Dan Campbell said that nearly two years ago, right after the Detroit Lions blew a 17-point lead in the NFC championship game. At the time, I thought the coach was being bravely honest and emotionally raw.

I didn’t think he was being a prophet.

But the Lions’ Super Bowl chances have gone steadily downhill ever since. Last year, they crapped out in a divisional-round playoff upset. This year, with eight losses already, they’re missing the playoffs altogether.

Now, I can’t tell Campbell how to coach. I can’t tell Jared Goff how to elude pressure. I can’t teach an offensive lineman how to not miss his block, or show a defensive back how to play smarter coverage.

I can’t do that, and neither can you, because we are not professional players or coaches.

But we are fans. So I can offer the following three scenarios for how to deal with the latest Lions’ disappointment in the months to come — as a fan — depending on your type.

The Die-hard Fan

If you are this breed of fan, then you will point out the positives. The Lions have some terrific players under contract. Campbell is an exceptionally good coach. General manager Brad Holmes has had great drafts before. And neither man is likely to sit still this offseason.

Both Campbell and Holmes have been humbled by the 2025 campaign. The loss to Minnesota on Thursday, Dec. 25, was the low point. Campbell, who prides himself on having his teams ready, didn’t get that done. The Lions looked worse than a Vikings team with nothing to play for, a third-string quarterback and multiple absences on the offensive line.

Meanwhile, Holmes had to be cringing watching his second- and third-stringers perform like Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

The Die-hard Fan points to the Kansas City Chiefs, last year’s Super Bowl participants, who are now sitting with a 6-10 record. Does anyone believe they will never be back?

“Playoffs next year,” The Die-hard Fan says. “Bigger and better. On we go!”

His glass is always half-full.

Next, there’s …

The Realist Fan

This fan wants to believe, but also understands a few truths about NFL football: A.) Windows open and close. B.) Other teams also want to win.

The latter is the kind of thing that got forgotten in 2025, particularly in the November game against Minnesota, the Thanksgiving game against Green Bay and the Week 16 home game against Pittsburgh. The narratives going into those contests — the Vikings were bad and starting a raw quarterback; the Lions wanted revenge against the Pack; the Lions faced a must-win against a Steelers team with a bad defense — all favored Detroit.

But too often in Motown, we act like the Lions are the only determinant in the game — that all they have to do is want it enough to win.

“Hey,” The Realist says, “the other team wants it, too. Their players want to look good. They have guys who play hard. Unless you come in every week fully charged, healthy and in domination mode, you will always have a battle in the NFL. And a handful of plays will determine the outcome.”

The Realist admires what Holmes did in 2022 (picking Aidan Hutchinson, trading up to get Jameson Williams) and 2023 (drafting LaPorta, Jahmyr Gibbs, Jack Campbell and Brian Branch) but he also sees that 2024 and 2025 haven’t come close to producing such talent, and Holmes’ inactivity at trade deadlines and free agency reveals a too-stubborn valuing of draft picks over desperately needed fixes.

The Realist looks at the NFC North and sees Chicago on the rise, Green Bay not going anywhere, and a Minnesota team that often gives the Lions fits. The Realist can’t ignore the Lions are last in their division.

But The Realist still watches with hope. He doesn’t deny the Lions’ successes. He doesn’t think the 2023 postseason was a myth. He doesn’t think the 15-2 regular season last year was a mirage. He doesn’t believe in curses.

Those traits belong to …

The ‘Same Old Lions’ Fan

This type, “SOL” for short, believes all of this is predestined. It’s the Curse of Bobby Layne. It’s the curse of the Ford family ownership. It’s in the water. It’s in the air. It doesn’t matter how many promising players or stunning wins the Lions deliver. It will always end badly.

The SOL Fan doesn’t see silver or Honolulu Blue. He only sees gray. He thinks Holmes had a lucky draft in 2023 and has bungled everything since. He already wants Campbell fired. He sees Goff as a one-dimensional quarterback who can’t do anything once he’s chased from the pocket. He says Hutchinson is overrated and now overpaid. He says the Lions’ training staff should all be fired, because all they produce is a M*A*S*H* unit, year after year.

