NFC North Goes Through Ford Field, Not Lambeau

GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Detroit Lions closed the 2022 NFL season by upsetting the Green Bay Packers in the cold of Lambeau Field. The Lions opened the 2023 NFL season by upsetting the Kansas City Chiefs 21-20 in the Super Bowl afterglow at Arrowhead Stadium on Thursday night.

Yes, the Lions are for real. Yes, the NFC North championship will go through Ford Field – a significant detour from the usual trek down Lombardi Avenue.

Sure, the outcome might have been different had the Chiefs had their all-time-great tight end, Travis Kelce, but Lions coach Dan Campbell’s team proved it is more than ready to compete with the big boys. A fake punt set up Detroit’s first touchdown. A pick-six kept the Lions in the game. The defense kept Patrick Mahomes out of the end zone on back-to-back drives in the second half. The offensive line carried the Lions to the finish line.

“I didn’t learn anything. I got verification of what I already knew,” Campbell told reporters in Kansas City. “And this is a resilient team. It already was a resilient team, and we added pieces to that resilient team. We’re built to handle some stuff, and we did that today against a very good opponent.”

Detroit showed it was ready for primetime when it shocked the Packers and kept Aaron Rodgers and Co. out of the playoffs last year. With a strong offseason, Detroit showed it was ready for the postseason.

In free agency, the Lions added cornerback Cameron Sutton, safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson and running back David Montgomery. In the draft, they selected running back Jahmyr Gibbs and linebacker Jack Campbell in the first round and tight end Sam LaPorta and safety Brian Branch in the second round.

After the Lions finished 31st in yards allowed per passing attempt last season, the veteran additions fixed the team’s glaring weakness in the secondary. Gardner-Johnson broke up two passes and Sutton had a hand in limiting Mahomes, the reigning MVP, to barely 50 percent accuracy.

The rookies delivered instant impact, too. Gibbs gained 60 yards on only nine touches. LaPorta caught all five targets for 39 yards and had a key block on Montgomery’s winning touchdown. Branch – acquired in a draft-day trade with the Packers – had the pick-six.

Detroit’s going to be a problem – and that’s a problem for the Packers, who are trying to rebuild on the fly with Jordan Love replacing Rodgers.

After years of ineptitude, Detroit is ready to win. Remember, the Lions have never won the NFC North. Their last division title came in 1993, when they reigned over the NFC Central. They haven’t won a playoff game since 1991.

After years of being a realistic Super Bowl contender, the Packers are starting over. Yes, there is plenty of proven talent on the roster, but is the passing game going to be good enough to win a shootout? Is the defense going to be tough enough to win a slugfest?

The teams’ general managers seemed aware of those realities with their approaches in free agency. While Detroit’s Brad Holmes made some big-splash additions, Green Bay’s Brian Gutekunst essentially told his veteran core, “OK, it’s up to you.”

That set the stage for the role reversal of realities. Gutekunst hopes by taking a couple steps backward that his team can take a few steps forward.

“The teams that have a chance to win a championship are the teams that are getting better each week and, toward the end of the season, are when they’re at their best,” he said following roster cuts. “That’s what I expect, that’s my expectations. Hopefully, that will lead us to accomplish the goals that we want to accomplish. I know there’s been a lot of talk about the youth and all that, but it’s no excuse.”

For Holmes, it’s full speed ahead. He called his level of confidence “very high” that he had assembled a roster capable of winning the NFC North.

“I do think that we’ve – let’s call it ‘took our medicine’ in the past couple of years,” Holmes said after making his final cuts. “Me and Dan talk about it all the time. We’ve coached the Senior Bowl. We’ve had to do ‘Hard Knocks.’ We’ve done all that.

“We’ve gone through a lot of darkness to get to this point, but that’s where the grit comes in place. It starts with football players, and what’s a football player? Smart, passionate, instinctive, relentless, tough, gritty. It starts there, but we have football players with talent.”

This is the Lions’ time. For how long? When the Packers walk off the field at Chicago on Sunday evening, we’ll at least have some idea of the distance between the teams.

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