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Matthew Stafford knocks out Tom Brady in playoffs, Detroit Lions react to amazing finish

On a January night in 2021, Detroit Lions fans had to deal with the reality that their franchise quarterback and perhaps the team's greatest quarterback since Bobby Layne was leaving.

In the days and months that followed, Lions fans had to be thinking the same thing at least one point between that moment and now...

"Watch Stafford take the Rams to a Super Bowl..."

And now, we're just sixty minutes away from seeing just that after Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams stunned the Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-27 in Tampa Bay on Sunday afternoon.

The social media reaction to Stafford reaching his first-ever conference title game was as entertaining as you'd imagine. Especially for Lions fans who have had to watch one of the favorite sons have success elsewhere.

Just when everybody thought Tom Brady had stole another playoff moment from a franchise, Matthew Stafford connected with Cooper Kupp to set up a game-winning FG to send the Rams to the NFC title game.

STAFFORD, GOFF, AND THE LIONS: What NFL playoffs revealed about Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff and Detroit Lions' future

Ok Lions, fans...this one may be tough to swallow.

Contact Andrew Hammond at aahammond@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @ahammFreePress. Check out some of the tremendous offers from the Detroit Free Press and subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Former Lion Matthew Stafford leads Rams to title game over Brady, Bucs