Lions, Vikings playing for top seed in NFC

DETROIT — The Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings will wrap up the NFL’s regular season with an unprecedented matchup and much at stake Sunday night.

Detroit (14-2) and Minnesota (14-2) will become the first teams to meet in the regular season with at least 13 wins and a combined 28 victories.

“It is unique,” Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell said.

It is also quite consequential.

The winner earns the NFC North title, home-field advantage until the Super Bowl and a coveted bye in the playoffs. The loser will start the postseason on the road next week as the league’s first 14-win wild card.

“This is exciting, but it’s not like it’s the playoffs,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said.

Detroit has been aiming for top seeding in the conference since it missed out on the advantage last season following a controversial loss at Dallas late in the regular season. The stinging setback put the Lions on the road for the NFC championship game at San Francisco, where it squandered a 17-point, third-quarter lead.

“You come out of that game and feel like it gives you the best odds to get to where the ultimate is, which is, as well all know what the prize is, and that’s the Super Bowl,” Campbell said.

The Lions went into the season with aspirations to reach the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history and looked like a contender, winning 12 of their last 13 games.

The Vikings, meanwhile, were met with modest expectations when the season began nearly four months ago and have surpassed projections. They started 5-0 and have won their last nine games to be in a position to knock off the defending division champions on their home turf.

“We knew we had to win a lot of football games to keep pace with a team that really has been, if not the best, one of the top two teams in the league for most of the year,” O’Connell said.

Vikings running back Aaron Jones said he and his teammates have always known they have what it takes to be among the NFL’s best.

“We weren’t on anybody’s radar,” Jones said. “But it was never dark in this building when we came in. It was always light, always a joy to be here.”

Under center

Detroit’s Jared Goff was selected to start the Pro Bowl for the NFC, and Sam Darnold was chosen as a backup.

Leading the league’s top-scoring offense, Goff has completed 75% or more of his passes in half of his 16 games to join Tom Brady (2007) as the two NFL quarterbacks to connect on three-fourths of their attempts in eight games of a season.

Darnold, who completed a season-high 81.5% of his passes in a two-point loss to Detroit at home in October, threw for a career-high 377 yards in last week’s win over Green Bay.

He has thrown a career-high 35 touchdown passes — eight more than he threw over the previous four seasons combined with three teams — to show the promise the New York Jets envisioned when selecting him No. 3 overall in 2018.

Darnold became the first NFL quarterback to win 14 games in his debut season with a team. He went 21-35 as a starter in six seasons with the Jets, Carolina and San Francisco,

Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn said Darnold’s renaissance is reminiscent of Baker Mayfield’s resurrected career in Tampa Bay.

“There are some of these quarterbacks, or players, in this league that people just give up on so fast,” Glenn said. “Sometimes, the environment has a lot to do with that.”

Familiar faces

Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson didn’t play in the earlier matchup against his former team because he was still recovering from reconstructive knee surgery after tearing ligaments on a low hit by Lions safety Kerby Joseph in Week 16 last season.

Detroit drafted Hockenson in the first round out of Iowa in 2019 and traded him to a division rival seven games into the 2022 season. He has 39 catches for 446 yards in nine games this season.

Lions defensive end Za’Darius Smith had one of the best seasons of his career with the Vikings three years ago, when he had 10 sacks and earned Pro Bowl recognition.

Smith, acquired from Cleveland at the trade deadline, has been sackless for three straight games after registering 2 1/2 sacks in consecutive games against Green Bay and Chicago.