I used to have a joke I’d use when people around me were talking about pro football. “I grew up in Detroit,” I’d say, “we didn’t have a professional football team, we just had the Lions.” This year almost ruined that joke, but the NFC Championship Game Sunday night gave it back and made it all too real, again.
I was swearing at the TV Sunday night, but I really should have been swearing at myself. I let them suck me in. It took till the third round of the playoffs for them to get me, but they got me. I didn’t want to be gotten, and I resisted as long as I could – I’d heard this song before – but after a couple of unanswered touchdowns I began to think the Detroit Lions might just maybe make to the Super Bowl this time. Then the reality of what has been the case my entire life smacked me across the face like a dead fish: These were the Lions, and no team can deflate the concept of hope like they can.
I remember the 1991 season and the NFC Championship Game between the Lions and Redskins. The first half was promising, close at 17-10 for the Redskins. And we had the greatest running back in the history of the game in Barry Sanders, that meant that victory was doable, finally!
Then came the bane of the existence of every Lions fan: the second half.
If NFL games were only two periods, we’d be a great team, a dynasty, really. But someone made the game four quarters, and that’s where the wheels always fall off. I, and I think many other lifelong Detroiters, could handle being blown out from the start, that we understand. But like that 1991 game that kept it close for a half, only to be blown out 41-10 at the end, there comes a point at which the rug gets pulled out from under so often you become Charlie Brown to the team’s Lucy.
Some of the ensuing years contained less glimmers of hope than others, and some only had not quite total despair, though there was plenty of that too – remember 0-16 in 2008?
But this year was different, they said. I didn’t want to believe. Not because I didn’t want them to win, but because, well, they’ve they Lions and my entire lived experience suggested otherwise. My father, who passed away last year, did witness the 1957 NFL Championship team, but that memory was only second-hand now and it wasn’t a Super Bowl. We’d never been to a Super Bowl.
Could this be the year? I tried not to entertain the prospect – as a Lions fan you try not to acknowledge good playing or the possibility of advancing while there is still time on the clock, because time on the clock means there’s still time for them to blow it. Little did I know Sunday…
I blame myself. Not for the loss, but for believing they might not lose; that they were for real.
I saw all the warning signs – inconsistencies on offense, bad calls and literally no defense.
Why the hell don’t you bother throwing to your best receiver in the second half, until the very end? Amon-Ra St. Brown is awesome, and half of that is his ability to make a play. I get that they paid special attention to him, but they paid special attention to him the whole game because he’s that good. He’d be a pretty horrible player if he could only make catches when wide open. Either way, trying would’ve been a hell of a lot better than continually throwing to people who drop the ball when it hits them in the hands or chest, don’t you think?
And Dan Campbell and the coaching staff needs to learn the difference between being aggressive and being stupid. Putting points on the board is the reason the game is played. The last attempt at a 4th down conversion was stupid, not aggressive. They were within field goal range and down by 3, not to mention the fact that nothing their offense was doing in the second half was working. Why would you think they’d pull it together on that play?
You what might have helped pull it together? Putting some points on the board to remind them that they could, to show they could still score against their defense. Instead, they just gave the ball away with great field position.
Most of this wouldn’t matter if the defense could tackle, but they decidedly cannot. The 49ers have some great players – Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel aren’t easy for the best players to take down, so why were the Lions simply throwing their bodies in the general direction of them when they had the ball? Did none of the Lions play peewee football, where players are told to wrap up their man and take him to the ground? These are professionals, diving at the legs will either have them jumping over your or your bouncing off them. Yet, the use of arms didn’t seem to occur on anyone in the secondary.
When not throwing their bodies around like armless pilons, the defensive line was trying to tackle by the head and shoulders. Guess what happens when you get ahold of someone like that? They duck and get away.
When I played hockey we were taught to watch the other player’s torso. They can make all kinds of moves with their head and legs, but they can’t go anywhere without their chest and that’s how you smash them into the boards. I was nowhere near a pro, so how is it I can remember that but an entire professional sports team can’t?
In the end, I’m not mad at the Lions, they did what they’ve done my whole life, only this time they waited longer than usual to do it. I’m mad at myself for falling for it, again. Obviously, I believe there is very specific blame to go around, but it all leads back to my feet. It’s back to square one next year, and we’ll see if they can’t pull it together again to let us down late, or if they’ll let us off the hook early like the years before this one. As I used to joke with my father and say that for the Lions it’s a rebuilding century…and the rebuild continues.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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