Chad Greenway started the fracas, and six Vikings teammates joined in on the action.
By the time the clock hit zeroes the last time that Minnesota played in Detroit, the Vikings had racked up seven sacks of Matthew Stafford, reversing momentum of an early deficit for a 28-19 victory.
The Lions made changes to their coaching staff and protection schemes the following week. Detroit has been productive since becoming more protective of the 2009 first-round draft pick, going 12-6, including a 22-16 overtime win on Nov. 6 in Minnesota.
The Vikings sacked Stafford just once earlier this month and would like to improve on that during the Thanksgiving Day game, but Greenway said that Minnesota's players must not try to do too much.
"With the new coordinator, they made the adjustment last year in the season and that changed a lot of what they were trying to do for protections and it started working for them," Greenway said. "It's going to be a matter of us playing our game and we're not going to try to do too much. I think that's been a little bit of our Achilles' heel, players trying to make too many plays and do too many things. I think we just need to do our jobs. We've shown that can work well in the past."
The Vikings (6-4) tallied four sacks of Carson Palmer on Sunday, outdoing their total of three in four consecutive losses.
Zimmer credited Lions Assistant Head Coach/Offensive Line Coach Ron Prince with the better protection that is allowing Stafford to play comfortably. Zimmer also said that Stafford has been getting the ball out quickly to an assortment of receivers. Five Lions have 35 or more receptions this season.
"He's always had a big arm and can throw it," Zimmer said. "The other thing that he's really doing a great job of, he's not turning the ball over. He's only had [five] interceptions.
"He's getting the ball out early a lot of times which helps the offensive line some," Zimmer added. "To me, they're doing a good job. They do a good job in their one-on-one matchups. They do a good job in picking up games. They do a good job in protections. I feel like that's as big a factor as anything."
Stafford ranks second in the NFL with 25.3 yards per game on receiver screens. The only player with more per game on the quick passes is Minnesota's Sam Bradford, who is getting 26.0 of his passing yards on receiver screens a game.
Greenway said the Vikings know they can do a better job of tackling and must because of Detroit's success at getting yards after catches and contact. Golden Tate was able to score the 28-yard game-winning catch by dodging one tackle attempt and escaping another.
"From last game, we just didn't tackle well enough. There were too many yards after contact, after catch," Greenway said. "[Tate] really hurt us with that. We know their back [Theo Riddick] is capable of doing a lot of great things, too. We limited a lot of stuff he was doing last time and have to do that again. We know what we have to get done to win. We just have to do it now."
