An unforgettable Lions season ends in more heartbreak, and legitimate hope too
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Dan Campbell’s face was reddened, his voice coarse like sandpaper. The Detroit Lions had just coughed up their best shot at the Super Bowl ever, and he was asked to explain what we’re all still trying to figure out.
How are you supposed to feel about this epic season? And how do you square that with one of the most epic postseason collapses in NFL history? The Lions roared back to life by winning a franchise-record 14 games this season, and rolled to a 24-7 lead in the NFC championship game. Then just 30 minutes away from punching their ticket to the promised land, they were fileted for 27 consecutive points in a 34-31 defeat that ended their dream season against the San Francisco 49ers.
Hopeless because this is how it always ends, one way or another?
“That’s tough,” Campbell said. “I’ve said that word a lot tonight. I hate it. You’re asking me now, and I feel like we’re no different than anybody else. Unless you’re the Super Bowl winner, that’s what this feels like. It’s hard. We did accomplish a lot, but there’s a piece of me, I just feel like we’re a little bit like everybody else who didn’t make it and everybody else who lost. Unless you’re San Francisco and who won the other one? I don’t even know. K.C.? Then you’ve got a pretty bad taste in your mouth.
“It’s what’s great about this sport, what’s great about the game. It’s what’s great about the tournament. But it’s also what crushes you.”
Campbell has endeared himself to a city with his straight-talking, and he didn’t try to spin the scope of the collapse in Santa Clara. Jameson Williams scored a 42-yard touchdown on the fourth play from scrimmage, and the Lions rolled to 148 rushing yards and three touchdowns against statistically one of the league’s best run defenses — all in the first half alone.
They led by 17 points heading into the second half, the sort of thing that had been insurmountable at this level of the playoffs. All they had to do was play something resembling the kind of football that got them there, and they would have flown home as gods, into the waiting arms of an adoring football town that has finally woken back up.
After the way this season has gone, capturing hearts across America, as Jared Goff chants broke out everywhere from college hockey games to your local grocery store, it felt like their moment had finally arrived after 66 heart-wrenching years of heartbreak.
Then San Francisco rattled off five straight scoring drives in the second half, stopped only when Brock Purdy was kneeling out the clock. That surge got rolling after a fourth-down pass glanced off both of Josh Reynolds’ hands, then a 51-yard pass going back the other way bounced off Kindle Vildor’s helmet and into the hands of a stumbling Brandon Aiyuk near the goal line.
