The Lions knew heading into Monday night’s game against the 49ers that they had a bigger matchup waiting for them in Week 18 and head coach Dan Campbell was able to turn his attention to it after his team’s 40-34 win in Santa Clara.
Week 18 and the 2024 regular season will end with the Lions hosting the Vikings on Sunday night in a game that will determine who winds up as the NFC North champion and top seed in the NFC playoffs. Both teams will head into the matchup with 14 wins, which makes it a rare regular season clash of titans from the same division.
On Monday night, Campbell helped do some advance promotion.
“This is what you’re in it for, man,” Campbell said, via the team’s website. “You couldn’t write a better scenario. You couldn’t come up with this. The fact that both teams are sitting at 14-2 and it’s for the division and the No. 1 seed. It just doesn’t get any better than this. This is fairytale stuff.”
While the winner will be set up to play at home throughout the playoffs, the loser will have to go on the road in the first round and could find themselves back on the other side of a third showdown between the NFC North sides in the divisional round so there’s no downplaying the stakes for the 272nd game of the 2024 season.
