Everyone knew beating the Detroit Lions in Ford Field was going to be the hardest task of the year. Not only were the Lions a lot of people’s favorite to win the Super Bowl, but playing them in Detroit is an arduous task based off the the atmosphere, alone.

“We knew this was going to be an absolute battle,” Commanders head coach Dan Quinn said after the game. “It’s a really talented team. Dan and their staff have Brad and everybody here has put together a fantastic team. . . we knew. . . we’d have to come fight and have to be very specific about how we’d have to go win it.”

Spoiler Alert: The Commanders got the job done and they did it in dominant fashion, which is even more surprising than the outright win. Especially when considering they were nine-point underdogs before kickoff.

A big reason why Washington won is because they simply made play after play after play – on both offense and defense. Both sides of the ball were dialed-in and the performance proves that. 

And according to Commanders running back Brian Robinson Jr., the crowd never bothered him nor his teammates. They stayed attuned to the task in front of them and never let the distraction that is Lions fans and Ford Field get to them.[You] gotta block the noise out [and] focus on what’s in the huddle – just listen,” Robinson Jr. told reporters after the game. “Try your best to listen to what’s in the huddle and block out all the outside noise. And, you know, we did a great job of doing that. The noise definitely wasn’t a factor, today. We didn’t let that affect us. At no point did we let their crowd affect us.

“So, that just goes to show how this team fights through adversity [and] fights through anything we’re up against.”

Beating the Lions by two touchdowns in a game that was never really close once we got past the midway point of the third quarter is already impressive enough, and having the ability to block out Ford Field only adds to the accomplishment. It’s clear that it doesn’t matter where the Commanders play next – whether it’s Philly or L.A., this team knows how to push the distractions aside and focus on the next play.Robinson Jr.’s comment gets even better after hearing what Quinn said about the crowd after the game.

“This was a really tuned-up crowd,” Quinn told reporters. “I mean, it was electric as you could imagine. We felt it the whole way. We tried to simulate [it] as best we could back home, but there was nothing like the energy that was brought in with the crowd tonight. But we do have a lot of poise with the group.”

This now gives the Commanders two playoff wins on the road to lean on, in terms of mitigating the crowd noise, as well. And based off how the game against the Lions went, it could easily be three road wins by the time January 27 rolls around.