Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images The Detroit Lions defense earns some of their highest marks of the season after their dominant performance against the Minnesota Vikings. The Detroit Lions made an emphatic statement Sunday night, as they head into the postseason for the second consecutive year. With their commanding 31-9 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, the Lions are now NFC and Super Bowl favorites, and it took a full team effort to get there. Here are my positional grades for the Lions’ iconic Week 18 performance. Quarterback: B- The one thing the Lions couldn’t do against the Vikings is turn the ball over, and Jared Goff did twice. The first, an attempted checkdown to Craig Reynolds, was the result of some panic. The other, a bomb to Jameson Williams deep in their own zone, was an odd-looking play. Williams stopped running and was not even looking for it. Those are significant mistakes that could have put the Lions in an early hole. But when the offense started clicking in the second half, Goff was nearly flawless. After that second interception, Goff threw a single incomplete pass the rest of the way, completing 14 of his next 15 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown. Plus, I thought this was one of the most heroic throws Goff made all season. Lions stay aggressive with the 4th down conversion! : #MINvsDET on NBC/Peacock : Stream on #NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/2aIzNHsHYd— NFL (@NFL) January 6, 2025 With a free rusher bearing down on him, Goff slid ever so slightly to his right to buy just enough time for Williams to clear. He took a big hit, but delivered a strike to Jamo for a fourth down conversion on Detroit’s first touchdown drive. Running backs: A+ What’s left to say about Jahmyr Gibbs? When the heart and soul of this offense—David Montgomery—went down with an injury, many rightfully wondered if the run offense could survive. Gibbs has responded with back-to-back-to-back 100-yard rushing games, and Sunday night was his biggest masterpiece. 170 scrimmage yards, and four touchdowns, pushing his season total to a league-leading 20 scores. Gibbs was explosive, patient, physical, and unguardable. On a team with no shortage of weapons, Gibbs has established himself as the most dangerous one in just two short seasons. Tight ends: A- Sam LaPorta continues to be an important target on gotta-have-it situations. He finished with seven catches (on seven targets) for 63 yards, including two third down catches and a 17-yard pickup that got Detroit out of a second-and-19 hole. Blocking continues to impress in the run game, as well. Just watch what LaPorta and Brock Wright did on one of Gibbs’ touchdown runs: It's Jah hat trick #MINvsDET | NBC pic.twitter.com/WGCiDpK9Vm— Detroit Lions (@Lions) January 6, 2025 That’s LaPorta and Wright planting Pro Bowler Andrew Van Ginkel into the turf. Wide receivers: B The second interception appeared to be on Williams, who just gave up on the play—although the look was not there and the ball shouldn’t have been thrown. Williams had a relatively quiet day, outside of the aforementioned fourth-down pickup. Amon-Ra St. Brown was his trusty self, pulling in six catches for 77 yards—four of which earned the Lions a new set of downs. Tim Patrick added two catches for 15 yards, while Kalif Raymond had an 11-yard catch in his return. Overall, a pretty modest day for the Lions receivers, but they were reliable when called upon. Also, don’t sleep on their impact in the run game. Offensive line: B+ It was a shaky performance early in the game, as the Lions managed just 55 rushing yards on 15 carries in the first half (3.7 YPC). But as we’ve seen multiple times this year, the Lions offensive line wore down the Vikings as the game went on. In the final two quarters, it had looked like the Vikings defense had nearly given up. Detroit rushed for 123 yards on just 16 carries in the second half for a whopping 7.7 yards per carry. Pass protection was mostly very solid, with the Vikings getting a free rusher only a few times all game. In total, Goff took two sacks and six quarterback hits, which are strong numbers against one of the most feared pass rushes in football. Defensive line: B- Detroit still struggled to create any pass rush without any help from blitzers, but this unit did make big plays when they needed. Za’Darius Smith had a drive-killing 17-yard sack, Josh Paschal had a pair of QB hits that forced Sam Darnold incompletions, and Al-Quadin Muhammad also got to Darnold for a third-down sack. Run defense was up and down, but Aaron Jones was surprisingly a non-factor in this game. Linebackers: A My goodness, what a difference Alex Anzalone makes. It’s amazing how the front seven suddenly looked more disciplined, and the coverage over the middle of the field was more sound. Anzalone got tagged for a defensive holding on third down, but he otherwise shut down T.J. Hockenson after being matched up with him early and often in man coverage. Hockenson finished with just two catches on eight targets. Secondary: A+ I’m grading on a scale here, because going into the game Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison looked to be a pretty big mismatch for Detroit’s shorthanded cornerback room. But those two combined for a total of four catches and 54 total yards. That’s an unbelievable performance, led by Amik Robertson. The scrappy cornerback was only credited for a single pass defended, but NBC did a great job highlighting how sticky he was shadowing Jefferson the entire game. Amik Robertson vs. Justin Jefferson hasn’t disappointed on the biggest stage.#NextGenStats powered by @AWSCloud. pic.twitter.com/UXbu8RKbFE— Sunday Night Football on NBC (@SNFonNBC) January 6, 2025 Terrion Arnold also had a key goal line pass breakup, while Brian Branch and Kindle Vildor also got their hands on a pass. There were penalties here and there, but Detroit managed to avoid any huge penalties. Special teams: A Special teams were more about Vikings mistakes (kickoff out of bounds, missed FG) than Lions successes, but credit to Detroit for playing a clean game in the third phase. Kalif Raymond provided a mild spark in the punt return game, Jake Bates made all five of his kicks, and Jack Fox averaged a solid 51.0 yards per punt (on only two attempts). Coaching: A- Let’s start with the in-game decisions. Detroit benefitted again from Dan Campbell’s aggressiveness. Detroit went for it on fourth down three times (each one supported by analytics) and their two conversions both led to touchdowns. You could certainly question the play call of the failed conversion—a sneak seemed like an easier, better choice—but the Williams was wide open on the play they called, the ball simply got tipped. Also, we saw the Lions’ aggressiveness work in their favor in a big way when Detroit got the Vikings to jump offsides on a fourth-and-2 play the Lions weren’t going to actually run a play on. Campbell went 1-of-2 on challenges Sunday night, and I oddly liked the failed challenge better than the successful one. They did give the Lions a bad spot, and it was close enough to a first down to warrant a review. The challenge of the Hockenson catch didn’t make much sense to me, because that late in the game, a 5-yard catch that burns an extra 20 seconds off the clock is actually a bigger win for the defense than an incomplete pass that stops the clock. This is extremely nitpicky of me, but I wanted to say it. As for the coordinators, I think there’s some warranted criticism of Ben Johnson early in the game. Detroit was not very sharp on critical downs, and they seemed overly conservative on play calls—see Detroit’s run on third-and-8 that lost 7 yards. But at the same time, Johnson’s insistence on running the ball paid off in the second half, when Detroit had clearly worn the Vikings down. The was a masterclass from Aaron Glenn, though. You would think look at Darnold’s outstanding performances against the blitz and man coverage that Detroit may switch up their strategy this week. NOPE. Glenn cranked the knob to 11 and actually amped up their frequency on both blitzes and man coverage, and it absolutely worked. He banked on Darnold crumbling on the big stage and that’s exactly what happened.