DETROIT — The Minnesota Vikings and the host Detroit Lions will wrap up the NFL’s 2024 regular season with an unprecedented matchup and much at stake Sunday night at Ford Field.
Detroit (14-2) and Minnesota (14-2) will become the first teams to meet in the regular season with at least 13 wins and a combined 28 victories.
“It is unique,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said.
It is also quite consequential.
The winner earns the NFC North Division title, home-field advantage until the Super Bowl — this year’s big game is at the Superdome in New Orleans on Feb. 9 — and a coveted bye in the playoffs. The loser will start the postseason on the road next weekend as the league’s first 14-win wild card.
“This is exciting, but it’s not like it’s the playoffs,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said.
Detroit has been aiming for the NFC’s top seed since missing out on the advantage last season after a controversial road loss to the Dallas Cowboys late in the regular season. The stinging setback put the Lions on the road for the conference championship game, where they squandered a 17-point, third-quarter lead against the San Francisco 49ers.
“You come out of that game,” Campbell said, “and feel like it gives you the best odds to get to where the ultimate is, which is, as we all know what the prize is, and that’s the Super Bowl.”
The Lions went into the season with aspirations to reach the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history and have looked like a contender, winning 12 of their last 13 games.
The Vikings, meanwhile, were met with modest expectations when the season began nearly four months ago and have surpassed projections. They started 5-0 and have won their past nine games to be in a position to knock off the reigning division champions on their home turf.
“We knew we had to win a lot of football games to keep pace with a team that really has been, if not the best, one of the top two teams in the league for most of the year,” O’Connell said.
The AFC’s top seed already belongs to the Kansas City Chiefs (15-1), who will be seeking to become the first team to win three consecutive Super Bowls when they join the playoff proceedings in the divisional round later this month.
Vikings running back Aaron Jones said he and his teammates have always known they have what it takes to be among the NFL’s best.
“We weren’t on anybody’s radar,” Jones said. “But it was never dark in this building when we came in. It was always light, always a joy to be here.”
AP photo by Abbie Parr / Minnesota Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson (18) catches a 25-yard touchdown pass as Detroit Lions cornerback Amik Robertson (21) defends on Oct. 20 in Minneapolis.The starting quarterbacks for both teams were selected for the Pro Bowl Games at the end of the month in Orlando, Florida. Detroit’s Jared Goff was selected as starter for the NFC, and Sam Darnold was chosen as a backup.
While leading the NFL’s top-scoring offense, Goff has completed 75% or more of his passes in half of his 16 games to join Tom Brady as the only NFL quarterbacks to connect on three-fourths of their attempts in eight games of a season. Brady did it with the 2007 New England Patriots.
Darnold, who completed a season-high 81.5% of his passes in a 31-29 loss to Detroit on Oct. 20 in Minneapolis, threw for a career-high 377 yards in last Sunday’s win over the Green Bay Packers, another division rival. He has thrown a career-high 35 touchdown passes — eight more than he threw over the previous four seasons combined with three teams — to show the promise the New York Jets envisioned when selecting him No. 3 overall in the 2018 NFL draft.
Darnold became the first NFL quarterback to win 14 games in his debut season with a team. He went 21-35 as a starter in six seasons with the Jets, Carolina Panthers and 49ers.
Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said Darnold’s renaissance is reminiscent of Baker Mayfield’s resurrected career with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“There are some of these quarterbacks, or players, in this league that people just give up on so fast,” Glenn said. “Sometimes the environment has a lot to do with that.”
There are some familar faces on both sides of the matchup.
Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson didn’t play in this season’s earlier meeting with his former team because he was still recovering from reconstructive knee surgery after tearing ligaments on a low hit by Lions safety Kerby Joseph in Week 16 last season.
Detroit drafted Hockenson in the first round out of Iowa in 2019 and traded him to a division rival seven games into the 2022 season. He has 39 catches for 446 yards in nine games this season.
Lions defensive end Za’Darius Smith had one of the best seasons of his career with the Vikings three years ago, when he had 10 sacks and earned Pro Bowl recognition.
Smith, acquired from the Cleveland Browns at the trade deadline, has been sackless for three straight games after registering 2 1/2 sacks in consecutive division games against Green Bay and the Chicago Bears.