DETROIT - The Detroit Lions got the result they wanted Sunday at Ford Field, even if they spent plenty of time making it look much harder than it should have been.
Detroit beat the New Orleans Saints in a Week 1 game that nearly slipped away after the Lions had built a three-possession cushion. At one point, they were up by 21 points. By the end, they had to survive an overtime two-point try from New Orleans by forcing an incompletion to lock up the win.
Dan Campbell didn’t sugarcoat what he saw afterward.
"We did not play our cleanest," Lions coach Dan Campbell said in the postgame locker room, per video posted by the team. "But when we had to have it, all three phases - it's what we talked about last night, man.
When we needed somebody to pull us back out of the water ... we did that in all three phases. ... That was the difference, man."
The Saints’ comeback push really began with 8:49 left in the third quarter, when Tyler Shough escaped to his right and hit Chris Olave deep along the sideline for a 47-yard gain. New Orleans kept the pressure on from there, converting twice on third down before finding the end zone eight plays after Olave’s explosive catch.
From there, the game kept tightening. The Saints scored, added a field goal, then scored again to force overtime.
Detroit finally answered in the extra period when Amon-Ra St. Brown scored what turned out to be the winning touchdown.
Campbell handed out three game balls after the game: St. Brown, linebacker Derrick Barnes and wide receiver Tay Martin.
Barnes made his mark with an interception and a sack. Martin’s impact came on special teams, where he finished with three tackles, including a pair of standout plays on punt coverage.
Jared Goff, for his part, wasn’t interested in putting a shine on it.
"I don't give a f--- if it's one point or it's f------ 30 points, it's a f------ dub," Goff said in the locker room. "Use this s--- for momentum, boys. I promise you, we're gonna get on a roll, look back at Week 1, at that f------ two-point stop, as the s--- that got us there."
The mood around the locker room was clear: survive, move on, and fix the issues later. Aidan Hutchinson, who had two sacks in the opener, said the league doesn’t give teams much room to breathe.
"In the NFL, man, most games you play come down to the wire, and if you can just find a way to win," defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, who had two sacks in the opener, told reporters after the game. "There's a lot of talent in this league.
Just win. That's the mantra."
Cornerback D.J. Reed put it even more bluntly: "You take an ugly win or a pretty loss any day."
The Lions won’t have long to enjoy it. They head to Buffalo for a Thursday, Sept. 17 matchup with Josh Allen and the Bills. It will be Buffalo’s first game at Highmark Stadium, which opened in June.
Campbell said the message to his team was simple: get the win now, then sort out the mess.
"We're going to clean this up," Campbell told his team. "The biggest thing is right now, guys, is you find a way to get the win, it's Week 1, and then you clean the s--- up. Because it feels a hell of a lot better than the loss to have to clean it up.
“That's the thing, we found a way to win. We will clean this up, and there's a lot to clean up."
In Other News...
Saints Fans Already Have Plenty To Say About This Officiating Sequence
The first half of the Lions-Saints season opener quickly turned into one of those games people will be replaying and arguing over for a while. A controversial sequence on Jared Goffs backward ball swung the momentum sharply, with officials ruling it a forward pass, wiping out a potential fumble and taking away what would have been a Saints touchdown.
New Orleans later got a break of its own when officials ruled Jahmyr Gibbs had fumbled before going down, handing possession back to the Saints. For a team and fan base that know how much one call can matter, the opening half already had the feel of a game where the officiating was going to be part of the story long after the final whistle. [Read more 🡒]
Saints Historic Rally Ended With A Brutal OT Decision
The Saints turned what looked like a hopeless Week 1 opener into one of the more memorable comebacks of the early season, clawing back from a 21-point hole to force overtime against the Lions. For a team trying to set a tone under Kellen Moore, the rally showed grit, resilience and enough offensive life to believe the night might still end in celebration.
Instead, it finished in the most painful way possible, with New Orleans failing on a two-point try in overtime and leaving Detroit with a 31-30 win. Moore later confirmed the call was made with the intention of winning the game outright, a bold choice that fit the drama of the comeback but left the Saints with nothing to show for it after one of the wildest openers in recent memory. [Read more 🡒]
Saints Showed Real Promise And A Familiar Problem In Moores Debut
For all the concern around a rough start, the Saints left their opener with something they can build on. They dug out of a 21-0 hole against Detroit, rallied to force overtime and even put themselves in position for a two-point try to win it, which says plenty about the fight in the room and the way the game turned once the offense settled down. Andy Dalton Shough was shaky early with turnovers, but the second half brought a much cleaner rhythm, and the defense did enough before halftime to keep the game from getting away entirely.
The frustrating part is how familiar the script felt. New Orleans again needed to play from behind, and the offense never looked fully stable even after the comeback began. The run defense had a harder time holding up, especially against Jahmyr Gibbs, and the slow starts on both sides of the ball left the Saints chasing a game they could have controlled earlier. The resilience was real, but so was the same old inconsistency that has a way of making promising performances harder to trust. [Read more 🡒]