle of NFC West playoff contenders.

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