When Chuck Clark heard the call in the huddle, he knew it was his turn to make a play.
Clark figured any running back worth his salt would pick up Jack Campbell on the blitz.
“Who’s got more sacks? Probably him. Go block him,” Clark said.
That’s exactly what Braelon Allen did, which left Clark a virtual highway to run through on his way to NY Jets quarterback Geno Smith.
Clark hit Smith square in the back, his left hand knocked the ball loose and Campbell scooped up the fumble and rolled to the ground a few yards later to give the Detroit Lions and their still-figuring-it-out defense a much-needed 31-24 win on Sunday, Sept. 27.
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“That's just what the doctor ordered,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “Took all three phases to win that game. And man, as you go along this season, especially early to figure yourself out, who you are, what you're going to become, how do you win? How do you win together? What it takes, the ebbs and flows of a game. Man, I was proud of our guys. I really was. And then for our defense to have to – man, they had to make that stop. That's what it was going to come down to.”
The Lions entered Sunday with arguably the worst defense in the NFL. They ranked 31st out of 32 teams in scoring, total and rushing defense and were adding two new starters to their already patchwork secondary.
One win against a lowly Jets team that won three games a year ago, played without No. 2 receiver Adonai Mitchell because of a finger injury and lost starting running back Breece Hall to a neck injury in-game doesn’t change that.
But the Lions can take pride in the fact their defense has made big plays late in both of their wins – they stopped a 2-point conversion in overtime to beat the New Orleans Saints in Week 1 – and Clark, Campbell and the rest of the unit came up clutch in the waning moments Sunday.
“I think it just boosts morale for the team,” Clark said. “We get a win, we push out to 2-1 now and we can stack off that. We can stack and keep rolling. That’s really what I think it is, Get a win.”
The Lions needed a win coming off last week’s thrashing by the Buffalo Bills, a game safety Christian Izien said the defense stewed on for 10 days.
The Bills scored touchdowns on their first four possessions and ran wild for 203 yards on a Lions defense that looked disorganized.
On Sunday, the Lions held the Jets to seven first-half points, shut down the running game (19 carries, 58 yards) – even before Hall left with his injury – and had none of the blown assignments that plagued them the first two weeks.
“When you got a game like that and the guys kind of self-reflect, you got to look in the mirror a little bit and see who we really are as a defense and we got to come with our identity,” Izien said. “I think it took a long time with those 10 days to get back out there. We were hungry, so this is the product today.”
Campbell said “we know what transpired last Thursday night [and] that's not us,” and the Lions played a more complete game Sunday.
Jahmyr Gibbs had another huge day with 164 yards from scrimmage (99 rushing) and three touchdowns, Jared Goff was an efficient 25-for-32 passing for 269 yards with no turnovers, the Lions got five sacks from their defense and two big kick returns to set up touchdowns.
Smith, a placeholder at 35 years old in his second stint with the Jets and on his fifth team, still had his way with the Lions secondary, completing 31 of 37 passes for 321 yards.
He threw fourth-quarter touchdown passes to Jeremy Ruckert (4 yards) and Garrett Wilson (23 yards), the latter of which, along with a 2-point conversion, tied the game at 24 and set the stage for the Lions’ late-game heroics.
“We can’t give up those last two touchdowns,” said Izien, who had 11 tackles, including three for loss, in his first start of the year. “We had some questionable calls I think, for sure. But overall, we got to play better. I think that we shouldn’t give up 24 points to that outfit over there. I mean, they’re a good team but I just don’t think we should give up 24 points to them. But we’ll clean it up for sure. Yeah, we’ll clean it up.
After Wilson’s touchdown with 4:06 to play, Goff led a four-play, 65-yard TD drive to put the Lions back in front. Isaac TeSlaa snuck behind the defense for a 49-yard gain on the first play of the drive, and Gibbs slipped out of the backfield against a blitz for an 11-yard touchdown three plays later.
Smith drove the Jets into Lions territory on the ensuing possession, and Lions defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard, in the spotlight all week for his unit’s shortcomings, dialed up a six-man pressure on second-and-10 that Clark finished with his first sack since he played for the Jets in 2024.
“That was an outstanding call by [Sheppard],” Campbell said. “It was an outstanding call. I'm proud of him, man. It takes a lot of intestinal fortitude to hang in there and trust and believe in what you do and your guys, what we're about and trust them to bring it to life. And man, they did. That was awesome.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Lions' leaky defense delivers vs. Jets: 'Just what the doctor ordered'
