The Detroit Lions have played pretty high-level football for most of the past six weeks, and if they want to make a run at the postseason, they will need to sustain that standard for at least another month.
Lions coach Dan Campbell said Monday his team has no room for a hangover coming off Sunday’s important win over the Minnesota Vikings, a division showdown that Campbell admitted had him “drained” after the game.
“That’s an error that has come before with some teams when these things happen,” Campbell said. “You (have to tell your team) exactly how you feel. ‘This is the deal. This is what can happen if we allow it. Are we going to allow it or not?’ And then they make up their mind. They’re pretty good about that. They’re grown men, and they understand, and we’ll make sure they understand, so we’re in a good spot right now.”
The Lions (6-7) have won five of their past six games after a 1-6 start to get back in the wild card hunt.
They trail the New York Giants by 1½ games for the NFC’s final playoff spot, and must pass two teams in the standings — the Washington Commanders (7-5-1) and Seattle Seahawks (7-6) also are in the mix for the final two wild card spots — to make the postseason.
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This week, they visit a New York Jets team that’s vying for a playoff berth in the AFC.
“We dug ourselves in a hole to where it was only up to us to be able to climb out of it and there’s no other way to do that than to go out there and play free, play fearless, play confident,” left tackle Taylor Decker said. “And we’ve been able to do it. We’ve been able to do it for six weeks now and now we have four more to do it again and see if we can sustain this because if you want to be a good team, a playoff contention team or whatever, you’ve got to sustain success. And like I said, this has been awesome but it’s a small sample size so we have to keep it going.”
The Lions have not been in playoff contention this late in the season since 2017, when they won back-to-back games in mid-December against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears, only to go on the road and lose to the Cincinnati Bengals, 26-17, to fall out of the race.
Safety DeShon Elliott said the Lions have approached the homestretch as if they were playing a six-game season, figuring they needed to win out to make the playoffs after losing to the Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving.
So far, the Lions are 2-0, and they close with three straight games against teams with losing records – at the Carolina Panthers, home against the Chicago Bears and at the Green Bay Packers — after facing the Jets.
The Jets (7-6) have lost two straight and three of their past four games — all on the road — and are the first team out in the AFC playoff standings.
“We just can’t afford to lay an egg,” Decker said. “We just can’t. We got to perform every single week.”
Okudah OK
Jeff Okudah was limited to 27 snaps against the Vikings because of an illness that sidelined him for two days of practice last week. He spent much of the second half on the sideline, while Amani Oruwariye filled in at outside cornerback and Jerry Jacobs handled No. 1 corner duties.
“It was a heck of a job by him just trying to gut it out,” Campbell said. “I mean, yeah he didn’t have a ton of energy coming off of what he did, but he went out there and tried to compete.”
Okudah, who helped shut down Justin Jefferson when the Lions lost to the Vikings in Week 3, made five tackles Sunday, including a key fourth-and-1 stop on the Vikings’ opening series. Jefferson, who had three catches for 14 yards against the Lions in September, set a franchise record with 223 yards receiving on 11 catches Sunday.
Campbell said he expects Okudah will be ready to play against the Jets.
“It was a huge stop,” Campbel said of Okudah’s fourth-and-1 tackle. “I mean that was an unbelievable play. Fourth-and-1 for him to get in there and make — really he played off of (John) Cominsky, and so it was just twofold for him to play off of that, what Cominsky was doing and then him (to make) the stop. It was huge. So, that was big.”
Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.