The Good, Bad, and Ugly From Detroit Lions Loss to Vikings

The Detroit Lions had a very rare performance in which everything went sideways in all three phases of a football game.

Despite having had previous success against the Minnesota Vikings, Detroit played their worst game of the 2025 season in a 27-24 loss at Ford Field.

Detroit was able to claw their way back into the ballgame and ended up only losing to the Minnesota Vikings by three points.

The offense actually had a solid start to the ballgame, targeting tight end Sam LaPorta and taking an early lead.

Detroit's defense was able to generate 18 pressures and five sacks on J.J. McCarthy, making life difficult for the former Michigan Wolverines signal-caller.

The issues began compiling on themselves. Detroit had many self-inflicted wounds, including procedural penalties on offense, running back David Montgomery fumbling the football, kicker Jake Bates having a field goal blocked and special teams kickoff and punt coverage issues.

Cornerback Terrion Arnold was asked postgame his reaction to the defense getting the offense the ball back, only for the Vikings to stifle the run game.

"My reaction is we’ve got to go out there and play better. Like we’ve got to go out there and play better as a whole as a defense, even on the back end," said Arnold. "I think our front seven, they’re playing their behinds off. Just watching the growth, even with Jack (Campbell), watching how (Alex) Anzalone goes out there and competes, (Derrick Barnes) D-Barnes. It’s impressive to watch. Even me just knowing when teams are running the ball, them bouncing the ball out to the corners. I feel like teams are defined and defenses are defined by how their corners tackle and it speaks to physicality.

"I know with me getting back in the flow of things, that’s something that we’ve got to improve on," Arnold added. "But, I think just in the back end, I put games like this, even that last play , I don’t put that on Art (Arthur Maulet). It might seem like that, but it’s the little plays that led up to that. Things like that, I feel like we just gave them too much. And when we go into games like this and looking forward ahead, it’s the details and the keys and you have to go out there and make your opponent beat you. You don’t go out there and give things to your opponent.”

Detroit's offense has not been explosive and had their running game took significant strides backwards.

Despite there being an emphasis on executing better on third-down, Detroit's offense only went a paltry 5-for-17. Even Dan Campbell was surprised at the sheer number of occasions the team was facing such long distances in their attempts to extend drives.

Unfortunately, the play of the offensive line was quite ugly. There were simply no answers or adjustments to the defensive plan of Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores.

The latest 'Lone Wolves' podcast examines why the Lions were unable to secure a victory over the Vikings, given the team got some players back and were coming off of a bye week.

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