Morning Coffee: The NFC road to Super Bowl will go through Detroit

The Minnesota Vikings are loaded with talent.

The problem is they play in the NFC North, which means they aren’t even the best team in their own division.

Last night, the Vikings travelled to Michigan to face the Detroit Lions in a historic regular season finale to determine the NFC North winner and the conference’s No. 1 seed.

FanDuel made Minnesota a 2.5-point underdog with a total that climbed as high as 57.5, as most unbiased football fans expected a competitive, high-scoring affair.

Sunday Night Football was supposed to feel like an F1 race.

Instead, the Vikings looked like a Ferrari stuck in a demolition derby.

In the marathon that is the NFL season, every team will inevitably stumble at one point or another before they reach the finish line.

In a cruel twist of fate, when it needed to be at its best, Minnesota’s offence delivered its worst performance of the season.

As a result, the NFC road to the Super Bowl will go through Detroit this season.

This is the Morning Coffee for Monday January 6th, 2024.

The NFC Road To Super Bowl Will Go Through Detroit

For the first time in their storied franchise history, the Lions will enter the postseason atop their conference.

With a tough late-season schedule and injuries piling up on the defensive side of the football, it was easy for skeptics to doubt Detroit’s ability to get to the finish line.

Instead, the Lions rose to the occasion and grinded out three straight wins to clinch the NFC’s No. 1 seed with a 15-2 record.

Dan Campbell made it easy for all of us when he said that his team would bring everything they had ahead of a Week 17 win over the San Francisco 49ers and they did.

Then with the top seed on the line in the regular season finale, it was Detroit’s best player that stepped up and delivered an iconic performance.

Jahmyr Gibbs matched the single-game franchise record with four touchdowns, setting a new single-season franchise touchdown record and becoming the first Lion to lead the NFL in scrimmage touchdowns since Barry Sanders did it in 1991.

Gibbs finished the game with 170 scrimmage yards – four more than Sam Darnold’s 166 passing yards.

In a game in which neither quarterback delivered their best performance, Gibbs provided the spark that the Detroit offence needed to come out on top.

With the win, the Lions clinched a first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage for the postseason.

Detroit will enter the playoffs as the Super Bowl favourite at +300 at FanDuel.

The Lions are down to +135 as the favourite to win the NFC Championship.

Meanwhile, the Vikings fall to the No. 5 seed and will travel to face the Los Angeles Rams in the Wild Card round next Monday night.

Minnesota is a 2.5-point favourite at FanDuel.

The Vikings have lost back-to-back games only once this season.

The fact that Minnesota could lose to only two teams in an entire season and still not make it past the Wild Card round is remarkable.

The Vikings are the third choice to win the NFC Championship at +650 at FanDuel this morning.

Only the Lions and the Philadelphia Eagles (+320) have shorter odds to reach the Super Bowl.

I already have my eye on a couple of early lines for the Wild Card round, but I’m going to take another 24 hours before posting my first FanDuel Best Bet for the playoffs.

Hopefully, we can make this postseason a memorable one.

Have a great day, everyone!