The SOL Fan watches the present but only sees the past. He sees Aaron Rodgers killing the Lions’ chances as a Packer and then again as a Steeler. He sees the 2023 Lions reach the NFC championship game and wither just like the 1991 Lions did, not to return for three decades.

The SOL Fan predicts doom, expects doom, and often gets it. Right now, nothing about the 2025 season surprises him, other than the fact that anyone expected otherwise.

“This is who the Lions are,” The SOL Fan moans. “Expect heartbreak. Get heartbreak. They never disappoint.”

So which are you? Die-hard? Realist? SOL? Or something in between?

Wherever you land, just know that fans in 16 other cities are going through the same thing right now, some in shock (Kansas City, Cincinnati, Washington), some in mild surprise (Tampa Bay, Dallas), some because they absolutely expect it (Cleveland, the Jets).

Losing, as Goff said, “sucks.”

That’s the only thing that every type of fan can agree on.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.

Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a fourth-down pass within spitting distance of the goal line. But he got sandwiched by two Pittsburgh Steelers defenders, and, realizing he was about to go down as the clock expired, scooped the ball to his quarterback Jared Goff, who dove into the end zone for an apparent game-winning touchdown.

The crowd exploded! That play had heart! It had guts! It had magical destiny written all over it!

It also had a penalty: Offensive pass interference on St. Brown.

Which meant the touchdown never happened, and the win never happened – just as the 2025 season Detroit Lions fans were expecting never happened.

Wake up and smell the standings. The Lions are 8-7. They are all but done.

Blue Christmas.

“We had an opportunity to win the game which is ultimately what you want,” said a clearly disappointed coach Dan Campbell after the 29-24 loss to Pittsburgh that all but killed the Lions’ playoff hopes. “But … we’re the ones who put ourselves in the position where we had to try and score on the last play. …

“It was just too little, too late.”

Let’s be blunt.

It’s been too little for too long.

A Lions season waiting to crumble

Look, sooner or later, a house of sticks is going to crumble. For weeks, the Lions have been trying to fortify their playoff hopes with second-stringers, third-stringers and new arrivals. They’ve altered the offense to cover holes for countless injured linemen and tight ends.  They’ve altered the defense to cover weak spots left by the injured Kerby Joseph, Brian Branch and Terrion Arnold. Every time they lost to a top team, the Lions tinkered, tweaked and rallied to beat the next opponent.

But you can only move pieces around so much before talent diminishes and confusion reigns. On Sunday, Dec. 21, in a game they absolutely had to win, the Lions were laying their biggest egg of the season, including a third quarter that saw them run a total of three offensive plays, the last of which was a sack of Goff in the end zone for a safety. Then, finally, well into the fourth quarter, they scrambled back as only they can do.

Down by 12, they drove 68 yards to cut the lead to five on a touchdown pass from Goff to Jahmyr Gibbs, then saw the Steelers miss a field goal to send the Ford Field crowd into a frenzy. They’re still alive! There’s still a chance! Detroit used the rest of the clock to drive 72 yards to get into position for those fateful closing moments.

“What did you make of that last play?” someone asked Campbell. “The penalty? The apparent touchdown?”

“I don’t even want to get into it,” he said, his face reddening, “because it’s not going to change anything. We still lost.”

Exactly. While fans will long remember those crazy final seconds, and the agonizing sight of Aaron Rodgers once again celebrating a bizarre victory at Ford Field, it was everything that came before that play that lost the day.

It was a vanishing rushing game that only produced 15 yards all afternoon, despite facing one of the weaker defenses in the league, and despite having two healthy running backs – Gibbs and David Montgomery – at their disposal.

It was a porous defense that allowed Pittsburgh to score slowly and score quickly – a nearly 10-minute drive for a field goal followed by two two-minute drives for touchdowns, both capped with 45-yard scores by running back Jaylen Warren, explosive dashes that made Detroit’s run defense look second-rate.

Every key third down, it seemed, was converted by Pittsburgh. The Lions defenders, especially their backfield, were often out of sync, out of position, and out of gas.

