Dan Campbell Got Brutally Honest After Vikings Eliminated Lions From Playoff Contention

There was little room for holiday cheer on the Detroit sideline Thursday as the Lions’ postseason hopes came to an anticlimactic end.

With the Lions’ playoff chances on the line in Minnesota this Christmas, Detroit committed six turnovers and quarterback Jared Goff was sacked five times as the Lions fell 23-10 to a Vikings team that had little to play for outside of pride.

The Minnesota defense—or the Grinch as far as anyone in Honolulu Blue was concerned—played spoiler against a Lions squad that had everything to play for. Brian Flores’s squad made Detroit look uninspired as the VIkings garnered the win despite undrafted rookie Max Brosmer finishing the game with just three net passing yards.

After this loss, the Lions will trade the jolly feeling of victory for solemn reflection at the New Year as the calendar flips to 2026.

"I'm gonna be looking at a lot,” head coach Dan Campbell said after the game. “I'm gonna be looking at a lot of things because I do not like being home for the playoffs. I know our guys don’t either.”

Prior to this past week, the Lions had not lost back-to-back games in three years. They’ve now lost three straight, officially clinching their ticket to the couch this January. It’s not just that the Lions lost these games, it’s that they fell far short of their potential in these losses, failing to give it their best when they needed to most.

Campbell added, “Whenever you lose, it takes a village. Everybody’s involved, including myself. I’m always gonna look at myself first. I’m always gonna wish I gave Goff more, gave those players more.”

Coming off a 15-2 campaign in 2024, the Lions entered the year as Super Bowl contenders. Sure, they lost coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn, but they still had most of the talented pieces that brought them two straight division titles in 2023 and 2024 and turned around a long-distraught Lions franchise.

Instead, the Lions appear to have hit Campbell’s own self-fulfilling prophecy. Campbell said after the Lions’ NFC championship game loss to the 49ers nearly two years ago, "This may have been our only shot,” and that message loomed large as Detroit fell short of a playoff bid. The Lions still have a talented core, but it won’t matter much if they can’t rebound and go on another deep playoff run in the years to come.

“[General manager] Brad [Holmes] and I will have a lot of decisions to make,” Campbell said. “The whats, the whys, the how do we improve, because we need to improve.”