It turns out there aren't any voter polls or playoff committees in the NFL. One loss—no matter how disheartening—doesn't derail a season, so the Detroit Lions can suit up next week with the same hopes they held last month.
But they need to bring better execution and a couple of twists to the game plan if they hope to leave Minnesota with a better result.
These aren't wholesale changes that require months to implement. They're rather small tweaks that can turn this team back into the playoff contender of 2014 instead of the lead-losing conservatives we saw last Sunday.