Lions Game-Clinching Play Even Better Given This Dan Campbell Story

The Detroit Lions earned a Week 14 victory over division rival Minnesota Vikings on Sunday and they gained plenty of attention for how they put the game away.

Lions quarterback lofted a pass to first-round offensive tackle Penei Sewell, who ran in motion after reporting as an eligible receiver no less, on a play nobody saw coming. It helped Detroit ice the one-possession game with less than two minutes left.

Perhaps the only thing better than initially seeing Sewell run and motion before hauling in the floater, though, was the story behind the play, which Lions head coach Dan Campbell shared on “The Pat McAfee Show” on Tuesday.

“Well, that was something it’s been a long time coming. We’ve been talking about Penei for a long time like, ‘Man, we got to throw this guy a ball.’ Because he’s too good of an athlete. He really is, he’s something else,” Campbell said of the 6-foot-5, 330-pound lineman.

“And so it just felt like it was the right time and, look, here’s another thing that happened. These things happen during the game,” Campbell continued. “So we’re in that situation and the fans are doing the wave around the stadium and so I’m just watching and I hear (offensive coordinator) Ben Johnson say, ‘Hey, coach do you want to (inaudible) and I’m so focused on the wave that I said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ And I look up and we’re throwing it to Penei and I’m like, ‘What the (expletive) are we doing?!’ And he’s like, ‘Coach, you said it was fine.’ But it worked out great, it was unbelievable.

“Listen, we knew it would be wide open, we worked the heck out of it,” Campbell added. “We’ve seen him run the reps, we’ve seen him flip his hips. He’s got soft hands. The only thing I was worried about is, ‘Make sure you stay in bounds. Stay in bounds, stay in bounds.’ And he was great.”

It capped Detroit’s fifth win in its last six games with the only loss coming against the Buffalo Bills. The Lions, who are sneaking into the playoff picture, travel to the New York Jets in Week 15.