They say you should “act like you’ve been there before.” Well, this version of the Baltimore Ravens, and any edition of the Detroit Lions, hadn’t — so they acted as such. The Chiefs and the 49ers have, and it showed.
For the Lions and Ravens, and all of their fans, it’s going to hurt for a very long time. It’s supposed to when it means that much, but especially when you play such a big role in your own demise.
“I’m not frustrated at all,” Lamar Jackson said after the game. “I’m angry about losing. We are a game away from the Super Bowl. We’ve been waiting all this time, all these moments, for opportunity like this and we fell short. But I feel like our team, we are going to build this offseason, going to get right, get better, grind and try to be in this position again — but on the other side of victory.”
See, that’s the thing about Jackson and the Ravens under his watch — too much talking, not enough execution.
“Every day I think about the Super Bowl,” Jackson said in 2020. “It’s been on my mind since the first game of the season. When I got drafted, I told Baltimore that’s what I was gonna do. I wanna be like the (Tom) Brady of my era.”
Quotes like this come back to haunt you when you’re about to win your second MVP and still haven’t made it to a Super Bowl, and when you had your best chance to date, you lost to the guy who is already on his way to being the “Brady of your era.”
What we saw on Sunday in Baltimore wasn’t just a Kansas City team that was dead set on making it to the Usher concert, but a Ravens team that just flat-out choked. The offense that looked so unstoppable was pedestrian against the Chiefs’ underrated defense. Jackson threw an idiotic interception and lost a fumble. Wide receiver Zay Flowers made multiple stupid and emotional decisions, as he fumbled into the end zone, got a costly unsportsmanlike penalty for taunting (while losing), and cut his hand on the bench after slamming it in frustration.
A week ago, the Ravens were the No. 1 contender. On Sunday, they looked like frauds. But they weren’t the only ones.
One of the Detroit Lions’ claims to fame/infamy is that they were the first team to go 0-16 and are one of the few NFL franchises that have never made a Super Bowl. They were so close on Sunday as underdogs on the road, up big. And then, they blew it.
“We’re not going out like this,” San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan said about his team’s mentality at halftime. “Guys didn’t want today to be the last day. We put ourselves in a hole. They played like it in the second half and we were able to get the ball to bounce the right way, and we made up for what we did in the first half.”
Detroit tied the record for the largest blown lead in an NFC title game, as they gave up a 17-point lead. All 17 of those points were scored in an eight-minute span during the third quarter. The Lions got smacked in the mouth coming out of the locker room, and Dan Campbell’s decision to go for it on fourth down — twice — when he was in field goal range came back to bite him.
“It’s easy hindsight. I get it. I get that, but I don’t regret those decisions, and it’s hard,” said the Lions head coach, who has a history of being overly aggressive in these situations. “It’s hard because we didn’t come through, and it wasn’t able to work out, but I don’t. And I understand the scrutiny I’ll get — that’s part of the gig — but it just didn’t work out.”
If football was blackjack, Campbell is the kind of guy who could have two kings and still tell the dealer to “Hit me!” And at some point, we have to wonder if he’s trying to win games or prove a point. One answer seems more obvious than the other.
The NFL almost had a storybook ending on their hands, as the Lions and Chiefs opened the season, and were on track for a rematch in the finale — until the “same ole Lions” showed up in the second half. And now we’ll be forced to deal with even more Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce coverage because Baltimore and Detroit couldn’t get it done, as we’re now getting a replay of Super Bowl 54. At least the halftime show got upgraded.