It was 481 yards allowed. It was 200 yards rushing and two critical fourth downs surrendered. It was no interceptions and only two sacks on the 42-year-old Rodgers, who outsmarted the coverage time and time again, including spotting a linebacker, Alex Anzalone, on a running back, Kenneth Gainwell, with moments left in the first half. Rodgers threw a bomb that Gainwell, despite having been knocked down by Anzalone, somehow caught on his chest.

Gainwell popped to his feet, untouched, and ran in for a tying touchdown with 2 seconds left before halftime.

“Rodgers” Campbell admitted, “is really good at messing with you.”

It was all that – and it was mistakes. Fans might already be forgetting that, before that wild last play, the Lions had the ball down to the 1 with 25 seconds left, before having a St. Brown touchdown nullified by offensive pass interference on Isaac TeSlaa (go back 10 yards) followed by a false-start penalty on Kingsley Eguakun, who was making the first start of his career at center (back another 5 yards.)

So instead of the potential game-winning play from 1 yard away, they had 16 yards to go.

These are all avoidable setbacks, and all part of the reason the Lions lost this game long before that final, desperate spectacle.

“It’s frustrating,” Campbell said, “I mean, look, we just lost two in a row.”

That hasn’t happened in three years.

Blue Christmas.

Biting into a poison apple

In the subdued aftermath of the loss, Goff faced the media and was asked what it felt like to be on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

“We haven’t had that feeling (in a while.) It’s creeping in on us now. We got to find a way. I think it goes back to what Dan’s message was. Are we who we say we are?”

That’s an important sentence. Are we who we say we are? Because this year, the Lions – and, let’s be fair, their fans and most of the media – acted like the team was destined for the playoffs and likely much more. There was talk of a Super Bowl. There was talk of a winning culture finally taking hold, and the Lions becoming a franchise that would not be denied excellence.

But what we think and what the Lions have done has not aligned, for many reasons. Detroit is now just one game over. 500. It’s even possible they finish with a losing record. With the exception of a Week 2 blowout of the Bears, they haven’t yet beaten a team that’s for sure going to the playoffs. They haven’t strung two wins together since early October.

Blame injuries. Blame coaching changes. Blame karma. If you watched Chicago beat Green Bay on Saturday night, you could feel the difference between the franchises this year. The Bears, helmed by Detroit’s former offensive coordinator Ben Johnson, seem kissed by destiny. The Lions seem to have bitten a poison apple.

Yes, we should acknowledge there is still a small chance of a postseason birth, if Detroit wins out and Green Bay loses twice. But believing that will happen is part of the magical thinking that has blinded us to the fact that this team is now down to the studs on defense, doesn’t pressure the quarterback enough, cannot protect or run block the way it used to and keeps games close while losing as often as it wins.

That’s no fun to hear.

The truth often isn’t.

“We’re big boys in this league, man,” Campbell said. “You pull your pants up and you go to work. And you can’t feel sorry for yourself. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting. … But we have nobody to blame but ourselves.”

Honest. Admirable. And about as much fun to swallow as rotten eggnog. As the December snow hardens, this is the first time in three years we can say this: The Lions are on a losing streak.

Thanks a lot, Santa.

Blue Christmas.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.

If you haven’t learned that by now in the new world of college football, learn it today. Schools aren’t above bad behavior. Players aren’t above bad behavior. Coaches aren’t above bad behavior.

The only surprise left is that anyone is surprised at anything, anymore.

The sudden firing on Wednesday, Dec. 10, of Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore — who less than two years ago was being celebrated as the right man at the right time — only proves that what you see and what you get can be two different things in college sports today.

Moore was characterized as a strong-willed, disciplined young leader, who in his introductory press conference said, “I coach hard, but I love harder.”

That once admirable statement will now become a punchline, after Moore was dismissed by U-M for an “inappropriate relationship with a staff member.”

“This conduct constitutes a clear violation of University policy,” athletic director Warde Manuel said in a statement, “and U-M maintains zero tolerance for such behavior.”

With that, the coach who took over in 2024, after Jim Harbaugh shocked fans by jumping to the NFL, departs with a shock of his own.

Or maybe it’s just a shock to folks who still believed that being the leader of a major college team implied responsibility, decorum, self-discipline and role-model behavior.

