Getty Da'Shawn Hand makes a play in 2018.
The Detroit Lions will try to get back on the winning track when they tangle with the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday, and they will be doing so without a few key players on their side.
Sitting down, there will be a few key depth players and role players who won’t be making the roster for the afternoon. Here’s a look at who both sides are sitting down for another key NFC North tangle this week on the field.
Lions Inactives
Da’Shawn Hand, DL
Mike Daniels, DL
Amani Oruwariye, CB
Ben Benzchawel, OL
Oday Aboushi, OL
Tra Carson, RB
David Blough, QB
Vikings Inactives
Marcus Sherels, CB
Ben Gedeon, LB
Brett Jones, C
Dru Samia, G
Oli Udoh, T
Jayln Holmes, DL
Armon Watts, DL
Analysis
The Lions are in fairly decent shape given how their injury report looked coming into the week. They have not played with Daniels and Oruwariye has been a spare part for the secondary most of the season. Hand is being eased back after his long standing elbow ailment. It’s clear that Daniels needs more time to rest up his foot injury, but the hope is he could return in a few weeks. This will leave Detroit a bit thin up front, but they have enough decent pieces to be able to compensate for the losses there.
For the Vikings, they will have a relatively clean bill of health with Riley Reiff being able to go. Additionally, Josh Kline is back up front. They will miss Ben Gedeon at linebacker, but on the whole, most of the team’s borderline injury cases have gone the way of Minnesota this week, which is huge for the team. All in all, the Vikings are fairly healthy this week by most standards, which should help them in a key NFC North battle that could determine the outcome of the division by the end of the season.
As a whole, both teams are fairly healthy all things considered. The Lions played a hard hitting, hotly contested Monday Night Football game this week, so the fact they were able to bounce back as good as they have and get most of their key players healthy speaks to the fact that they are in pretty good shape this season.
The good news? Both sides should be of decent health in terms of star power as they meet for the first time this season in a very significant battle.
What To Know
The Lions and Vikings will kick off at 1:05 EST. The game will be broadcast by Brandon Gaudin, Chris Spielman and Shannon Spake.
Coming into this game, the Vikings are a narrow 1.5 point underdog, pointing to some of the love the Lions have received coming off a tough loss to the Packers on Monday Night Football. There are several key variables to watch in this contest, not the least of which is can the Lions force Kirk Cousins into being an average quarterback again? Cousins looked good in the last game against the Philadelphia Eagles, but has run hot and cold this season. The Lions have to protect up front on their own line while trying as best they can to get to Cousins. Also, will the referees behave themselves?
With the revealing of the inactive list, it’s almost time for kickoff on a key battle for Detroit and Minnesota.
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