2. Jarrad Davis: The second-year middle linebacker spoke Sunday about a heart to heart session he’d had with Patricia after the game, and how the coach had emphasized that family is the priority and to go home and enjoy the holiday.
Davis took the message to heart, but his heart was hurting over the loss and the team’s skid.
He was asked what went wrong when the Vikings took over the game, starting with the two touchdown catches at the end of the half.
“They hurt,” he said. “But you’ve got to continue to battle. You can’t let those affect you and affect your game. It’s hard to live with those … just points piling up. At the end of the day, you’ve got to hang that on us.”
What was he feeling at the moment?
“I hate losing,” he said. “I don’t go to work every single day to come out here and lose. It’s not something I’m very fond of – something I like to do.”
3. Nightmare Hail Mary II:
We saw that in 2015 against the Green Bay Packers, when Aaron Rogers launched a 61-yard pass on the last play of the game that Richard Rodgers caught in the end zone to give the Packers a 27-23 win.
The big question after that catch was why Calvin Johnson was not on the field to play deep safety and go after the ball.
On Sunday, it was a 44-yard catch by Kyle Rudolph in the end zone as time ran out in the second half.
Kenny Golladay, the 6-foot-4 wide receiver, was playing deep safety. Rudolph was able to make a clean catch, with no Lion defender in front of him. It wasn’t all anyone’s fault, including Golladay’s, but the big question was why Golladay wasn’t in position to go after the ball.
4. Lions-Vikings 1995 flashback: The Lions won their last seven games in 1995 to make the playoffs as a wild card. One of their most important wins was 44-38 over the Vikings on Thanksgiving Day.
On Minnesota’s last possession, All-Pro wide receiver Herman Moore played deep safety and batted the ball away from Vikings receiver Cris Carter in the end zone. It was a good football play by a great football player.
