FOUR DOWNS: Williams earns SNF game ball with performance vs. Rams

When Stafford called heads for the overtime coin toss and it dropped tails, Lions quarterback Jared Goff offered a quick ‘We’ll take the ball’ with confidence.

Maybe it was a little foreshadowing of what was to come because that overtime game-winning touchdown drive was a thing of beauty for the Lions’ offense.

It started with a Kalif Raymond end around for 12 yards. Then a handoff to David Montgomery off the right end for 21 yards down to the LA 37-yard line. Montgomery took another handoff, this time off the left tackle, and cranked out another nine yards.

A 10-yard pass to Jahmyr Gibbs set the Lions up with 1st & 10 at the LA 28-yard line before the Rams’ defense even knew what hit them. A short Gibbs run of three yards was followed by Montgomery runs of six and eight yards, respectively, setting up a 1st & goal at the one-yard line. It only took one handoff to Montgomery from there to end it.

“Yeah, it was good. Just hand it to D-Mo, man, a battering ram,” Goff said of the overtime drive. “Just hand it to him and he did the rest, and it was fun. It was fun watching him – kind of catch that second wind there in that overtime, and our O-line the same way.

“I was joking with him when we called the play on the one-yard-line, it was like, ‘This is scoring.’ There was no doubt – and punched it in, it was great.”

Montgomery had a great training camp and finished Sunday with 91 yards on 17 carries for a 5.4-yard average per rush and the game-winning touchdown. It was a drive that showed what this offense is capable of when 11 players are on the same page and they impose their will on the defense.