Detroit Lions are the only NFC team to never reach the Super Bowl
The Detroit Lions are now one win from reaching the Super Bowl, which would be their first-ever appearance in the Big Game, after knocking out Tampa Bay, 31-23.
Yes, the Lions are the only NFC team to never have reached the Super Bowl. Three other NFL teams have never played in the Super Bowl, all in the AFC: Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans.
Both the Jaguars and Texans are expansion teams: The Jaguars joined the league in 1995, and the Texans joined in 2002. The Browns meanwhile did not exist for three years, from 1996-98, after the team moved to Baltimore to become the Ravens.
The Lions will have to upset the No. 1 seed San Francisco 49ers (13-5), which rallied to nip Green Bay 24-21 on Saturday night.
The Lions last played for an NFL title in 1957, demolishing the Browns, 59-14 for the championship for the third time in the 1950s. The Lions also beat the Browns for the NFL title in 1952 and '53, and took home the championship in 1935.
The Lions famously had only one playoff win since that 1957 title, that was until last week's 24-23 thriller over the Los Angeles Rams.
DAVE BIRKETT: Why Detroit Lions fell into championship obscurity; can they recover?
Some say the team is cursed by Bobby Layne, who put a hex on the Lions in 1958 after he was traded to Pittsburgh. But that curse, when Layne purportedly said the team would not win a championship for another 50 years, was supposed to end in 2008. Instead, the Lions went 0-16 that season.
They have only made the NFC championship game one other time, in the 1991 season, where they were promptly discarded by Washington, the eventual champions, 41-10.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Have the Detroit Lions ever played in a Super Bowl?
