4 big winners (and one mild loser) from Detroit Lions Week 14 win over the Packers

The Detroit Lions won their 11th straight game for the first time in franchise history on Thursday night, 34-31 over the Green Bay Packers. They also clinched a playoff berth with the win, so they're going to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since a three-year streak from 1993-1995.

Here are our biggest winners, and one loser, from the Lions' Week 14 win over the Packers.

4 winners (and one loser) from Lions' Week 14 win over the Packers

Winner: Dan Campbell

Campbell is never going to stray from who he is as a coach, particularly in critical games. The Lions went 4-for-5 on fourth downs Thursday night, including two touchdowns. But no decision was bigger than the choice to go for it on 4th-and-1 on the final drive of the game. It would have easy let Jake Bates try a 39-yard field goal to win the game, but the Lions went for it. It wasn't smooth, with Jared Goff falling down but still getting the handoff to David Montgomery.

The conversion allowed the Lions to run out the rest of the clock with kneel-downs before Bates tried a 35-yarder.

After the game, Campbell gave the expected explanation for that final fourth down decision.

Winner: Jake Bates

Speaking of Bates, Thursday night's game-winner was the third game-winning field goal of the season for November's NFC Special Teams Player of the Month. The Lions have found their kicker for the foreseeable future.

Winner: Tim Patrick

Patrick missed the 2022 and 2023 with the Denver Broncos due to major injuries. Since landing on the Lions' practice squad just before the regular season started, he has been everything they wanted in their replacement for Josh Reynolds but had not found until he arrived. There have been a few near-misses in terms of scoring a touchdown, and on Thursday night that corrected with not just one but two scores among his six catches for 43 yards.

It had been 1,082 days since Patrick's last touchdown before Thursday night.

Winner: Jared Goff

The running game did not get much going overall (3.3 yards per carry), so the onus was on Goff a little bit more than usual and he did not disappoint (32-for-41, 283 yards, three touchdowns, one interception, 109.7 passer rating; two first downs as a runner). The interception was a throw he wants back, but other than that Goff was very good in a big game to earn a season sweep of the Packers.

Loser: Run Blocking

The Lions' identity offensively is the ground game, off of which everything else opens up. Thursday night, Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery combined for 94 yards and a touchdown on 29 carries (3.2 yards per carry) with a touchdown by Montgomery. Take out Gibbs' 20-yard run, and the numbers look really ugly. Green Bay has a tough run defense, but the Lions' offensive line struggled to get push in the run game in a way it rarely does.