DETROIT, Mich. — This is the worst.
For a second straight year, the Detroit Lions played so well in the regular season that whispers of a Super Bowl, dare I say, felt warranted.
Back-to-back division champs. Undefeated on the road. The path laid out clearly before the team, fully rested after a well-earned bye week: Win two games and you're playing for a title. Win another? You're immortal.
Sixty minutes into what should have been destiny, it all came crashing down. A Jared Goff fumble in the red zone. A Jameson Williams (huh?) interception. On a day where the depleted Detroit Lions defense needed its offense to be nearly perfect (sound familiar?), the franchise's highest-scoring set of guys couldn't get it done and the team lost to a rookie quarterback in the playoffs. Life comes at you fast, I guess.
On Saturday night, Jayden Daniels was faster.
Last season, after the Detroit Lions cost themselves a trip to the Super Bowl, coughing up a double-digit halftime lead to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game, Dan Campbell told his team in the shell-shocked aftermath of it all, "This might have been our only shot."
While Campbell did not and does not believe this statement (he said so himself), he's right about there rarity of total success in the NFL. This is the new reality of Detroit Lions football. If lifting the Lombardi is the reasonable goal, then there's only one way to get there: Postseason perfection. All other outcomes, even the good ones and the great ones, will sting. A lot.
I am feeling the sting right now.