For the Detroit Lions, the fall from grace was as swift as it was brutal. Just a year after securing a No. 1 seed, a season of high hopes came crashing down in a turnover-filled nightmare against the Minnesota Vikings. Now, with the playoffs out of reach, head coach Dan Campbell has one final demand for his locker room.

“Be locked in,” the head coach stressed on these three words.

“I expect everybody to be ready to go when we get back in a couple of days, be locked in, and be ready when we get on the plane to go to Chicago. To be locked in one more time, that’s what I expect. And then we’ll go from there. Brad and I will have a lot of decisions to make. A lot of things to look at. The whats, the whys, the how do we improve, cause we need to improve.”

Yeah, there are many decisions to be made. And surely a lot to improve upon. And the worst part is, they do it to themselves. Yesterday’s loss to the Vikings was entirely self-inflicted. Minnesota forced six turnovers. This is from a Lions team that entered the game with just eight giveaways all season, the fewest in the league.

Detroit’s lone touchdown came in the second quarter. Outside of that, the offense never found a rhythm. The first four drives of the game ended with a punt, two interceptions, and a fumble. Even for a Minnesota team that’s had its struggles, it wasn’t really a challenge to capitalize on that.

This is a team that went 15-2 and earned the No. 1 seed in 2024. Now they’ve dropped three straight games with the playoffs on the line in 2025. What once looked like a young roster ascending together now sits at 8-8, dangerously close to finishing with a losing record. If the Lions fall in Chicago to close the year, it would mark their first sub-500 finish since 2021.

It’s a tough ending to a season that once felt like it could go all the way, and that’s the part that hurts most. This wasn’t supposed to end like this. So what exactly went wrong?

Lions’ downfall this season

The Lions came into this season with real expectations. ESPN Analytics gave them a 67 percent chance to make the playoffs, the fifth-best odds in the league, and for a while, that felt about right. They were sitting on a 5-2 record, having one of the most formidable defenses in the league and an offense that made big plays when necessary.

And then it unraveled. Detroit has now dropped four of its last five games. Since the Week 8 bye, they’ve looked like a different team: Six losses in their last nine. The only wins came against NFC East opponents. A season that started with confidence and edge now sits at 8-8. That’s a hard fall.

Injuries were the reason they couldn’t finish the job last year, and you can make the same case again. The secondary went from having reliable, playmaking safeties to patchwork solutions. The offensive line, once a strength, has been reshuffled time and again. Continuity disappeared, and with it went consistency.

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But injuries are part of this league. They always are. Every team deals with them, every season. That’s the part Detroit still has to solve. The talent and culture are there. This roster is not short on ability or belief. What’s missing right now is alignment. All Dan Campbell needs to do is have this team live up to its potential.

It starts next week against the Bears. As Dan Campbell said, the Lions need to lock in and make sure that they don’t finish with a sub-500 record.