It wasn’t the prettiest win you’ve ever seen, but a win is a win, and the Detroit Lions got that with a 19-9 win over the Miami Dolphins on Sunday. They increased their win streak to four straight. Let’s talk about what we learned in this one:

U-G-L-Y, the Lions kind of had an alibi; that was ugly

The Lions offense has usually been the strong point of this team, but the Dolphins game-planned them well on Sunday, and the Lions just didn’t have an answer for it for most of the game. Goff was under pressure, the run game couldn’t get going, the red zone struggles were abundant, and the Lions had a good handful of dumb penalties at horrible times.

One of the alibis is that the Dolphins’ defense is a lot better than you might realize and the other one is this:

What happened with Mahogany?

Christian Mahogany has been having a career season and has been one of the best guards in the NFL. Then suddenly he’s being benched by the Lions in favor of Miles Frazier, and nobody knows why. At least not yet. Frazier struggled mightily all around to the point where his presence alone was killing drives, and he even threw in some bad penalty work as well. We’ll try to get this one figured out, but we know it’s not an injury since Mahogany was on the sideline fully dressed and the CBS broadcast was calling the move a coach’s decision. It leads you to wonder if this is a disciplinary thing.

We tried to warn you about the Dolphins’ pressure

The Dolphins got after Jared Goff in this game and, yes, part of the problem was the fact that they didn’t have Mahogany out there for some reason. But they also just have a sneaky pressure ability that doesn’t require the blitz a lot. They’re just good at getting good old-fashioned pressure, and Goff struggled with that in the first half and threw his second interception of the season. They had eight pressures and three sacks in the first half alone.

Fake punt day

The Lions got their fake punt in for the first time in almost a year. Their last attempt was November 16th against the Eagles. That one was unsuccessful. The last successful one was against the Bucs in September of 2024. This one worked too, as you already know.

Then, seriously, you had to know that the Dolphins would do one too. Like, the moment the Lions converted theirs, the Dolphins probably wrote down in a notebook somewhere that they would do it. Then, moments before they did, it was the most obvious thing they could do. It was actually funny.

It’s time to take the training wheels off Derrick Moore

With D.J. Wonnum out with a concussion, Moore got to play a lot more than he usually does in this game, and he made the very most of it. Not only did he walk out with two sacks, but he also had two pressures. One of which could have given him the hat trick had he just wrapped up on Willis, but it wound up just being an incomplete pass.

I know the Lions like to take their time with rookies, but in this case, it’s time to see where things can go with him more often. Obviously, you keep Wonnum involved as the starter when he comes back, but Moore should probably steal some reps from Tyler Lacy at least.