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Lunchbreak: How Vikings Defense Ramped Up Pressure at Lions & Offense Handled It Late

Nov 04, 2025 at 11:00 AM

Rob Kleifield

Editorial Assistant

Minnesota's defense turned over a new leaf in mid-fall.

In Week 9, the Vikings limited the Lions offense to 65 rushing yards, a fraction of the 148.3 it averaged over six games before Brian Flores' defense stopped David Montgomery and Jahmyr Gibbs in their tracks.

Jared Goff felt the brunt of Minnesota's attack, too.

Detroit's quarterback was pressured 20 times by a throng of Purple hats, his most times under duress in a single game in 2025 (Goff's second most was 12 QBP in Weeks 1, 3 and 4), according to Next Gen Stats.

Like the Vikings offense, its defense didn't play perfectly in the Motor City, but well enough to orchestrate the largest upset of Head Coach Kevin O'Connell's tenure based on listed point spread (some as high as 9.5). Flores' unit also passed the eye test so to speak. Players acted with a purposeful urgency.

Off-ball linebackers Blake Cashman, Eric Wilson and Ivan Pace, Jr., were tops on the defense with 11 pressures, good for the most by an off-ball LB group since the Cowboys in Week 17 of 2021 (12), per Next Gen Stats. Wilson was the catalyst, with a team-high six pressures and two sacks on 17 blitzes, many times crossing over Detroit's center with a teammate to disrupt Goff's base and prevent him from throwing in rhythm.

Amazingly, 75 percent of Minnesota's pressures got home in under 2.5 seconds, which caused Goff to speed up his process and post his quickest time to throw in a game since his rookie year (2.44 seconds).

Dave Campbell of The Associated Press implied the performance was a step toward becoming the team that General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah said before training camp was built to win any type of game.

For perspective of Minnesota's defensive dominance at Detroit, Campbell pointed out the Vikings allowed 30-plus points and an average of 408 scrimmage yards to the Lions amidst their now-snapped five-game losing streak. The 305 yards they allowed Sunday were the fewest for Detroit in the series since Nov. 4, 2018. Furthermore, circling back to the run defense, the Lions on Sunday averaged 3.3 yards per rush, a night-and-day difference from the 5.6 they averaged in their two meetups last season.

Read Campbell's full report on Minnesota's Week 9 game, and what waits ahead, here.

Revisiting knockout blow

We learned for certain Sunday that O'Connell trusts his young quarterback.

With 1:41 remaining in Minnesota's three-point victory at Detroit, the Purple were facing a third-and-5 and trying with all their might to ice the game with a first down and not let the Lions offense onto the field.

You know the rest of what happened by now.

J.J. McCarthy calmly spun one for 16 yards. It was the most important throw of his career so far.

Mike Sando of The Athletic highlighted McCarthy's game-deciding throw to Jalen Nailor in his Pick Six column Monday, amongst other NFL topics, including Tucker Kraft's injury potentially affecting Green Bay's championship chances and Chicago gaining almost 600 yards of total offense against the Bengals.

For the sake of our audience, we'll focus on McCarthy's beautiful execution of a bold back-shoulder pass.

Sando quoted an executive from another team in his recounting of the conversion: "This was not the boot pass where they pick someone off the line and he blocked someone for three seconds and released, was wide open, caught it and dove over the line to gain," the exec said. "This was a passing formation where they had to make a difficult throw, when the other team knows you're going to throw."

It was just the 14^th completion for McCarthy, who had 143 passing yards in the Lions Den 45 minutes from his old stomping grounds at the University of Michigan, and his 38^th completion overall in three games. It also awarded him a 2-0 record in divisional contests, with both taking place on the road, by the way.

Sando unpacked the play through a historical lens, researching teams under comparable conditions:

Leading by no more than one score
Having 2:00 to 1:00 on the game clock
Facing third-and-3 or longer
Possessing the ball at their own 40-yard line or worse
Facing an opponent with one timeout remaining

Here's what he gathered:

The 64 teams facing those situations over the past 15 years have passed 56 percent of the time, with only 39 percent of those throws traveling to the first-down marker or past it, per TruMedia.

The Vikings became only the third team over that span to complete a pass traveling longer than 15 yards past the line of scrimmage for a first-down conversion in that situation. Seattle did it with prime Russell Wilson against Philadelphia in a playoff game after the 2019 season. Indianapolis did it with veteran Matt Hasselbeck during a victory over Houston in 2015.

Superfluous in this case because it was so obvious as it happened and confirmed by O'Connell and players through conversations with reporters afterwards, that information reinforces the idea that McCarthy is fully trusted to make smart decisions and precise passes in high-stakes situations.

It's easy to forget he's only 22 years old and has attempted 66 throws against opposing NFL defenses.

You can explore Sando's entire column covering this past Sunday's slate of games here.