Lions coach Dan Campbell focused on clinching division….
Winning the NFC North is more important to Dan Campbell than clinching the division on Monday night or any other night for the Detroit Lions.
The Lions can lock up their first playoff spot since 2016 with a victory over the Seattle Seahawks on Monday Night Football. Even if the Seahawks lose, the Lions’ chances of making the playoffs are slim to none. It’s just a formality right now.
Lions coach Dan Campbell isn’t worried about what happens this week or next. “We entered this year with the goal of winning this division, and that’s the goal right now,” he said. “If something happens between here and there, that’s fine, but that’s our focus right now. That’s what we talked about this morning, and that’s what we’re focused on right now.”
If the Lions win on Sunday in Minneapolis against the Vikings, or a Dallas Cowboys game the following week, or the Lions lose their final regular-season game at home to the Vikings, it would be the first playoff berth for the Lions since 1993 (when the NFC North did not exist).
The Lions have a 90 percent chance of winning the division, but Campbell isn’t taking it lightly. “We’re going to do whatever it takes to win this division and there’s nothing easy about it,” he said. “We have to go to Minneapolis and play a very dangerous Vikings team, and we have to find a way to beat them and win this division.”
The Vikings have been a mixed bag this season. They started 1-4 and then lost their starting quarterback, Kirk Cousins, for the season in Week 8 with an Achilles injury. Since then, they’ve had a.500 record but have lost three of their last four. This Sunday, Nick Mullens will start for the Vikings. The veteran quarterback’s first Vikings start came last week in a narrow overtime win over the Bengals. Mullens completed 26 of his 33 passes for 303 yards and a pair of touchdowns.
But the Lions are inwardly focused this week. They don’t listen to outside noise when it comes to criticism, and they don’t listen to rumblings about seeding or first-round bye.
“For us, that’s all there is to it,” said Campbell. “We cleaned up what we could clean up, and we cleaned up the Denver game with our team today. And this is where we need to get better. This is what we did right, and this is where we’re going to keep going. We’re going to put a great gameplan together for (the Vikings) and we’ll know what we need to do against them.
