Eric Woodyard, ESPN
GREEN BAY, Wis. — Weather conditions inside Lambeau Field were chilly, windy and rainy, but that didn’t stop the Detroit Lions from winning their first outdoor game of the season Sunday.
The 24-14 victory over the Green Bay Packers gave the Lions their third straight road win against their NFC North rival. This is the first time Detroit has won four straight at Lambeau Field from 1986 to 1991.
Elias said the Lions played their first seven games of the season indoors, making them the only team in NFL history other than the New Orleans Saints in 1998 to do so. But the change in circumstances for Sunday’s Game 8 ultimately didn’t matter.
According to head coach Dan Campbell, the Lions are “built to win” no matter the situation.
“I know that. I’m not shocked in the slightest that we came out here and played pretty good football in some bad weather,” Campbell said. “We’re built for that. And it doesn’t matter and just because we play indoors, it doesn’t matter. We can play anywhere. We can play in the snow. You can play in the rain, you can play in the mud, that’s just us, we’re built to win. ”
Detroit has two more outdoor games left this season. The Lions will play the Bears in Chicago in Week 16 and the 49ers in San Francisco in Week 17. The team is confident that it can compete with any team in the league at the moment.
“We’re supposed to be a dome team that can’t play outside. We’re supposed to be a team that can only win one way. And I think we’ve shown a few times that we can win multiple ways.” Lions QB Jared Goff said. He went 18-of-22 for 145 passing yards and one touchdown. “We’re chameleons. Whatever it takes to win in any way, that’s what we’ll do.”
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The Lions were dominant on both sides of the ball, with their defense allowing their only touchdown on a 2-yard run by Emmanuel Wilson in the final 3:49, and safety Kirby Joseph recording the first pick-six of his NFL career with 32 seconds to play. He was ejected before halftime, giving the Lions a 17-3 lead. Detroit’s offense lost 411-261 to the Packers, but the Lions still controlled the game with zero turnovers and a strong ground attack.
The running back duo of David Montgomery and Jahmil Gibbs totaled 138 rushing yards and one touchdown, helping Detroit improve to 7-1 for the first time since 1956.
“We know we’re killers, dude. Killers kill. That’s what we do,” Lions cornerback Amik Robertson said. Still, we have to keep accumulating.
Despite Detroit’s ability to win under new conditions, including this week’s inclement weather, Campbell still told the team before leaving to face Houston in next week’s “Sunday Night Football” game. We encourage them to continue to develop other areas where they can improve.
“We talked about a lot of things. We talked about the run game advantage, we talked about explosives. It might sound crazy in this kind of weather, but who has the most explosives, field position, turns?” We also talked about if we could come up with an over rate,” Campbell said. . “The fact that we cared about football. We preached that and worked on it all week. We practice wet ball every day in outdoor practice.”
“Our players did a really great job. Goff cared about football. That was the difference. It was a big difference.”
Lions All-Pro receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who entered the stadium before Sunday’s game wearing a black hoodie with “Green Bay Sax” written on it, caught seven passes for 56 yards and a touchdown. He became at least the first wide receiver in history to do so once. Caught 30 targets for 19 consecutive seasons. According to ESPN Research, he connected with Goff on 30 consecutive passes, making Goff the first quarterback in NFL history (minimum of 100 attempts) to complete 80% of his passes in six games.
Goff said this was “probably” the best development of his career, as the win seemed to put the Lions in control of the NFC, but he was far from satisfied.
“Each game is its own battle, its own journey. I think we’ve gotten really good at flushing it out, even if it’s a loss,” Goff said. “Rinse it off right away and move on to the next game.
“So if we win this, we have to flash this tomorrow and move to Houston, Sunday night at their place,” he continued. “It’s going to be a wild game. It’s our fourth road game out of the last five. We kind of proved we can handle it.”
