DE Aidan Hutchinson showed Monday night that he’s back with a vengeance.
So is RB David Montgomery, whose career night was a key to the takedown of the Ravens.
And no Ben Johnson to run the offense? QB Jared Goff suggests the change might ultimately benefit Detroit.
Aside from a neutral-zone infraction, he literally didn’t show up in the game’s box score through three quarters. While wondering in the final period if I’d (somehow?) missed an injury or benching, I purposefully scanned the field to confirm Hutchinson was present and accounted for – and there he was, lined up wide on the right side of the defensive line on the outside shoulder of Baltimore tight end Charlie Kolar.
No sooner had I located Hutch than he flashed off the line at the snap but appeared to overrun a rush by Ravens steamroller Derrick Henry … except Hutchinson never gave up on the play, changing direction on his surgically repaired leg, before throwing a haymaker at the ball. Henry couldn’t withstand the punch and gave up the rock – a turnover the Lions turned into a field goal with 1:51 to go that ultimately provided the decisive cushion.
“I saw that ball cradling a little bit,” said Hutchinson, who revealed the play was actually designed to create a takeaway, “and I put my head down and just threw the biggest hook I could. And then I got up, and everybody started running at the end zone. At that moment, I knew that ball came out. So, that was a fun moment. I’ve never actually done that before, where I got a clean punch-out on a ball carrier. So, that was a lot of fun, actually. That was really, really cool.”
Hutchinson, 25, wasn’t done being Mo(town) Cool.
Known for his typically redlined motor since before he was the No. 2 overall draft pick out of the nearby University of Michigan three years ago, he sacked Baltimore superstar Lamar Jackson for a 6-yard loss on Detroit’s very next defensive snap – one of the seven times Jackson went down Monday night, tied for the most the two-time league MVP has suffered in a game during his eight-year NFL career.
‘I wasn’t getting a ton of action,’ Hutchinson replied when USA TODAY Sports asked him to assess an evening that started quietly but ended with a bang.
‘But I think at the end of the day, we made the plays that we had to to win the game. It might have been a little quiet at first, but we surged onto the scene with a couple of big plays to finish them off at the end.”
It was a sequence the 2025 Lions can only hope typifies their season – from the ability to throw timely knockouts to the relentless approach this organization will need to break the league’s longest Super Sunday hex, Detroit the only NFL franchise that’s been in operation for the entirety of the Super Bowl era, which began in 1966, yet never appeared in the game.
“Our hardest workers are our best players. It’s not lip service. It’s not fake – our best players are our hardest workers,” said Detroit coach Dan Campbell. “Go out and watch them practice. It’s like that every day. So, that’s the standard.
“If you’re not up to that standard with the effort matching what our best players do, then you’re not going to be around here very long.”
And maybe there was also a timely reminder here in light of the dominant offseason narrative that’s followed the Lions, who lost coordinators Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn to head coaching opportunities at a time when six other assistants also departed.
Yet don’t forget that Detroit, which went one-and-done in the 2024 postseason despite its No. 1 seeding – largely undone by a rash of injuries – has also made significant gains (recoveries maybe?) that are easy to gloss over.
Start with the return of Hutchinson, who broke his leg last October, aborting a campaign that seemed destined to end with him feted as Defensive Player of the Year. Also restored to full strength is running back David Montgomery, who suffered an MCL injury last December that cost him three games and limited him to 17 snaps in the playoffs. Guards Tate Ratledge, a rookie, and Christian Mahogany, a second-year player, have supplied a needed boost to the offensive line following the offseason retirement of Pro Bowl center Frank Ragnow.
Running behind the reconfigured blocking, Montgomery racked up a career-high 151 rushing yards, including a 72-yard breakaway, and two touchdowns Monday. Of the Lions’ 426 yards, 224 (and 4 TDs) came on the ground) as Detroit manhandled a Baltimore squad with a deserved reputation as one of the league’s bullies.
“We know what we’ve got here,” said Campbell. “We don’t need anybody telling us what we do or don’t have.”
But it’s apparent.
After starting flat in a season-opening loss to the Green Bay Packers, the Lions sent an early message to Johnson, his new team and everyone else with a 52-21 demolition of the Chicago Bears in Week 2. Now, with replacement coordinator John Morton calling the offensive shots, Detroit has scored 90 points over its past two games. Quarterback Jared Goff even indicated the reimagined attack’s wrinkles create further opportunities for this group.
“Two and one is pretty good,” said Goff, who passed for 202 yards and touchdown in his latest precision performance.
“I do like that we are winning in different ways. … We are running some different schemes, slightly, and being able to win down the field – on certain routes that are new to us – and win in certain run game stuff that is new to us, it’s great. We obviously won a lot of games last year running what we ran last year, but being able to tweak it slightly and still be successful with it on offense is awesome.”
And it’s not like most of the ingredients that helped this team to consecutive NFC North crowns disappeared. An explosive group of pass catchers, led by Amon-Ra St. Brown, remains. An opportunistic defense with ball hawking safeties Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph remains. Campbell’s fourth-down bravado − 3-for-3 Monday night − remains.
Factor in a healthy Hutchinson, their defensive closer, and what’s basically the full complement of weapons that’s underpinned an offense that’s been a top-five unit – both in terms of yards gained and points scored – in every season since 2022, and there’s certainly a sense that this could finally be the pride of Lions that leaves no unfinished business at season’s end.
Said Montgomery: “We’ve got something special here.”