Frerotte did not return to the game after he threw an interception that was tipped by Shaun Cody and landed in the hands of Corey Smith. Frerotte tackled Smith on the play.

"He's got a back contusion," Childress said. "Very sore right now. We're trying to settle it down and make him comfortable."

Asked whether Frerotte's injury could be a problem heading into next week's game at Arizona, Childress said: "I don't know. We're listing it as a low-back contusion. From the extent that a low-back contusion can go, I don't know."

Tarvaris Jackson took over for Frerotte and led the team to victory.

Childress 2-0 on challenges: Childress won two challenges Sunday. The first came when Adrian Peterson initially was ruled to have fumbled in the second quarter. Replays showed that he was down when his back hit the ground and the ball came loose. The Lions recovered the ball, but the fumble was overturned.

The Vikings went on to get a 35-yard field goal from Ryan Longwell, cutting the Detroit lead to 6-3.

The second challenge came when Detroit receiver Calvin Johnson caught a 13-yard pass on third and 11 at the Minnesota 21. The replays showed Johnson cradled the ball but it hit the ground as he came down.

"I was looking directly at it, and I saw the bottom hit the ground," Childress said.

On winning both challenges, Childress said sarcastically: "I'm going to go home and celebrate like hell. Those challenge plays mean everything, you know. You just do it based on merit, what you see, what you talk about upstairs. You don't get any points for those things or anything like that."

Fumble bug bites Peterson: Peterson fumbled three times Sunday. He was lucky enough to either fumble out of bounds or in the direction of one of his teammates.

Actually, he fumbled four times. And that fourth one was recovered by the Lions and would have killed a drive. But after a challenge by Childress, the play was ruled down by contact.

"I don't feel like, personally, I had the best game," Peterson said. "I put the ball on the turf a couple times -- too many times. But fortunately it kind of went our way. It didn't really cause any turnovers."

On the flip side, he rushed for 102 yards on 23 carries. Like the rest of the team, he was sluggish in the first half but snapped out of it in the second.

"Me and Chester (Taylor) and the offensive line, we just got together the second half and got in our mindsets, 'Hey, we are going to run the ball. We're going to pound these guys until they stop us.' We did that. We came out, and we pounded the ball and made some big plays. It worked out good for us."

Fourth-down busts: The Lions got close to the end zone several times. But on two occasions, coach Rod Marinelli decided to go for the first down on fourth and 1. His team was stopped both times. In retrospect, kicking two field goals there would have made the difference between winning and losing.

"I decided with the staff early in the week," Marinelli said. "Once we crossed (midfield) I wanted to go into fourth-down mode because I felt going into the game we needed touchdowns, big time. I didn't know quite how we were going to play defensively. We had some guys out still.

"It didn't work."

Assist to Herrera: Taylor scored on a 17-yard run that featured a nifty move that froze a defender in his tracks. He credited guard Anthony Herrera with a big block.

"Yeah, our offensive guard did a great job of blocking the linebacker," Taylor said. "I cut off of him."

"That's a play we work on all week," Herrera said. "It's a play in our system."

Herrera almost didn't get to make the block. He got tangled up in the line and couldn't shoot out at the linebacker right away.

"I got held up," he said. "But you got to do what you got to do. We needed it, so I had to get out there and get it done."

'Ugly' but positive: Center Matt Birk understood this wasn't the most beautiful game the Vikings have played, yet the desired results were achieved.

"It's nice to be in the driver's seat," he said. "Now we've got three really good NFL opponents coming up. But we'll enjoy this one, as ugly as it was at times.''

Briefly: Safety Darren Sharper is a 12-year veteran. He knows the perils of facing a team with nothing to lose.

"We knew (the Lions) were going to come out with a lot of intensity," Sharper said. "I was telling people all week long. Coach was telling us all week long to match that intensity. It's sad that we did not do that. But we found a way to win the game.

"But those guys, they play hard each and every time we play them. Up in Minnesota they played us tough, and we knew we were going to get their best shot today."

Rookie kick returner Darius Reynaud suffered an unknown toe injury and was spotted leaving the locker room wearing a flip-flop on his right foot.

Rick Alonzo, Sean Jensen and Tom Powers contributed to this report.