Detroit Lions aren't battling curses, storylines; Matthew Stafford, Rams are legit threats

Dan Campbell gets it. Gets what’s at stake Sunday night at Ford Field. Gets the Detroit Lions’ history, the loyalty of its fanbase, the generational yearning for the opportunity he and his team have when they host the Los Angeles Rams in the wild-card round.

He gets the storylines, the baked-in PTSD, the apprehension so many feel with Matthew Stafford making his return, leading one of the league’s hottest teams and an offense that’s more than worrisome. He gets how it would feel to lose to Stafford on Sunday night, in the first home playoff game in 30 years, and why so many might lean into the Lions’ (mostly) sad history to explain such a loss.

No, I'm not predicting that loss here. But you can bet Campbell understands why all the giddy anticipation is cut with a touch of dread.

He’s just not here for it.

“I mean I understand why people will be fascinated by it,” he told reporters earlier this week. “I get that. So, I guess I can appreciate if I’m sitting where other people are. Yeah, I mean I understand it’s one of these stories, but I just — it’s a reminder too though, and (Jared) Goff knows this, for example: We win as a team. Man, this is about the Lions versus the Rams.”

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Not Stafford versus Goff. Or Stafford versus his history in Detroit. Or Stafford versus the Lions’ history, the history that says ... seriously?

We get a home playoff game for the first time in three decades and it's against our former quarterback?

Yeah, it’s a great story, a compelling story and one worthy of a primetime slot — as the league and the networks showed when they slotted the game for Sunday night. But it’s not the story. It can’t be the story.

Not for Campbell. Nor for the Lions.

If they lose — and that’s a shuddering thought — it won’t be because of the saying we won’t mention here (short of a controversial refs’ call, of course). No, if they lose, it’ll be because of football, because the Rams made the play the Lions couldn’t, or because the Lions couldn’t cover Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua, or couldn’t reliably pressure Stafford.

In the last three weeks, the Lions' secondary has given up 600 yards through the air to a single receiver. Though not the same receiver, even if it felt like it. And it felt like it because it was the same receiver for two of those three games: Justin Jefferson; CeeDee Lamb was the other.

More troubling was the quarterback throwing to Jefferson. For if Nick Mullens can zip the ball around for some 400 yards, what can Stafford do?

This is the worry. This should be the worry. Not franchise ghosts. Not curses. Not some invisible hand keeping a lid on joy.

But the Lions’ pass defense. Also, the Lions' pass offense, especially if Sam LaPorta can’t play, or if he plays but can’t run and cut like he normally does.

There are reasons to fret about Sunday night. They are football reasons. And they have to do with the Rams and how they match up against the Lions.

They also have something to do with the playoffs, where home teams routinely lose playoff games, where 12-win teams lose playoff games, where 6-seeds knock off 3-seeds, where so many games are decided by a single score.

This is true of the regular season, too — obviously. It’s the NFL, everyone has players. Well, almost everyone.

Campbell thinks this is the secret to the playoffs. Not to treat a playoff game as a regular-season game — that would be trying to change reality — but to remember that the way games are won in the regular season by a particular team is the way games can be won in the playoffs.

Sure, the spotlight and the stage can bend the perception of reality. And the intensity level of a playoff game is different. But the football parts remain the same. Reality is reality.

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“I think you don’t change who you are and what you’ve been doing,” Campbell said. “I think a number of things that we do anyway have been — everything’s about getting ready for this moment ... I don’t let things get stale.”

And yet?

“You treat it like any other week,” he said. “You’ve got to go do your job, and they’ll understand once they get in the game ... but what you don’t do is, you don’t press. You don’t press, you don’t get — start worrying about making mistakes. You do what we’ve done all year. You’re thinking about making plays. You’re going to make plays, do your job, do it the very best you can do it, and everything will take care of itself.”

This is the kind of confidence that can break a playoff losing streak. This is the kind of approach that can upend the one-playoff-win-since-1957 mantra that hangs over the franchise like gray skies hang over Michigan this time of year.

As I said, Campbell gets it. He has since the day he stood at the podium in Allen Park and introduced himself as the next Lions head coach.

He’s prepared this team all season for this moment. And if they win, if they beat the Rams and advance to the divisional round, it will be because they made the plays, because the offensive line opened running lanes and protected Goff, and because Goff made the right reads and made accurate throws, and because the defensive line found a way to pressure Stafford, or because Aaron Glenn mixed his coverages well.

It will be because the Lions are a good football team, and they played their best football. And if they lose?

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It won’t be because of Wayne Fontes or Matt Patricia or Bobby Layne. It will be because the Rams are a good team, a hot team, with a balanced offense and a Super Bowl-winning quarterback and two of the best receivers in the league.

It will be because it’s hard to win in the playoffs, and the Lions are just getting started, and sometimes a rebuild doesn’t truly take off until after a painful loss in January.

So, yeah, the apprehension is understandable, and PTSD is real. But these Lions aren’t those Lions, no matter what happens Sunday night.

Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him @shawnwindsor.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions biggest challenge is Matthew Stafford, Rams, not curses