All eyes will be on the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings‘ game on Sunday, January 5, at Ford Field in Detroit. This game is so important that the NFL flexed it to a Sunday night matchup, giving it a prime spot for NFL fans to enjoy.

The winner of the Detroit Lions and Minnesota Vikings game will decide the top seed in the NFC, which is what makes this game so important. The winner also gets the NFC North and receives first-round playoff bye and home-field advantage leading up to the Super Bowl, so a lot is at stake. The team that loses falls to the fifth seed and has to play on the road for the wild-card round. If the teams have identical records and play to a tire, the Lions get the tiebreaker.

Now, heading into that matchup, some unfortunate Vikings news may help the Lions, as sad as that is to point out.

Minnesota Vikings News Could Help Detroit Lions

The Vikings have enjoyed a season with fewer injuries than many of their opponents, but that changed on Sunday, December 29, when one of their significant players was injured.

After the team’s close 27-25 win over the Green Bay Packers, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell announced that outside linebacker Pat Jones II was going to miss some playing time due to a knee injury that he suffered during the matchup.

Speaking about the injury, O’Connell said, “It’s a right knee injury. Hopefully we avoided kind of a super long-term injury, but I won’t know much more than that until he gets fully evaluated.”

He added some bad news, stating, “But expecting him probably to miss a little bit of time. Like I said, I don’t know what that looks like as of right now.”

Jones’ injury happened in the second quarter of the game against the Packers when tight end Tucker Kraft went down and hit him around the knee. Following the play, Kraft wasn’t flagged, and when the replay showed on the screens at U.S. Bank Stadium, Vikings fans booed.

“After the low hit from Kraft — which was technically a legal block, as the contact occurred inside the tackle box — Jones was down on the field for several minutes while being attended to by the Vikings’ medical staff,” noted NFL expert and analyst Chris Spooner of Vikings Wire in a December 29 feature. “Jones eventually left the field under his own power for further evaluation.”

Vikings Player Was Having His Best Season Before Injury

Jones was a Vikings third-round pick in 2021. This season has been his best in the league, and he’s clocked seven sacks, 39 tackles, nine total TFLs and a forced fumble. So, it’ll sting to lose him against the Lions, if it comes to that.

“It’s a tough break for Jones, who is in the final year of his rookie contract with Minnesota, so hopefully, his injury isn’t something that impacts his future in the league,” noted Adam Patrick of The Viking Age. Patrick concurred that “this season has easily been Jones’s best with the Vikings since the team selected him in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft.”