The Detroit Lions are having their best season in franchise history in 2024. Detroit is 14-2 for the first time ever and is heading into Week 18 with a chance to capture the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs. The Lions beat the 49ers 40-34 on Monday night in a revenge game going back to last year's NFC Championship loss.'
Lions head coach Dan Campbell spoke about his decision to play his starters on Monday against the 49ers. Campbell admitted that he considered resting starters after the Vikings beat the Packers on Sunday, per Ari Meirov. The result of that game made Detroit's Week 17 contest irrelevant to playoff seeding. Instead, their Week 18 contest against the Vikings will decide the NFC North division winner and No. 1 seed in the NFC.
Campbell ultimately decided to play all of the players who prepared all week in practice. He called it a tough decision, but added that “we love it hard.”
“I ended up settling on the right thing to do was playing those guys,” Campbell said after the game, per the Associated Press. “We owed it to the team. … That was tough. I think the biggest thing is there was things we wanted to do better than we did last week, and we did.”
Now Detroit has a chance to guarantee home-field advantage during the postseason with a Week 18 win against Minnesota. Campbell wouldn't have it any other way.
The Lions leaned on their aggressiveness to get a big win on Monday Night Football.
Detroit went two-of-three on fourth down attempts against San Francisco. One of those conversions resulted in a huge touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown that the Lions desperately needed to climb back into the game.
“That’s the only way we know. It's just go and find a way to win,” Lions QB Jared Goff said. “This is what ended our season last year. There’s a lot of guys on this team that were there last year that wanted to get one back on them even though in a lot of ways it was meaningless for them and it was meaningless for us.”
Lions safety Kerby Joseph also played a huge role in this game. He hauled in two second-half interceptions that gave Detroit the opportunity to pull ahead of San Francisco.
