Detroit Lions host Vikings with NFC North, No. 1 seed at stake: 'We're built for this' (2025)

Dave BirkettDetroit Free Press

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Dan Campbell gathered his players before practice Friday, their final before maybe the most high-stakes regular-season game in franchise history, and told them to relax, be themselves and focus on the details.

The Detroit Lions play the Minnesota Vikings in a battle of 14-2 teams Sunday that will decide the NFC North. The winner gets the 1-seed, a first-round bye and homefield advantage until Super Bowl 59. The loser gets the 5-seed and goes on the road as the winningest wild-card team in NFL history.

It’s the type of Game 272 matchup the league has never seen, and yet Campbell told his players: They’ve been here before.

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“We’re built for the moment,” cornerback Kindle Vildor said. “Dan Campbell, he molded us to where we are now in training camp so when we get to a game like this, it’s easy for us. We’ll be ready.”

The Lions have survived a gauntlet of big games this season to make Sunday’s showdown at Ford Field a winner-take-all affair.

They avenged last year’s NFC championship game loss to the San Francisco 49ers with a 40-34 win Monday night. They beat the Chicago Bears on Thanksgiving to snap a seven-game losing streak on that holiday. They’re undefeated in the division, including a 31-29 win over the Vikings in October.

And they’re 5-0 in primetime games this season and 10-1 at night since 2022 (with their only loss coming in disputed fashion against the Dallas Cowboys after a nullified 2-point conversion).

“I do think that helps (having big-game experience),” Campbell said. “Like anything else, man, if it’s shock-and-awe and it’s the crowd and it’s the media attention and it’s the record of the opponent, division game, all on the line, if you’re not used to that, it can be a little overwhelming. It can be overwhelming for some players and teams.See AlsoDiscover The Enchanting "Nevada Musk": A Fragrant Journey Awaits

“And so we’ve been in that, and I think we embrace that, I really do. I think we embrace the challenge of it, we embrace the bright lights of it, we respect the opponent that’s coming in here, and we love competition. And this is going to be one of these all-out, come-to-the-end-of-the-line type games. So we know what we’re getting ready to play and what we’re getting ready to face. So, we’re looking forward to this competition.”

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The Lions beat the Vikings in Week 7 in a back-and-forth game that was decided by a Jake Bates 44-yard field goal with 15 seconds to play.

The Vikings scored the game’s first 10 points, but Jahmyr Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown answered with long touchdowns in the second quarter to stake the Lions to a 21-10 halftime lead.

Minnesota took a late lead on a fumble-return touchdown, but the Lions got a third-down stop with 2:41 to play —Vikings quarterback Sam Darnold overthrew an open Justin Jefferson on the sideline — and Gibbs and St. Brown made more big plays in the final two minutes to set up Bates’ game-winner.

Both the Lions (against the Buffalo Bills in Week 15) and the Vikings (at the Los Angeles Rams in Week 8) have lost only once since and are tied for the second-best record in the NFL behind the 15-1 Kansas City Chiefs.

The winner Sunday will join the Chiefs as the only teams to win at least 15 games since the NFL went to a 17-game schedule in 2021.

Previously, just seven teams reached the 15-win mark in the regular season in NFL history. Of those, the 1984 San Francisco 49ers and 1985 Chicago Bears are the only ones to win the Super Bowl.

“It's a great opportunity,” Lions center Frank Ragnow said. “I think it's something our team has been chasing this whole year. It's one of our goals, win the division and it happens to be for the first seed as well, so I think we're trying to take her one day at a time and not try to make it too big, but also understand the magnitude. It's exciting and it's what every NFL player wants to be a part of.”

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Ragnow and others said Campbell was usual self this week, dialed in on the gameplan and with a caged enthusiasm that trickled down to permeated throughout the locker room.

Campbell was calm talking to reporters about the game mid-week, reminding everyone “it’s not like it’s the playoffs.” By Friday, with the gameplan mostly put to bed, he was a ball of energy again, gripping the microphone at his lunchtime news conference as if it was an opponent he was trying to choke out with a sleeper hold.

Players spent the week playing ping-pong and pool and milling about the locker room, loose but looking forward to the biggest game of their season.

“What we’re not about to do is approach (this game any different), overthink it and just go out there and, ‘Oh, we can't do, we can't,’ because out there, man, this Sunday there’s going to be mistakes with both sides of the ball, there’s going to be catches, there’s going to be turnovers,” cornerback Amik Robertson said. “We’re not going to overthink it, man. We're going to go out there and play Lions football. As long as we do that, I think we'll be all right.”

Robertson said it’s hard to comprehend the true magnitude of Sunday’s game, which will be the first regular-season game in NFL history between teams with 13 or more wins.

But like his coach, he said it’s something the Lions are ready for because they’ve been here before.

“When you go out there you want to know who you are and know you’re out here to hunt,” Robertson said. “You’re not out here to be scared or be hunted. There’s a lot that goes with what I’m trying to say. Go out there with confidence, man. Go out there and seek blood.”

Dave Birkett is the author of the new book, "Detroit Lions: An Illustrated Timeline.”

Order your copy here.

Contact him at[email protected]. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at@davebirkett.