Silly us.

No one is above anything.

Don’t brag, gloat or judge yet

Now, it must be said that, as of this writing, no one has heard Moore’s side of the story. He was detained by Saline police, and turned over to Pittsfield Township police on Wednesday. Hours after the initial call, Moore was booked in the Washtenaw County Jail.

That looks really bad. You start the day as Michigan football coach and end it in a cell? But Moore’s side will eventually be forthcoming. And I’m guessing it won’t match Michigan’s.

Who you ultimately believe will depend on what you hear. But we all should wait until both sides have clearly stated their cases.

In the interim, the lesson here is simple: Don’t brag and don’t gloat. Because your school could be next.

Let’s be honest: There’s plenty of hidden smirking between our state’s two big universities whenever one or the other gets egg on its face.

Spartan fans clucked when Michigan basketball had its Ed Martin scandals. Wolverine fans rolled their eyes when Mel Tucker sunk in inglorious fashion.

No doubt some Michigan State fans are enjoying this ignoble end to Moore’s tenure. They will point out that Michigan haughtily paints itself as a university above such behavior.

Nonsense. There are no universities above any behavior.

Are MSU fans so quickly forgetting the brutal Larry Nassar saga? Or how Tucker was fired for harassing anti-sexual violence advocate Brenda Tracy?

Are Michigan fans forgetting the Connor Stalions sign-stealing scandal that resulted in nearly $30 million in NCAA fines and show-cause penalties for much of the coaching staff that departed after 2023’s CFP title? Or the lawsuit over sexual abuse by former team doctor Robert Anderson, which resulted in a $490 million settlement?

No one is above anything. No school. No team. No player.

Not anymore.

No surprises anymore

If Moore did what the school announced he was fired for, he would only join a long list of coaches — including, but not limited to Bobby Petrino at Arkansas, Rick Pitino at Louisville, Hugh Freeze at Ole Miss and even Rich Rodriguez (who used to have Moore’s job at U-M) at Arizona — all of whom were accused of sexual misconduct on the job.

Meanwhile, schools such as LSU think nothing of wooing a coach such as Lane Kiffin away from his team before the College Football Playoff field has been announced, and coaches such as Kiffin think nothing of taking the money and bolting, while claiming that God told him, “It’s time to take a new step.”

Let’s leave God out of college football, shall we?

It’s clearly the low country for men, with mostly good behavior but too often bad. It’s a tapestry of the Jerry Sandusky abuse at Penn State, a hazing scandal at Northwestern and accusations of players betting on their own action at Iowa and Iowa State. Heck, just last month, MSU had 14 wins in 2023 and 2024 — under three coaches (though only through the actions of one, Tucker) — vacated for recruiting violations.

Michigan, with Moore sitting in a jail cell Wednesday evening, just scribbled its name back on the list.

This is the sport now. Or should I say the business? So cynical has college football become that people are already whispering that perhaps this was a good thing for Michigan after Moore’s eight losses in two seasons.

Others are murmuring that it’s open season on Michigan’s stars — such as freshman quarterback Bryce Underwood — to be wooed away by other schools and their NIL money.

Lost in all of this is that the first Black head coach in Michigan football history has just gone down in flames, and his wife and three daughters will now be subject to the worst kind of public attention.

That may be his fault. Or maybe not. We still do not know.

What we do know is that none of this should surprise you.

No one is above anything.

The sooner we accept that, the sooner we’ll stop feeling like we just got hit in the face with a maize-and-blue shovel.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

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Here were the Detroit Lions, their fans praying hard, in a game that they had to have, on a series that they had to control. They were clinging to a one-touchdown lead over Dallas with less than three minutes to go. Conventional wisdom says, “Run the ball. Take seconds off the clock. Force the opponent to use a timeout.”

Instead, Jared Goff dropped back on second down and saw his favorite target streaking across the middle: Amon-Ra St. Brown – aka “Saint” – who, as the whole city seemed to know, was a game-time decision with an ankle injury. Don’t ask me which ankle. They were both working fine on that play.

