Lions beat Dolphins 19-9 as NFC North chases historic start

The Detroit Lions beat the Miami Dolphins 19-9 on Sunday for their third straight win, and they sit in third place in a division on pace to be the best in NFL history.

Jahmyr Gibbs ran for an 8-yard touchdown in the third quarter and Jake Bates made four field goals at Hard Rock Stadium, ESPN reported. Jared Goff completed 17 of 25 passes for 170 yards and an interception for the Lions, who improved to 6-2.

Detroit is trending because the NFC North is trending. The division is 25-8 through Week 9, a .757 winning percentage that would be the best of any NFL division through nine weeks since the 1970 merger even if the Minnesota Vikings lose to the Buffalo Bills on Monday night, as Bill Barnwell laid out at ESPN. The Lions are 6-2 and in third place, a game behind the 7-2 Chicago Bears and a half-game behind the 6-1 Vikings.

The Lions have won three straight since their Week 6 bye, and they have done it with defense. They held the Green Bay Packers to 17 points in Week 7, the Vikings to 15 in Week 8 and the Dolphins to three field goals Sunday. Before the bye, Detroit had allowed 21 or more points in each of its first five games. The turnaround has come without top cornerback D.J. Reed, top linebacker Jack Campbell and second-best edge rusher DJ Wonnum, all of whom missed the Miami game.

Campbell’s absence hung over the week. He suffered a neck injury in the Vikings game, and the team spent the days leading up to Sunday repeating a mantra about responding without him, the Associated Press reported. Malcolm Rodriguez started in his place and led the team with eight tackles. Derrick Moore, the second-round pick out of Michigan, had two sacks.

Defensive coordinator Kelvin Sheppard has turned the blitz down. Through the first six games the Lions blitzed on about 30% of dropbacks, roughly league average. Since the bye, that rate has dropped to 23%, the eighth-lowest in the league, and the Lions have allowed 3.3 yards per attempt when pressure gets home, the second-best figure in that span. Before the bye, that number was 8.5 yards per attempt, second-worst. The secondary is no longer in shambles when the rush does not get there.

Safety Brian Branch is back, too. He tore an Achilles last season and has been working his way into form since returning after the bye. Sheppard has moved him all over the field, lining him up near the line of scrimmage to handle slot receivers and help against the run. Even a limited Branch is an upgrade on what Detroit was running out there in September.

The Lions are 6-2 and they are the third-best team in their division. The NFC North has a chance to send all four teams to the playoffs for the first time since the league expanded to a 14-team postseason in 2020. The Packers are 6-3 after stomping the Patriots 45-27 in Foxborough, and the Bears beat the Buccaneers 27-24 on Sunday night despite five turnovers. If the Vikings beat the Bills on Monday, the North goes 4-0 for the week.

The historical record is not encouraging for superdivisions. Barnwell went back through the best division starts since the merger and found that only two of the top 13 produced a Super Bowl champion. The 1984 AFC West went 21-4 through nine weeks and won one playoff game. The 2024 NFC North, which sent the 15-2 Lions, 14-3 Vikings and 11-6 Packers to the postseason, lost its three playoff games by a combined 50 points. Detroit was the top seed and lost at home to the Commanders, 45-31.

The Lions know that history better than anyone. Two seasons ago they went 15-2, earned the first-round bye and got run off their own field by Washington in the divisional round. The defense gave up 45 points and the offense turned it over five times. The 2026 team is built to avoid that kind of collapse, and the early returns on the defensive side are the reason.

Detroit plays the New England Patriots next Sunday in Munich, a home game on the schedule that is part of the NFL’s German rotation. Then comes a stretch of three straight against the NFC: home for the Buccaneers and Bears, then at the Falcons. The division race will sort itself out in December.

The trade deadline is Tuesday, and the Lions are already adding. They are acquiring safety Andre Cisco, ESPN reported, shoring up a secondary that has been the weakest part of the roster for two seasons.

What I think

The Lions are the best team in the NFC North, and I think they are the best team in the NFC. The Bears have the higher ceiling and the better quarterback, but Caleb Williams threw four interceptions Sunday night and the run game is averaging 3.7 yards per carry. The Packers are the most complete team through nine weeks, but they are waiting on Micah Parsons to return from a torn ACL. The Vikings have the league’s best defense and an offense that cannot sustain a drive.

Detroit has the most stable offense in the division and a defense that has fixed its biggest problem in the span of a month. Goff is not flashy, but he has 15 touchdowns and a 60.3 QBR, and Gibbs already has 847 rushing yards and nine touchdowns through eight games. The defense does not need to be great. It needs to be average, and over the past three weeks it has been better than that.

The 2024 collapse is the thing everyone in Detroit remembers, and it is the thing that will decide this season. If the defense holds up in January the way it has held up in November, the Lions are going to win the North and they are going to be the team nobody wants to play. If it does not, they will be the same story they were two seasons ago. The early evidence says it will.