The Detroit Lions should have lost on Thursday night. Not because they were overplayed; They weren’t. They should have lost because they are plagued by injuries and the Packers are really good and because even the best teams lose a few games. That’s how the NFL works. Except maybe in Detroit this season.

The Lions are not immune to the laws of football gravity. They’re just remarkably good at defying them. To understand why, consider a single play in that game: fourth-and-inches at the Green Bay 21-yard line with 43 seconds left, the score tied at 31.

Lions coach Dan Campbell went for it, as he often does. David Montgomery ran seven yards to set up Jake Bates’ game-winning field goal. It seemed like a simple game and a straightforward decision, and in a way it was both. But it also provides a deeper explanation for why Campbell is such a great coach.

“I knew how I wanted to play this game,” Campbell said. “The team knew.”

He said the Lions needed to maximize their offense because they lacked all sorts of defensive talent. their best defensive player, Aidan Hutchinson; their leader, linebacker Alex Anzalone; and defensive linemen Josh Paschal, Levi Onwuzurike and DJ Reader are all injured. On Thursday night, defensive tackle Alim McNeill left the game in the first quarter with a possible concussion. The result, as quarterback Jared Goff said afterward, was that “they had guys out there that were here on Sunday.”

This presented Campbell, offensive coordinator Ben Johnson and defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn with an interesting challenge: How to lean on the offense without putting too much pressure on the offensive players or giving the defense any excuses?

“AG did a great job paring down the package so these guys could come in and play,” Campbell said. “It’s not like we have guys who have never played ball. We wanted to cut it back enough so that these guys could play fast. And that was really mandated: Just let it go, man. It won’t be perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect. We knew there could be some errors. I just want to turn on the tape and know that the effort and the goal is there.”

Think about it: Campbell took a situation that should have made her hesitate and used it to inspire confidence without seeming like a fraud. This is really difficult. But it worked. And it worked because Campbell and general manager Brad Holmes instilled an ethos unrivaled by any in the league.

They isolate guys who play hard, understand the game and value physicality, and then select the most talented players available from that group. It means giving up some really talented players. But it also means that the guys who just got there already belonged.

Receiver Tim Patrick, who joined the Lions’ practice squad in late August, scored two touchdowns against Green Bay. When All-Pro receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown was asked about Patrick, he raved about his intelligence and contributions to the running game. Goff said he had no problem passing to any of his running backs, which he called “rare.”

The Lions are 12-1. To understand how impressive that is, the Brady-Belichick Patriots have won 12 of their first 13 games only twice: in 2004, when they won the Super Bowl, and 2007, when they remained undefeated until David Tyree’s helmet catch.

The Lions play like they not only expect to kick your ass, but they know exactly how they’re going to do it – and you don’t. They enjoy it so much that the consequences seem almost insignificant. Against Seattle in September, Goff completed all 18 of his passes without Campbell noticing or giving him a play ball. On Thursday, Campbell learned after the game that the Lions had secured a spot in the playoffs. That sounds ridiculous, but also: knowing they could clinch a playoff spot wouldn’t have changed the game plan, so who cares?

The Lions went on fourth down five times against the Packers. I didn’t think any of these decisions were particularly bold – they were all either fourth-and-one or fourth-and-goal – but as Campbell said, “There’s a risk in that.”

“But,” he added, “I felt like it wouldn’t be as much of a risk with our guys.”

That’s not bravery. That assumes he has the highest-scoring team in the league and, in Johnson, a playmaker who can make the right play in high-leverage moments. There are many reasons why the Lions should have lost this game. But when Campbell watches the tape, he’ll see that the effort and the goal were there. He might even remember his team clinching a playoff spot.