Winning ugly is pretty for Detroit Lions: ‘Maybe this is this year’

Winning games has sometimes been a slog for the Detroit Lions this year.

They do it, but it hasn’t always been easy — and it might stay that way for the rest of the year.

«Maybe this is this year,» Lions coach Dan Campbell said. «As we continue to clean things up, just find a way to win. Just find a way to win. Kind of like what happened (against the New York Giants last week), and then along the way, let’s just — let’s get our confidence up, let’s get a little momentum, let’s feed off each other.»

The Lions are 7-4 heading into Thursday’s Thanksgiving showdown with the Green Bay Packers and coming off a 34-27 overtime win against the Giants.

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Already, they have double the number of losses they had in the regular season last year and their point differential has dropped from a whopping plus-13.1 points per game last season, when they routinely blew out bad teams, to a still solid plus-7.5 ppg this year.

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The Lions’ point differential last year was the most by any team since the 2019 Baltimore Ravens (plus-15.6 ppg) and they rank fifth in the NFL in the category this year.

«The easy thing to say is, ‘Man, I wish we were cleaner in areas,’ right?» Campbell said. «Yeah, I wish we were cleaner altogether. It’s like, you play good on one side and then the other side you’re sputtering a little bit, or the other side you do some things right and then maybe one of the units isn’t as good and you just want to feel like all three are [clicking at the same time].»

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The Lions haven’t played as many complete games, where they’ve gotten high-level play from their offense, defense and special teams, through the first two-thirds of this season as they did last year.

They’ve scored 17 or fewer points in three of their four losses — a number they failed to top just one time last year. And they’ve allowed 24 or more points in half of their 12 games. In 2024, they allowed 24 or more points five times all season.

«It’s interesting you can have the same, pretty much the same guys and every team is always different every single year and different obstacles present itself,» Lions defensive end Aidan Hutchinson said. «We found ourselves with a couple losses early, and I think right now we are just head down, grinding these wins out and really just focused on the next game, and that’s the Packers, and focused on being 1-0 this week.

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«Really, I think if we adopt that mentality it will serve us in the end, and I think going into the playoffs when we are hitting our stride, that’s the most ideal time to do that.»

As hard as they’ve had to toil for some victories this year, Campbell said the Lions took a big step last week toward becoming the type of complementary team they need to be to win in the playoffs.

They never led in regulation and trailed the Giants by 10 points in the fourth quarter, but their defense made a late goal-to-go stand to get the ball back, Jake Bates drilled a 59-yard field goal to tie the game with 28 seconds to play, and Jahmyr Gibbs broke a 69-yard touchdown run on the first play of overtime.

«At the end of the day, it’s like, ‘Hey man, you take it the way it comes, and you just try to improve along the way, and you just never know,'» Campbell said. «I mean 15-2 felt great last year until you get booted right out. Then it’s like, ‘Hey man, maybe we’ve got to go the hard road and just win.’ Let’s just win and find a way every week and grind it out.”

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Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Winning ugly is pretty for Detroit Lions: ‘Maybe this is this year’