On Sunday night, September 23, 2018, the Detroit Lions beat the New England Patriots 26-10 at Ford Field. It was Matt Patricia’s first win as a head coach, and it came against Bill Belichick, the coach he had worked under for 14 seasons. Rookie Kerryon Johnson ran for 101 yards, the first 100-yard rushing game by a Lion in 70 games.
The two teams meet again on Sunday, November 15, 2026, this time in Munich. It will be the first Patriots-Lions game since 2022, and neither Patricia nor Belichick will be on either sideline.
A student against his teacher
Patricia joined the Patriots in 2004 as an offensive assistant and spent six seasons as Belichick’s defensive coordinator, winning three Super Bowls in New England. Detroit hired him in February 2018, days after the Patriots lost Super Bowl LII to Philadelphia.
His Lions had started 0-2. The Jets beat them 48-17 at home on Monday night in the opener, and they lost 30-27 in San Francisco a week later. New England arrived at 1-1 after a 31-20 loss in Jacksonville.
Three three-and-outs
After a Patriots punt, the Lions drove from their own 14 to the New England 21, mixing LeGarrette Blount and Johnson runs with short passes, and Matt Prater kicked a 38-yard field goal. New England’s first three possessions all ended in punts after three plays. Tom Brady threw two incompletions to Phillip Dorsett on the second of them, and Sony Michel lost a yard on third-and-1 on the third.
Detroit’s second drive reached the New England 4. On second-and-goal, Matthew Stafford hit Kenny Golladay at the goal line, and Stephon Gilmore knocked the ball out. The officials ruled that Golladay had fumbled out of bounds at the 1. Patricia challenged, the replay showed that the ball had crossed the goal line first, and the call was reversed to a 4-yard touchdown. It was 10-0 early in the second quarter.
A third Prater field goal made it 13-0. Brady then led New England’s first real drive of the night to the Detroit 16, but a hurried no-huddle run on third-and-1 lost 2 yards, and Stephen Gostkowski’s 36-yard field goal with 44 seconds left made it 13-3 at halftime.
“We’re kind of in that no-huddle tempo at that point and had a play called that we liked, and it was just poor execution,” Brady said after the game.
The answer after the comeback
On the third play of the second half, Ja’Whaun Bentley intercepted Stafford at midfield. A face-mask penalty helped the Patriots move to the Detroit 12, and on third-and-8 Brady threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to James White. With 10:10 left in the third quarter, the lead was down to 13-10.
Detroit’s answer took more than six minutes. Stafford was sacked on the first play, then converted a third-and-9 with a 16-yard pass to Golladay and a third-and-1 with a short pass to Johnson. On first down from the New England 33, he threw deep down the right side to Marvin Jones Jr. for a touchdown. The drive covered 75 yards in 10 plays, and Detroit led 20-10.
Prater added a 32-yard field goal early in the fourth quarter after a 25-yard catch by Golden Tate and a 13-yard Blount run. On New England’s next drive Brady was called for intentional grounding and sacked by Eli Harold. Midway through the quarter, Darius Slay intercepted a deep pass for Dorsett at the Detroit 15 and returned it 34 yards, though an illegal blindside block pushed the Lions back.
Seventy games, and a 10-yard draw
Johnson, a second-round pick from Auburn, had been splitting carries with Blount. With 4:52 left and the Lions facing third-and-18 at their own 35, he ran 10 yards through the left side. That carry took him to 101 yards, and the Ford Field crowd stood and cheered when the total appeared on the video board. Detroit had not had a 100-yard rusher since Reggie Bush ran for 117 against Green Bay on Thanksgiving 2013, 70 games earlier, which was the longest such streak for any team since the 1970 merger.
“Well, I graduated high school in ’15, so I was 15 years old, a sophomore in high school,” Johnson said when asked where he had been in 2013. “I was probably winning state or something, I don’t know. But it was a while, that’s for sure.” He also said, “I think we saw a different offense today and we won.”
Brady’s fourth-and-12 pass for Dorsett from the New England 13 fell incomplete, and Prater’s fourth field goal, a 30-yarder with 2:00 left, closed the scoring.
| Quarter | Time | Team | Scoring play | Score (NE-DET) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 6:00 | DET | Matt Prater 38-yard field goal | 0-3 |
| 2nd | 14:17 | DET | Kenny Golladay 4-yard pass from Matthew Stafford (Prater kick), awarded on a Lions challenge | 0-10 |
| 2nd | 5:02 | DET | Prater 25-yard field goal | 0-13 |
| 2nd | 0:44 | NE | Stephen Gostkowski 36-yard field goal | 3-13 |
| 3rd | 10:10 | NE | James White 10-yard pass from Tom Brady (Gostkowski kick) | 10-13 |
| 3rd | 3:53 | DET | Marvin Jones Jr. 33-yard pass from Stafford (Prater kick) | 10-20 |
| 4th | 12:48 | DET | Prater 32-yard field goal | 10-23 |
| 4th | 2:00 | DET | Prater 30-yard field goal | 10-26 |
“Out-played us and out-coached us”
“Obviously the Lions did everything a lot better than we did tonight, so give them credit,” Belichick said. “They played well, coached well. We just didn’t do anything well enough to give ourselves a chance to win.” Later he added, “I think they clearly out-played us and out-coached us today.”
Asked whether he was happy that Patricia had his first win, Belichick said, “Look, my job is my football team and that’s what I’m worried about.”
Patricia gave the credit to his team. “I’m really proud of the players,” he said. Stafford said the win meant a lot to his coach: “His first win as a head coach in the NFL, probably no sweeter than to do it against your old team.”
| Patriots | Lions | |
|---|---|---|
| Quarterback | Tom Brady | Matthew Stafford |
| Completions-attempts | 14-26 | 27-36 |
| Passing yards | 133 | 262 |
| Touchdowns-interceptions | 1-1 | 2-1 |
| Times sacked | 2 | 1 |
| Top rusher | Sony Michel, 14 for 50 | Kerryon Johnson, 16 for 101 |
| Top receiver | Rob Gronkowski, 4 for 51 | Marvin Jones Jr. and Golden Tate, 69 each |
| Third downs | 2 of 9 | 7 of 14 |
| Total yards | 209 | 414 |
| Time of possession | 20:45 | 39:15 |
What came next
The loss left New England 1-2, the first time it had lost two of its first three games since 2012. It was also the low point of the season. The Patriots won their next six games, finished 11-5 and beat the Rams in Super Bowl LIII, Brady’s sixth title.
Detroit lost 26-24 in Dallas the next week and finished 6-10. Patricia went 13-29-1 with the Lions and was fired in November 2020, two days after a 41-25 Thanksgiving loss to Houston. He was back on Belichick’s staff in New England in 2022, when the Patriots shut out the Lions 29-0 in Foxborough, the only meeting between the teams since that night in 2018.
This week in Munich
The Patriots (5-4) and Lions (6-2) kick off at 3:30 p.m. local time, 9:30 a.m. ET, on Sunday in the FC Bayern stadium. Mike Vrabel coaches New England and Dan Campbell coaches Detroit, and Jared Goff practiced fully on Thursday after a chest injury. The Lions will be without three injured starters, as our Munich game week, day four story explains, and both teams’ places in the race are in the latest playoff picture. Detroit then goes home for the Buccaneers and the Bears on Thanksgiving.
The scoring plays, clock times, drive details and player numbers above come from the official play-by-play and game data. The quotes are from postgame comments. For how a scoring call like Golladay’s is reviewed, see our coach’s challenge and replay guide.
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