The Vikings defense has been the worst I've seen under Mike Zimmer. Overall Washington has been a better defense than the Vikings have been. The strength of the Vikings defense is their LB and safeties right now though and perhaps they are better against the TE position than Washington is.
According to
this Washington has given up 10.3 points per game to TE while the Vikings have given up 8.8 points to that position.
The main reason I mentioned that was to point out that the Lions
were trying to force the ball to Hockenson a lot but they maybe need to find something else to do because the Vikings were all over it.
Hockenson did score earlier on in that game. He has done well this year.