Heartache of Detroit Lions playoff crumble won't fade, but they have major obstacles ahead

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Dan Campbell hung his head and tugged his Detroit Lions hat low to hide the emotion on his face.

He didn’t make eye contact with the two dozen or so reporters in front of him for the first minute of his postgame news conference, his voice raspy, his will temporarily shot.

The Lions suffered a heartbreaking end to a storybook season Sunday, losing in the NFC championship game, 34-31, to the San Francisco 49ers at Levi’s Stadium.

They dominated the game’s first 30 minutes and seemed well on the way to their first ever Super Bowl when things came unraveled in the second half amid a flurry of self-inflicted mistakes.

Campbell made two risky fourth down decisions that backfired. Jahmyr Gibbs lost a fumble that led to a touchdown. Two defensive backs dropped interceptions. And the 49ers rattled off 27 straight points to send the Lions home devastated in defeat.

“Obviously, been a part of a lot of heartbreaking losses, but it’s definitely tough hearing the head coach saying that they’re roping off the field and telling him to get out of the way,” linebacker Alex Anzalone said. “It’s just a heartbreaking loss.”

The Lions became the first team in NFL history to lose a conference championship game after leading by 17 or more points at halftime.

They remain one of four teams to never make a Super Bowl, along with the Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans and Jacksonville Jaguars.

[ MUST LISTEN: Listen below as "Carlos and Shawn" react from Santa Clara to the Detroit Lions' Super Bowl dream ending in a crushing loss to the 49ers. Also available anywhere you listen to podcasts (Apple, Spotify) ] 

And as they disappear into an offseason of inevitable change, some minor, some major, there’s no amount of comfort they can find in this season’s many accomplishments — the most wins in franchise history (14, including playoffs), back-to-back postseason victories for the first time since 1957, their first division title in 30 years — that will dull their pain.

“I feel like we’re no different than anybody else,” Campbell said. “Unless you’re the Super Bowl winner, that’s what this feels like. It’s hard. And we did accomplish a lot, but there is just — there’s a piece of me that I just feel like we’re a little bit like everybody else who didn’t make it, and everybody else who lost. Unless you’re San Francisco and who won the other one, I don’t even know? K.C., then you’ve got a pretty bad taste in your mouth. It’s what’s great about this sport, what’s great about the game, it’s what’s great about the tournament and it’s also what just crushes you.”

The Lions will join everybody else in the NFL in watching the 49ers play the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl 58 on Feb. 11, but they weren’t like every other team this season, which is why Sunday’s loss feels so crushing.

This was a magical run in many ways, albeit one without a rabbit in the hat for its finale.

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The Lions were the toast of the league all year. They piled up wins against bigger, badder, supposedly better opponents. They gave their fan base unforgettable memories. They turned road games into home games and made other teams and cities Honolulu blue with envy.

The uniqueness, the euphoria of this season will never be repeated — and neither will the group of men who made up what players routinely described as the tightest locker room they’ve ever been a part of.

Campbell said Sunday he was “proud of” his team and willing to “go anywhere with” players who fought and scrapped at every turn.

“You wish you could keep it all together,” he said. “But that's not the reality.”

The reality is the Lions likely will lose talented offensive coordinator Ben Johnson to a new job as head coach of the Washington Commanders in the coming days. He’ll probably take one assistant with him, with offensive line coach Hank Fraley rumored to be ticketed for a promotion. And the roster is headed for its annual end-of-season churn. Graham Glasgow, Jonah Jackson, Josh Reynolds and C.J. Gardner-Johnson will be unrestricted free agents in March, and the Lions could have one or more cap casualties.

Every new season brings its own set of challenges, and the Lions will have new obstacles to navigate in 2024. Stars will get new contracts. Young players will pine for more prominent roles. New personalities must mesh. And there’s always the chance complacency could set in.

“I’m a firm believer in everything’s got to be right,” Campbell said. “And everybody just thinks that it’s just talent or it’s just coachability and the more talent you get and just the better coaches or the more well-known then you’re just automatically going to be good, and that’s not the truth at all. It’s not.

“Does it help? Yeah, it helps as long as they are compatible and there is chemistry and there is teamwork and there’s an unselfishness and you leave the egos at home, and that’s hard. It’s hard to do that and so you set it up, well, now this is going to look different and it’s got to be right again. It’s got to be right. Some of the players, potentially some of the coaches, man, you’ve got to start over and we’ve got to find the right mix, the right balance and it’s got to be right. Cause otherwise, I just, I’m a firm believer, you don’t have a chance if it’s not. You’ll become average quickly.”

Average is the worst place to be in the NFL, and not somewhere the Lions want to revisit after this special ride.

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They fell a few plays short of the Super Bowl this season, with no guarantee they’ll get that close again, as Campbell cautioned his players in a somber locker room after Sunday's loss.

“Look, I told those guys, this may have been our only shot,” Campbell said. “Do I think that? No. Do I believe that? No. However, I know how hard it is to get here. I’m well aware, and it’s going to be twice as hard to get back to this point next year than it was this year, that’s the reality. And if we don’t have the same hunger and the same work, which is a whole nother thing once we get to the offseason, then we got no shot of getting back here.

“I don’t care how much better we get or what we add or what we draft, it’s irrelevant. It’s going to be tough. Our division’s going to be loaded back up and you’re not hiding from anybody anymore. Everybody’s going to want a piece of you, which is fine. So it’s hard. You want to make the most of every opportunity, and we had an opportunity and we just couldn’t close it out. And it does, it stings. It stings.”

And chances are it will sting for a while.

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Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him @davebirkett.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions have challenges ahead: Magical season tough to duplicate