In an utterly joyless installment of “Sunday Night Football” from a broadcast and productional standpoint, the Detroit Lions lost in Week 6 to the Kansas City Chiefs. Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth made sure to highlight the Chiefs were rallying behind the face of the league in Patrick Mahomes, but there were no asterisks this time around for Kansas City’s victory. But had you followed the money, you would have saw this coming well before you waited all day to watch the game.
All week long, an overwhelming majority of the tickets and money flowed in on the Lions. Per Action Network’s PRO data, 81 percent of bets and 85 percent of the money was placed on Detroit to cover the spread (+2.5). At face value, nothing about that seems strange or out of the ordinary. The Lions had ripped off four straight victories, the Chiefs suffered their third loss of 2025 the week prior—giving them more losses than the entirety of the 2024 season (2).
Interesting thing about that spread though, Detroit was only +1.5-point underdogs to start the week. So despite the public laying an overwhelming majority of coin on the Lions, they became an even bigger underdog by the four-o’clock hour on Sunday, mostly due to some heavy money coming in on the Chiefs. Funny money was fixing for an interesting conclusion to the day’s slate of football.
And wouldn’t you know it, the Lions lost by more than 2.5 points on Sunday! Not calling for a conspiracy, simply pointing out some interesting numbers from last night’s game. The Lions were called for four penalties that cost them 38 yards of field position—including a pre-snap, illegal motion penalty on the Lions that wasn’t called until—according to Dan Campbell but not the officials on the field—New York called the officials as Detroit was lined up to kick the extra point. They had a total of six flags thrown against them. The Chiefs, on the other hand, were called for zero penalties on Sunday night, and just a single flag that came on an inconsequential defensive offside penalty against Chris Jones on the Lions’ final drive of the game, trailing 30-17 with no timeouts. Coming into Sunday’s game, the Chiefs were one of the most penalized teams in the NFL, getting 48 flags thrown against them through five games.
But ultimately, it wasn’t the officiating or the sportsbooks that took down Detroit. John Morton called a play on fourth-and-goal from the Chiefs’ 1-yard line where David Montgomery threw a screen pass to Jared Goff. If you hadn’t seen it yourself last night, it’s somehow even more ridiculous after typing it out right here. On a play where Travis Kelce may not have actually caught a pass, the Lions opted not to throw a challenge flag, were caught substituting players, and in turn gave the Chiefs a free play after Patrick Mahomes alertly snapped the ball. Amon-Ra St. Brown was uncharacteristically pedestrian, dropping a pass on a fourth down when the Lions were driving before halftime, up 10-6. The Chiefs were 2-3 on fourth down while the Lions were 0-2.
Detroit, very uncharacteristically, folded in the face of adversity. The Chiefs beat the Lions at their own game, but the good news is that it’s October.
It’s October and the Chiefs don’t play in the conference where the Lions need to take care of business come time for playoff seeding in January. Next week’s matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who stand at 5-1 atop the NFC, is about as important a game can get this early in the season. This might be one of the biggest tests yet after tempers flared at the conclusion of last night’s game.
“I love Brian Branch, but what he did was inexcusable,” Campbell said in the postgame press conference. “It’s not going to be accepted here. It’s not what we do. It’s not what we’re about. […] That’s not okay. That’s not what we do here, and it’s not going to be okay. He knows it, our team knows it. That’s not what we do.”
Branch was miffed that officials weren’t paying attention to the transgressions of Chiefs players, namely JuJu Smith-Schuster and his unnecessary block from behind away from a play late in the game, so he took matters into his own hands at the end of the game. Hutchinson picked up a penalty for an undisciplined late shove of Mahomes. Kerby Joseph took to social media to post about his frustrations the officiating. This lack of discipline from a Campbell-led Lions team is about as atypical as it gets, but Detroit should look better on Monday night; lightning doesn’t strike twice on Campbell’s Lions—it hasn’t happened in nearly three seasons of football.
Sunday night’s affair in Arrowhead went sideways, it got messy, and there’s really only one guy for the job: you won’t find me betting against Campbell getting the Lions back on track in Week 7.
See More:
