They are the class of the NFC

GREEN BAY, Wis. – You can take your soul with you at home and away, in dry land and in flood, day and night.

They enjoy raiding the department that once tortured them, and it's even sweeter when the hometown crowd shakes their heads in unison.

You can almost hear them saying it.

Really? The lions?

Yes, the Lions.

The new tyrants of the north. What other fan base takes over stadiums and chants their quarterback's name as the seconds tick down?

Of course no one. That privilege is all yours, Lions fans, and it happened again on Sunday when the last decisive blow was a slip at running back by one half of the Lions' two-headed attack. David Montgomery took a check-down pass with two minutes left and slid near the 10-yard line, and Jared Goff made it from there to tie the game as the Lions defeated the Packers 24-14.

There was no reason to score points, the message had already been sent.

These Lions are where their rivals used to be, and if you want more evidence of this new world order, look at what happened Sunday afternoon at Lambeau Field, where the NFC's best team played smart, mostly mistake-free football in the pouring rain played clinging tightly to the top of the NFC North.

Yes, the best team in the NFC. That's clear after they outscored and outscored the Packers from the start of the game.

The Packers did Detroit regularly: finding ways to win even when they weren't at their best and waiting for the Lions to beat themselves. Well, that won't happen to the Honolulu Blue anymore.

They are a different team, with goals that emerge every week. Twice now these Lions have gone away and beat their main rival in the division. And twice they made a statement, which was this:

We can win in many ways, and if you want to implode yourself, do it.

The Packers nearly doubled the Lions' yardage and scoring ability and tripled their folly. Yes, the rain contributed to the misery in Green Bay, and certainly the drops. By my count there were six, but perhaps there were more.

Not to mention the botched snaps, there were three of them, including two consecutive mishandled snaps that stalled another drive. The Lions were happy to take advantage of the opportunity.

If the red zone game were won, the Packers would have a dispute, but that's not the case, and the Lions were once again playing near the end zone.

No sequence was smoother than the end of Detroit's first drive, when it came down to fourth-and-5 from the 5-yard line and Dan Campbell kept his offense on the field.

Campbell wasn't planning on letting Jared Goff snap the ball. Instead, he and his offensive coordinator Ben Johnson asked Amon-Ra St. Brown to move along the line of scrimmage and then asked Goff to extend his hands toward the middle from the shotgun spot.

The reach worked. Green Bay piece. The Lions moved back half the distance to the goal. From there, Johnson called a sideline end zone route to St. Brown at the 3-yard line.

He ran toward the apartment, stopped, turned around for a moment, and then continued toward the sideline. He sent his defender back to Milwaukee, and when the defender recovered, St. Brown was in position near the sideline.

Goff threw it into the only window he could reach. St. Brown jumped, dipped his toes in the grass, and gave the Lions a lead they never relinquished.

The two-game sequence was both high-profile and bold, and it made sense because the same goes for the team and the coaches who lead it.

Campbell talked about Lambeau as a kind of cathedral and late fall football as the kind the Creator envisioned. He suspected that the game – America's game of the week if you believe the network that aired it – would come down to a single play.

Or mistakes.

Or wisdom.

That might have been the case if the Lions hadn't been so good at making multiple crucial plays in games like these, and that's a good thing because it makes it easier to hide the plays that might be defining in other ways like when Brian Branch was thrown out of the game in the second quarter.

On second-and-20, Green Bay's talented but unlikely quarterback Jordan Love threw to Bo Melton down the left sideline and missed.

Branch led the way with his helmet before trying to turn away at the last moment. He hit Melton headfirst and received a personal foul before being later sent off. When the news was announced in the stadium, Branch ran toward the officials to protest, and when he finally backed away, he threw the double bird in the air.

The referees called for another penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Lions lost another 15 yards.

Branch will certainly regret flipping the birds, but probably not the passion that led to it. He's as calm as can be in the locker room and just as fierce on the field. He's partly the reason the defense made enough plays in Aidan Hutchinson's absence, among other things.

But he's not the only one making plays or capable of making them The play. They come from anywhere and anytime.

Sunday in Lambeau was the final proof.

Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

They are the class of the NFC

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