The Lions are reshaping their reputations into proven comeback kids as they recover from trailing in the fourth quarter to pulling off a victory against the Vikings. (0:45)

DETROIT -- Marvin Jones was in the locker room late Thursday afternoon when he took a look around. Moments earlier, the Detroit Lions team he joined in the offseason had pulled off its latest comeback stunner, and there was only one way to describe the scene.

“Chaos,” Jones said.

These days, that's a pretty apt word for the Lions on the field as well.

Detroit has thrived in the late-game moments in which so many teams would wilt. At this point, this is Detroit’s identity. Even if the players and coaches say over and over that they would prefer to be up big late, that just isn't what this team is.

This is a group with a confident quarterback, a clutch kicker and a defense that is starting to make big plays when necessary. This is a team that makes chaos look calm and orderly.

It happened again, thanks to a game-tying and game-winning field goal from Matt Prater and a Darius Slay pick in between for a 16-13 win over the Vikings. The Lions always seem to believe, no matter the situation and the time remaining, that they are going to come back and win.

Games such as Thursday's and wins such as Thursday's are what will make the Lions a tough out the rest of the season and, if they make it, in the playoffs. As long as they are within a touchdown late in games, they believe they can win. That is undeniably key as the intensity increases and the games matter more later in the season.

Matthew Stafford and the Lions have come from behind in all seven of their wins. AP Photo/Rick Osentoski

“Our group plays loose and aggressive. That’s kind of how we try to keep it,” Lions coach Jim Caldwell said. “You can’t play a ballgame uptight. They don’t get uptight, even at the end of ballgames. In tough situations that are fairly tough for the most part and can be a little bit uncomfortable, it does not bother them.

“They’ve been in it. They find a way. They believe in one another, and they keep trying to find a way to win.”

This season, in many ways, is the antithesis of the worst season in franchise history, the winless 2008 campaign that only two current Detroit players -- backup quarterback Dan Orlovsky and long-snapper Don Muhlbach -- were part of. That season, the Lions led or were tied in the fourth quarter of six games -- and they lost them all. This season, the Lions have trailed in every game this season but are 7-4 and in control in the NFC North.

Orlovsky has experienced both euphoria and dejection. He has lived the elation and the pain. As such, coming into the locker room Thursday after the latest eye-popping, heart-fluttering comeback had an even larger tinge of excitement. It was a divisional game. It was a nationally televised game. It was a game the Lions of the past so often lost.

This Detroit team, however, keeps winning.

“It’s like a hundred different people won the lotto,” Orlovsky said. “A feeling you can’t describe unless you experience it. It’s pretty special. And when you’re able to go do something as a group with a bunch of other guys, it’s really special.”

Most of Detroit’s players have never been through something like this. No season in NFL history has been like this, when every game has been decided by seven points or fewer. That has literally never happened to any other team through 11 games.

“Never in my life, man. Never in my life have I seen consistently one person every week win us a game, somehow, some way, some shape, some form," tight end Eric Ebron said. "It’s impressive, man. It’s ridiculously impressive.”

That one person is Matthew Stafford. But it could be so many players on the Lions roster these days. How they’ve managed to do this is tough to explain, and the Lions aren’t trying to find a reason anymore. They’ve accepted that this is the way they are.

In some ways, it goes back to when the schedule first came out. Safety Glover Quin said some of the players looked at the schedule when it was released, saw few national television opportunities and simply said, “good.”

They liked the idea of playing at 1 p.m. on Sundays, being underneath the national consciousness, taking it week to week and just seeing what happens. What happened is the Lions became a compelling story, an interesting team winning in the most surprising ways.

Detroit has won six of its past seven games and leads the NFC North. Chaos does not bother this team -- not at all.

“It hasn’t been pretty,” Quin said. “But we go out at 1 o’clock, play good football and find a way to get a win.

“And [on Thursday], the whole world got to see what you guys been seeing every week. Let’s go out, play football. It’s a close game, and we find a way to win.”