Goff and Lions see off 49ers 40-34 in tune-up for Week 18 showdown
The big prizes are still on the horizon for the Detroit Lions, with the team looking for a division title, the top seed in the NFC playoffs and the franchise’s first Super Bowl trip.
With almost nothing at stake in a rematch of last season’s NFC title game, which Detroit lost to San Francisco, coach Dan Campbell and the Lions approached the game with the same ferocity that has defined his tenure.
Jared Goff threw three touchdown passes and the Lions prepared for their Week 18 divisional showdown against Minnesota by beating the 49ers 40-34 on Monday night.
“That’s the only way we know. It’s just finding a way to win,” Goff said. “This ended our season last year. There are a lot of guys on this team who were there last year and wanted to get one back, even though in many ways it was meaningless for them and for us.
The stakes for this game were minuscule compared to the last meeting between the teams, when a spot in the Super Bowl was on the line last January.
San Francisco was eliminated from the playoffs last week and Detroit will play Minnesota next week in the regular season finale, with the winner earning the NFC North title and the top seed in the NFC playoffs, and the loser relegated to the first 14-win wild. card team in NFL history.
“These are just fairy tales,” Campbell said.
If the Vikings had lost on Sunday, Detroit could have clinched the division and the No. 1 seed on Monday night. But now the win against the 49ers would only matter if Detroit and Minnesota were to draw in Week 18, with the Lions now on the cusp of finishing No. 1 in that unlikely scenario.
Campbell said he considered resting some starters, but decided it would be unfair to the backups who had not prepared and the starters who had yet to play. It all worked out, with the Lions getting the win and coming out healthy.
“Ultimately I decided the right thing to do was play against those guys,” he said. “We owed that to the team. … That was tough. I think the most important thing is that we wanted to do things better than last week, and we did that.”
Goff threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to Amon-Ra St Brown in the final minute of the third quarter after the first of Kerby Joseph’s two second-half interceptions against Brock Purdy.
That proved enough for the Lions (14-2) to complete a perfect regular season away from home, beating the 49ers (6-10) on the road for the first time since 1975 and getting a little bit of revenge for those of last season. play-off loss.
“I still had that chip on my shoulder from last year,” Joseph said. “We were so close and just came up short.”
Jahymr Gibbs put the game away with a 30-yard touchdown run with less than three minutes remaining after Purdy’s second interception, giving him 117 yards on the night.
The offenses dominated much of the evening, with the teams scoring touchdowns on the first five possessions and Purdy and Goff combining to complete the game’s first 17 passes – including a perfectly executed hook-and-ladder play that led to a 42-yard TD for Goff.
He threw a short pass to St Brown, who immediately threw the ball to Jameson Williams, who darted down the sideline for the final 41 yards and his second touchdown of the first half.
The only stops of the half came when Renardo Green broke up an end zone pass from Goff to Sam LaPorta and when Jake Moody missed a 51-yard field goal in the final seconds for San Francisco.
Purdy threw a 5-yard pop pass for a TD on San Francisco’s opening drive of the second half before Detroit’s defense finally stalled when Joseph intercepted an overthrown pass from Purdy.
Goff turned that into a four-yard TD pass to St. Brown on fourth-and-goal to give the Lions their first lead at 31-28 late in the third quarter.
Moody missed a 58-yard field goal that could have tied the game early in the fourth quarter for his ninth missed field goal of the season. Moody also missed an extra point after Joshua Dobbs scored on a TD run in the final minute.
“We weren’t able to slow them down enough defensively,” 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said. “That’s a very good attack, but we have to slow them down a little more. That was the difference in the match. We had to win in a shootout. I thought the difference was our two sales figures.”