Three takeaways from Lions' win over Vikings

The Detroit Lions beat the Minnesota Vikings by a score of 17-3 on Sunday. Here are my three main takeaways from the game:

Everything is coming together on defense

So this is what an elite defense looks like. For years the Lions have invested resources in their defense only to continually have issues -- from the front four to the back seven. This year's defense isn't perfect by any means, but they've been one of the best in the NFL through six weeks. The secondary is playing at an extremely high level, as are the linebackers, and the defensive line is finally living up to its full potential. With all of this coming together and being led by Teryl Austin, the Lions are a team that should be known more for their defense than offense at this point.

The Lions are a competent offensive line and kicker away from being a really dangerous team

Part of the reason the Lions have morphed into a defense-first team from a perception standpoint is that the offense has been horrendous this season. It was more of the same on Sunday with the offensive line being unable to protect Matthew Stafford. He deserves some of the blame for the offense's struggles as well, but it's tough to do much when you're constantly running for your life. If the Lions can get things corrected on the O-line and start actually making some field goals, this team could really make some noise this season.

FOX is the absolute worst

I have made it no secret over the years that I am not a fan of how FOX covers sports. There is just far too much sloppiness on a consistent basis, especially with their NFL coverage. Whether it's poor announcing, poor camera work or poor directing, these complaints happen fairly regularly over the course of an NFL season with Lions games being on FOX nearly every week.

All of this is to say that my standards for FOX's coverage of the NFL were already quite low long before Sunday. Despite this, FOX managed to outdo itself on Sunday with the worst broadcast of a football game I have ever witnessed in my life. The announcers, Mike Goldberg and Brendon Ayanbadejo, had no business calling an NFL game, as evidenced by their constant mistakes. They repeatedly misidentified coaches and players -- no, Golden Tate and Sam Martin aren't on the Vikings -- and it felt like they did zero preparation for this game. Actually, it felt like they were reading from an error-filled script and had no prior knowledge of either team. It was painful to listen to them on Sunday.

As if the announcing wasn't bad enough, the camera work and directing were almost as bad. It was like FOX hired a bunch of high schoolers with no experience in TV and said, "Hey, come work this NFL game for us." I don't know how such a large company with such a big stake in the success of its NFL coverage can put out such an awful product, but FOX sunk to a new low on Sunday.