GBU: Minnesota game 2 NFC North championship

[froot loops]

Good: defense, Gibbs, Anzalone, Ameek, Za'Darius

Bad: no bad

Ugly: What about positional value for Gibbs?

[The Ken]

Good: Gibbs and that defense.

NFC North Champions, nuff said.

[chemiclord]

There's no bad or ugly. That was a Super Bowl contender reminding the Vikings whose yard this is.

That defense was astounding, especially in the red zone. Part of it was clearly Glenn keeping his powder dry in San Fran, but part of it was also Anzalone coming back really helped. He was dialed in and pretty much neutralized that middle zone that teams had been exploiting the last month.

Offensively they started off slow (what is it about the Lions receiving the opening kick, and coming out flat?), but my God did Gibbs impose his will on the Vikings defense by the end. Like a lot of teams this year, the Vikings simply couldn't handle the bullying for 60 minutes. They arguably had tapped out with about four minutes left.

This was quite literally complementary football at its finest. The defense forced the Vikings to leave a ton of points on the field until the offense got the engine fully revved, and the second half was off to the races.

[Meano.Culpa]

Good: Best Lions regular season ever ends with a division championship, a one seed, and the bye.

Bad: Losing Aaron Glenn this off-season. If he had any doubters, this game should have silenced them. Coach Glenn is a bad, bad man.

Ugly: Prospects for a deep run if Arnold’s foot injury is as ugly as it looked.

[whatever_gong82]

Deb needs to merge your thread and Froot's.

[Iron Lion]

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[DanO]

Did anyone else get the feeling Kevin O'Connell felt uncomfortable going for it on 4th? I thought he went for it on 4th just to show Campbell he can go for it also. I think Campbell has gotten into other coaches heads, Lefluer as well. The offsides the Lions drew on the Vikings getting them to jump on 4th down was a direct result of the players wanting to get off the ball to try and stop the 4th down conversion. They thought the Lions were going to do it because of the past. Another positive for going for it on 4th.


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[Mainevent]

I thought the same about O'Connell, DanO. Will be interesting to see if the Vikings approached it like the DC did with Green Bay and had determined they were going to be aggressive because they knew they had to score TDs to win the game. But I felt the same as you, like it was a direct response to the Lions and DC's mentality, that O'Connell felt like he had to match aggression with aggression.

[Mainevent]

Awesome: Anzalone, Campbell and Robertson were flat out studly in this game, as was Gibbs.

Good: Defense as a whole unit, don't know that I've seen a more cohesive execution of a game plan like this all year. Offense grinding out 31 points against a good defense playing well. It's nice to have an offense that can "struggle" and still hang 31 points. Ben Johnson and the offense made some nice tweaks after half to counter the Vikings.

Bad: No bad.

Ugly: Hoping this is a nothing, but worried about Arnold's foot.

[GALion68]

We may know more today but from Arnold's interview he'll do all he can to be in the first playoff game. X rays were negative which is good.

[chemiclord]

Arnold was reportedly dancing around in the locker room (albeit in a boot), so that suggests to me that he'll be okay.

[Mainevent]

Just hoping it's not like a lisfranc issue, as those tend to linger. Zeitler also had the hamstring issue, so hopefully just a tweak there and not something worse.

[Mainevent]

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[-Deborah-]

This is everything we could have hoped for. Unbelievable. What a season! What a team!

[CGVT]

This is everything we could have hoped for. Unbelievable. What a season! What a team!

I never thought that I would live to see a Lions team like this.

They may not win it all, but man, what a great year.