How the Detroit Lions Stayed Alive in NFC Playoff Race After Win Over Cowboys

We hear enough about NFL playoff predictors and simulators this time of year that pondering permutations sometimes brings the sensory overload of a back-and-forth game.

In that spirit, here’s one stat feeding those machines that surprisingly hasn’t shattered them: The Detroit Lions have won their past 15 games following a loss.

Thursday’s 44-30 home win against the Dallas Cowboys marked the latest victory to fit the bill. Detroit shined in all three phases, with a turnover-hungry defense and running back Jahmyr Gibbs paving the way.

ESPN Analytics show the Lions’ odds to make the NFC playoffs vaulted to 56% from 43% as a result. The best way to keep that figure climbing is to continue winning, naturally, but also to tune such prognostications out.

Dan Campbell praises his team’s ability to do just that. The Lions coach who infamously spoke of kicking teeth and biting kneecaps amid adversity upon taking the job in 2021 now lauds the locker room’s even keel.

Hmm. Observing opponents’ teeth and kneecaps and astutely devising how to exploit them next time may not sound as savage, but it works. Detroit (8-5) remained the No. 8 seed in the conference and kept pace in the hunt for a third straight NFC North title by handling the Cowboys in a de facto playoff game.

“These guys do a great job of – they take it for what it is,” Campbell said. “They don’t get panicked. They don’t get panicked. They don’t make something out of it that it’s not. Don’t make more of it than it needs to be. There’s a reason why you’re not able to win the game and here’s what it is. Is it correctable? Yes, it’s correctable. Well, this is what we got to do moving forward.”

Dallas (6-6-1) had won three straight, including narrow home victories against returning Super Bowl combatants Philadelphia and Kansas City over a four-day span.

The KC win came on Thanksgiving, hours after the Lions lost to the visiting Green Bay Packers by a touchdown. Wide receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown (ankle) left the game in the first quarter but returned in a big way against the Cowboys with six catches for 92 yards.

"I feel like availability is your best ability at the end of the day, so my job is to go out there and make plays and be on that field,” St. Brown said. “It's what they pay me to do, so I was going to do whatever it takes to be out there."

Whether it’s Brown, linebacker Al-Quadin Muhammad or any other Lion with or without a hyphenated first name, fans will have a difficult time dodging Detroit down the stretch.

The team’s next two games – at the Los Angeles Rams in Week 15 and against Pittsburgh the following week – both rate 4:25 p.m. Eastern kickoffs. Then comes a visit to Minnesota on Christmas Day ahead of a Week 18 flex game at Chicago that could carry win-or-go-home implications.

The Bears are surprise NFC North leaders at 9-3, a half-game ahead of the 8-3-1 Packers. The rivals meet Sunday in Green Bay, then again in Chicago 13 days later.

Meanwhile, similar situations will play out in the NFC South and West as division leaders and their nearest pursuers meet aplenty in the final month.

Playoff positioning will be up for grabs. Postseason percentages could peak or plummet. The Lions, though, won’t get too high or low, as Thursday proved.

“I think when those losses happen, they suck,” quarterback Jared Goff said, “but we do as good a job as any team of learning from that and coming back the next week and putting our head down.”

It sure shifts the other guy's kneecaps into view.