We’ve been rooting (silently?) for the Cleveland Browns and the Detroit Lions for awhile now to reach the Super Bowl, as the two franchises remain the oldest ones never to have played in the NFL’s annual finale. The Lions had their best shot ever this season, finishing 15-2 with the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs, but alas, five turnovers later, Detroit lost a divisional round game of the postseason yesterday to Washington.

And this one is going to sting for a longer time than the Lions’ loss on the road in San Francisco last January in the NFC Championship Game, where they had a 24-7 lead and couldn’t hang on. This one hurts more because of the anticipation, the expectation, the seeming inevitability, and the probability. Yeah, we know Detroit had a lot of injuries to their team this year, but it still conquered almost everything to be set up for it.

Meanwhile, the 12-5 Commanders were on the road with a rookie quarterback and no bye week, coming off a down-to-the-wire, wild-card round win over the plucky Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They’d had the No. 2 pick in the draft last year; how could they turn it around so quickly and beat the Lions? Well, the answer is turnovers: Detroit outgained Washington by 40 yards, but the Commanders played near perfect football.

The Lions tossed four interceptions—three by starting QB Jared Goff, who had started the season so strong—and they lost a fumble as well (by Goff). Washington had a pick-six touchdown on one of those INTs, which also tilted the scales, thoroughly. Probable Rookie of the Year Jayden Daniels threw for 299 yards and ran for 51 more yards, helping his offense to an eight-minute advantage in time of possession. That’ll do it.

Winning the Super Bowl is a tough achievement, especially when just getting there is a challenge the Detroit franchise has never been able to overcome. Only twice have the Lions even reached the NFC title tilt, and once was in 1991 with the other being 2023. This year set up perfectly for Detroit to never have to leave home field behind on the way, the first time the Lions had ever earned the top playoff seed in the NFC.

That’s why it hurts so badly, for Goff to play so poorly, for the defense to finally crack after all the injuries, and for best SB opportunity ever to slip through their fingers. Detroit’s coaching staff and players did an amazing job to not let last year’s playoff gut punch impact their focus this year; in the end, the Lions just ran out of gas, perhaps. Will anything be different next year? Probably, as it’s hard to maintain year to year.

Look at the Kansas City Chiefs, though: with 10 straight seasons now of double-digit victories, the franchise has established amazing continuity under Head Coach Andy Reid, despite QB and personnel changes over the many seasons. Interestingly, Reid started thriving with a QB that the “mighty” Jim Harbaugh discarded in San Francisco, strangely. But we digress: the Lions could do the same thing under HC Dan Campbell now.

And why not? He has turned the franchise mentality around, and with a little luck, his team could stay at the top for many years ahead, too. Even the 49ers under nepo-baby HC Kyle Shanahan have done a decent job, despite injuries and incompetence, of remaining competitive on a semi-regular basis. We see Campbell as more of a Reid type, though, and Reid has the Chiefs in their seventh straight AFC Championship now.

That’s the standard for Detroit to emulate: the Kansas City franchise mentality and stability. Only time will tell if the Lions can do what the Chiefs have accomplished in the last decade. Reid certainly has had his share of gut punches in the postseason with Kansas City, too, before recovering every time to stand up and fight again. Detroit has the right coach in place; now it’s a matter of getting the right players, every season.

We also want to point out the Pittsburgh Steelers: across two HCs, the Steelers have posted 21 straight non-losing seasons, which includes Super Bowl victories in 2005 and 2008, plus a Super Bowl loss in 2010. The point is that this is not baseball where the sport is ruled by high-spending teams in huge TV markets; Detroit, Kansas City, and Pittsburgh are mid-level metropolitan areas with NFL fan bases to sustain it all.

The Lions will be back; bet on it. We would if we did that sort of thing with our money.