Detroit Lions edge rusher D.J. Wonnum blocked a 35-yard field goal in the fourth quarter to keep the game tied at 17. It set up the Lions’ game-winning field goal, a 22-yarder from Jake Bates as time expired, in a 20-17 win for Detroit over the Green Bay Packers at Ford Field.
D.J. Wonnum Knew the Push Was Already There
Linebacker Trevor Nowaske made the call at the line and told his teammates how to attack Green Bay’s field goal operation. Wonnum said he simply trusted what the Lions had been doing to that front all afternoon.
“We had been knocking the line back the whole game. If you go back and watch it, we was knocking the line back the whole game,” Wonnum told the Detroit News. “So, I said, ‘I know we’re going to knock the line back, let me just get a hand up.’ That’s what I did.”
Turning around to see the kick go off target was “the best feeling ever,” Wonnum said.
This was the first blocked field goal for the Detroit Lions since 2017
Blocked field goals are rare, and Detroit had gone nearly nine years without one. Wonnum is the first Lions player to block a field goal since Jeremiah Ledbetter did it on Nov. 23, 2017, against the Minnesota Vikings.
The block also erased a decision that nearly cost Detroit the game. Dan Campbell went for it on fourth-and-1 from the Lions’ own 24-yard line with 4:50 left, and Jahmyr Gibbs was stopped for a 2-yard loss, which handed Green Bay the ball inside field goal range. Rookie kicker Trey Smack had already pushed a 26-yarder wide right in the first quarter, and he finished 1-for-3 on the day.
Wonnum’s block protected an afternoon in which Jared Goff made NFL history and Jameson Williams caught two touchdown passes.