Yep, don’t I know it. Metro Detroiter here, born and raised. I had been despairing in recent years of ever seeing the Lions in the SB in my lifetime. And no matter how much I told myself before the game yesterday that I’m happy for the Lions to just have gotten to the NFC Championship game, no matter what the outcome, it still hurts.
Welp, always next year…
For me, life-long-suffering Lions fan, I went into the game not thinking they would actually win. I was pretty sure they were gonna get destroyed, starting in the first quarter. But then. What do they go and do? They take a 17-point lead into the half and give me more than a modicum of actual, honest-to-goodness belief that they could actually be going to the Super Freaking Bowl. I told my 12-year-old daughter to put down her phone and watch history being made.
And then the third quarter happened.
Fuck. I’m depressed by proxy here in Chicago. I have no connection to Detroit but I sooooo wanted to see them in the Super Bowl, as I did Buffalo. I now have absolutely no interest in the Super Bowl whatsoever, and I doubt I’ll watch more than a few minutes of it at all. Ugh. I can’t imagine what actual Lions fans feel like.
On reddit they seem to be directing much of their ire at Ben Johnson. I get it, they need someone to blame and he’s probably got a foot out the door, but I didn’t see Ben Johnson dropping all those passes.
Oh, so it’s your fault! You tempted fate and angered the football gods! For shame.
Just kidding. It was probably my fault for forgetting to wear my lucky Lions shirt.
I was thinking that too. But then I remembered that I made sure to sit in the exact same chair, in the exact same position, drinking beer out of the exact same pint glass that I did for the previous two games. I’m pretty sure I told my daughter to pay attention to the second half in the previous two games as well. So I knew it couldn’t be my fault. I did my part!
If it was suicide, I’d like to point out that the Chiefs defense was very actively assisting.
That was a freaking epic game. I’m still floating.
I stepped away, expecting kneels. Why runs? There’s been enough fumbles/turnovers to stop doing that. If you want to burn a couple of more seconds, just have the QB back up a few steps then flop.
It was something like 10-15 seconds they needed to burn. A little too much to ask for. They ended up with 1 second left on the 4th down, so they timed it out pretty well
This is the worst one for me. Using one of your timeouts there more or less loses the game.
And for what? You can’t tell me that they really felt the increased likelihood of scoring via run was good enough to risk losing a timeout for. In fact, you can tell they didn’t really think they had a better chance to score via a run because on 4th down they passed! If you want to “surprise them” with a run do it on 4th down where if you get stuffed you lose anyways!
Just shockingly bad decision somewhat masked by the drama around two perfectly defensible (IMO) 4th down calls.
You might remember that Travis Kelce sat out the last regular season game, even though he needed just 16 yards for his eighth straight 1,000 yard receiving season. (The game was meaningless to the Chiefs, as they had the #3 seed locked up, regardless of the outcome of any games that day.) He wanted to rest and prepare for the playoff push.
His stats in the 3 playoff games?
7 receptions, 71 yards vs Miami
5 receptions, 75 yards, 2 touchdowns vs Buffalo
11 receptions, 116 yards, 1 touchdown vs Baltimore
I’m thinking that sitting out that game was a good move on his part.
Matt Nagy and Andy Reid are canny strategists.
And post-season team success is obviously more important to these players than individual records.
And don’t forget Steve Spagnuolo. Hired as the Chiefs DC in 2019, he’s taken a lot of heat as KC gave up a ton of points in the next few seasons, but he managed to put together an outstanding unit this year. And they are the youngest defense in the NFL.
Pretty obvious that KC wouldn’t be in the Super Bowl without their defense this year.
He put together a game plan that harassed Jackson all day from every direction.
C’mon, chin up! There might be some good commercials.
Very true, and I would credit the Chiefs’ defense for most of the post-season success.
But I was specifically addressing the offensive starters sitting out the final regular season game.
IMHO still a bad decision. Three opportunities to fumble the ball instead of one: Snap, Handoff, Tackle. Miami lost to Georgia Tech this year doing just that (snap and handoff) and there’s the Miracle at the Meadowlands in Pro Football. Purdy takes the snap dodges around and falls down. Only the snap involves a fumble possibility. Could have burned just as many seconds. Again, my opinion as an all knowing, all seeing professional sports prognosticator.
And to add; the Lions had a handoff fumble fall into the 49ers’ hands earlier in the game.
“How did Miami lose to GA Tech?
The game is most notable for Miami’s decision to run the ball instead of taking a knee in the final 40 seconds, leading to a fumble recovered by Georgia Tech and subsequent touchdown on the ensuing drive to defeat the previously undefeated Hurricanes.”
UW almost lost to Tennessee in the Sugar Bowl this year because as they were burning off time at the end of the game, instead of kneeling they kept doing run plays to burn off a few extra seconds. In doing so, the running back got hurt, stopping the clock and giving their opponent most of a minute instead of a handful of seconds.
And they drove to the end zone and only a last second pass breakup saved UW, when it seemed like the game was over a short time before.
Running the ball when you can kneel and almost get the same result is bad coaching.