DETROIT – It was clear watching the Lions play Sunday afternoon that they wanted to beat the Bears in Ben Johnson’s return to Detroit.

They played with an edge. They were explosive at every turn and celebrated in-game victories big and small.

Then, after trouncing Johnson’s Bears 52-21, Lions players made it known they wanted to perform well in front of their former (and still beloved) offensive coordinator turned rival head coach.

While you’ll see some splash quotes about how the Lions took things personally with Johnson, this was no blood feud. Detroit’s motivation didn’t center on besting the man. It was about proving the super-talented Lions offense could still function well without Johnson designing and calling plays.

Yes, the Lions were pumped. No, they weren’t pissed.

“There was nothing disrespectful about it,” quarterback Jared Goff said in a press conference. ”I think we’ve got so much respect for him. We know what type of coach he is, and we knew he’d have them ready to go and reared up and going, and sure did he know some of our stuff, maybe, but how does he get that communicated to the defense, I don’t know. So there was some talk about that, but no man, I’ve got so much respect for him. He’s done so much for me personally, and our offense in years past, that’ll never change.”

There was a need to show how explosive the Lions still were, especially after struggling mightily in a Week 1 loss to the Green Bay Packers. That cocktail of Johnson’s return and a tough loss increased anticipation heading into the Lions’ home opener.

“We were fired up,” Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. “Ben, what he did for us, I mean, we’ll never take that for granted. He was a big part of what we did here. But just him being over there, we wanted to show that we can still — us as players, we can still make it happen. We’ve got a great group of guys, a great group of coaches. So, we wanted to go out there and put on a little show.”

The same could be said about Detroit’s defenders. Johnson’s vast institutional knowledge of the Lions roster, including a defense he saw every day in practice, was discussed as a potential factor in Sunday’s game.

Defensive back Brian Branch’s post-game comments were strongest about Johnson’s departure as a head coach in the NFC North, though Johnson was always going to take the next step in his career path. Johnson passed on one head-coaching cycle but surely would not pass on another. Of the options available to him, he considered the Bears the best for his first head-coaching job and took it.

“We knew coming into this game that this is personal — really, all these games (are) personal,” Branch said. “But this one was just, we felt like we’d been betrayed, from the staff to the players. And we love Ben, we still love Ben. He’s a great coach, he’s a great mastermind, but yeah, it was time to get after him.”

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