Lions knock off Vikings, lose Jack Campbell, several others to injuries

It's absolutely a mixed bag of emotions in that locker room following this win today. Certainly on one hand, they're glad that they beat the Minnesota Vikings, but all of their thoughts are with their captain and warrior, Jack Campbell, who went out early in the fourth quarter. And somehow it felt like that moment helped push this team over the top. It was all for him, all for the other guys who they got hurt. But particularly in his situation, you know, definitely, you know, when you see your brother go down like that. You know it is. A fire, lightning gets lit in your ass, it's time to go, really. And, man, everything, you know, we did out there was for him. It just motivated us a lot more. You know, we got a third down, fourth down stop after that. The crowd was into it. Offense went to go score after that. So, you know, we just, I guess we just turned it up a notch for our brother. You know, he go out there, he put it on the line every single play for us. That's why he got the C on his chest. And, you know, like I said, we're praying for them, hoping everything go okay and get better. Detroit knew what they were up against with the Vikings' top-rated defense, but they also knew they could handle it, using grit and resilience to land that counterpunch. We knew we were going to need to outlast them. We were going to need to hang in there, play outstanding defense, special teams, and let them bring it to the offense. And then when it was time to... Trying to seal this out, the offense was going to need to be able to do it, and we really did. And I was so proud of the guys across the board. I mean, that's a tough, gritty win against a really good opponent. Our whole thing was just playing our standard of defense this week. Obviously, Coach challenged us to be the better defense out there, and that's what we're focused on. And I believe we did that. We broke their offense down in four quarters. We've just been trying to play it to our standard, and that's what it's going to look like if we do that. And just when they needed it most, the offensive line imposed their will on the Minnesota front, igniting a run game that had just 66 yards in the first half to finish with 230 yards rushing. We were running it okay in the first half. We just weren't getting those chunks that we were in the second half, and then I think Drew and our whole offense kind of felt, you know, something, the dam broke at some point in that second half where it was like, oh, we can just keep leaning on this run and good things are going to happen. Vocky ran his tail off, and when he's able to do that, it just gives Gibbs that much more of a breath on the sideline to come back and do his thing at its full capacity. Thank you very much. The O-line loved it. They loved the challenge of, like, we're going to keep leaning on you guys, and I thought they played great. Me and Vocky, we didn't have to do much to stay in our tracks, and it was at least five every time, and we just had to do the rest. Seemed like you were really running with purpose and mission. I know you always do, but just knowing what Jack had gone through, how much did that play into it? Yeah, I wanted to get the win from him. I told him I got him. We came in together, and it was a hard thing to see. A lot of thoughts are with Jack Campbell following his injury, but there were three other guys, two contributors, that weren't able to finish the game because they got hurt. A lot of work to be done before the Lions head down to Miami to face the Dolphins next Sunday. At Ford Field, Jennifer Hammond, OX2 Sports.