A trip to the Super Bowl was there for the taking. The Lions jumped out aggressively on offense and defense in the first half at San Francisco on Sunday and took a 17-point lead into halftime.
All was good.
Then in the second half, everything fell apart.
“It’s like getting your heart ripped out, that’s hard,’’ an emotional coach Dan Campbell said afterward.
The San Francisco 49ers came back after a 24-7 halftime deficit and earned a trip to the Super Bowl with a 34-31 win. They will face the Kansas City Chiefs who beat the Baltimore Ravens in the earlier game.
Campbell said at halftime they weren’t doing backflips. They knew the 49ers would make a second-half run.
“We knew we were going to have to weather a storm in the second half. so when they started to make a push we weren’t surprised,’’ Campbell said. “We just couldn’t counter back and we’ve always been able to counterback we just couldn’t do it in this one.’’
One eight-minute stretch in the third quarter was the killer.
On a fourth-and-2 at the Niners’ 28, the Lions’ Jared Goff could not connect with Josh Reynolds so they turned the ball over on downs.
In the 49ers’ ensuing possession, Brock Purdy completed a 51-yard pass to Brandon Aiuyuk after it bounced off the helmet of Lions’ Kindle Vildor and into the hands of Aiyuk. San Francisco scored three plays later on the 6-yard touchdown pass to Aiyuk to close the gap, with Detroit then up 24-17.
Then when the Lions got the ball back Jahmyr Gibbs fumbled on first down and the Niners recovered at Detroit’s 24.Christian McCaffrey scored a touchdown four plays later to tie the game at 24-24.
Nothing worked for the Lions, allowing the Niners to score another touchdown and kick a field goal before Jameson Williams caught a touchdown pass with less than a minute left.
“We’ve been there before, so fourth quarter you feel like you’re going to get it back, we just couldn’t quite get over the hump,’’ Campbell said. “That hasn’t been us all year and it showed up today at the worst time.’’
Two key plays in the game were fourth downs that the Lions didn’t convert in the second half. On both they were in field goal range but Campbell chose to try for the first down instead,
“I just felt really good about us converting and getting our momentum and not letting them play long ball,’’ Campbell said. “They were bleeding the clock out and I wanted to get the upper hand back. It’s easy, hindsight, I get it, but I don’t regret those decisions. It’s hard, it didn’t come through. I understand the scrutiny I’ll get, that’s part of the gig, it just didn’t work out.’’
This was exactly how Campbell has coached all season and most of the time his gambles worked. It wasn’t a surprise he went for it on both.
In the first half the Lions rushed for 148 yards. In fact Gibbs (42 yards), David Montgomery (60) and Jameson Williams (42) each had more rushing yards than Christian McCaffrey (29). But in the second half the Lions only managed 34 rushing yards and could not stop the 49ers – McCaffrey finished with 90 rushing and 42 receiving yards.
Campbell couldn’t exactly put his finger on the difference. It’s a young team without much playoff experience, but he didn’t really use that as an excuse.
“One of the things we always tell everybody who’s never been here, particularly the young players, you don’t know which play is going to make the difference … You can only say so much you’ve got to live it, unfortunately you’ve got to get your heart ripped out which we did,’’ Campbell said.
“It’s a lesson learned. I told those guys this might be our only shot.. Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here,’’ the coach said. “I’m well aware it’s going to be twice as hard to get back to this point next year. … It’s going to be tough, you’re not hiding from anybody anymore everybody wants a piece of you which is fine. … We had an opportunity and we just didn’t close it out. It stings.’’
The Lions accomplished much this season. They won the NFC North with a 12-5 record and then won the franchise’s first playoff game in 32 years in the wildcard round over the Rams. They followed it up with a divisional win over the Bucs.
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