St. Brown grabbed Goff’s perfect pass in full stride and took off running. Thirty-seven yards later, he went down, his feet inbounds and the game suddenly, blissfully, in hand. And for those who before this contest had their shovels ready and a pile of dirt stacked high, the Lions had a message:

Not dead yet.

“St. Brown is what we are,” coach Dan Campbell declared after the Lions outlasted the Cowboys and captured their biggest game of the year so far, 44-30, on Thursday, Dec. 4. “He’s what we are. That guy … Where he goes, we go.”

Where they went was smack back into the playoff picture with an 8-5 record. Had the Lions lost this game, according to the stat geeks, their chances of making the postseason would have been 19%. Instead, they are 55%. That’s the difference between a pile of chips on the blackjack table versus one last chip rolling between your fingers.

And while St. Brown was hardly the only contributor to this outcome, he was the most symbolic. His exit from the Thanksgiving loss to Green Bay ruined many fans’ appetites. The prediction was that he would miss “1-2 weeks.”

Instead, St, Brown came running through the tunnel Thursday night to the loudest ovation of anyone at Ford Field. And the first offensive play of the game was a pass to him cutting across the middle for 7 yards. The crowd roared again.

“Did you think you’d be able to do as much as you did?” someone asked St Brown after he racked up six catches for 92 yards, a terrific days for a healthy receiver.

“Nah,” he said. “I hurt it on Thursday. Friday, I couldn’t walk. I was on crutches. Saturday, I could barely walk. At that point I was like, yeah, I probably can’t play, it hurts too bad.

“Then Sunday came around and I was able to walk, felt a little better. … Then, I think Tuesday came, it felt a lot better.

“Wednesday, I was like, OK, I think I can play.”

Hmm. Maybe we should call him the patron Saint of miraculous recoveries.

Not dead yet.

Problems? What problems?

Now, here is a truism of all big-time sports: Before you can overcome an opponent, you must overcome yourself.

The Lions had a mountain of internal problems going into this game: crippling injuries; inexperienced players; a recent lack of poor execution – no turnovers, bad line play, a quarterback who wasn’t getting enough time – and a dangerous tally of five losses, including their most recent defeat by the Packers a week ago.

Forget how good Dallas had been playing. If Detroit didn’t get out of its own way, this game seemed already decided.

But the franchise that, under Campbell, still hasn’t lost back-to-back games in more than three years, came out Thursday with eraser in hand, ready to wipe away every black mark on the board.

No pass rush? Here was a new, sudden, freight train attack, with linebacker Jack Campbell finishing a bullrush on Dak Prescott to sack him on the lip of the end zone, and Al-Quadin Muhammad chalking up three more sacks on Prescott, including one on Dallas’ next-to-last play.

Bad offensive line play? Here was one total sack allowed on Goff, and David Montgomery following beautiful blocks by Penei Sewell and squirting ahead on a 35-yard scamper to the end zone and Jahmyr Gibbs hitting paydirt when it counted, three touchdown runs (of 1, 10 and 13 yards).

Lagging special teams? Here was Tom Kennedy, subbing for Kalif Raymond, exploding on kickoff returns with the trajectory of a cannonball fired chest-high, averaging 40 yards per return.

Quarterback doubts? Here was Goff (“We told him we were going to put this on him” Campbell said) responding with a steady, intelligent, engineer-like performance, dropping long passes to Jameson Williams and short sharp ones to Gibbs, finishing with 309 yards on 25-for-34 passing with no interceptions.

“It felt like we kind of got back to who we are,” Goff said afterwards. “… I think you could see an uptick in urgency from everybody.”

Not dead yet.

‘He refuses to fail’

Still, for all these contributors, the key stitch in Thursday’s tapestry was St. Brown returning and playing so well. He is broadly admired for his discipline, work ethic, physical strength beyond his size and ferocity in getting everything right. In a year when the Lions seem to lose key players every week – and even a guy they pulled out of retirement, Frank Ragnow, failed his physical – St. Brown not missing a single game after that serious ankle injury felt like divine intervention.

Then again, he is a Saint.

“His toughness and his will power, his desire to compete, to help those guys around him, to do whatever it takes to win, is second to none,” Campbell gushed. “He is rare, man. His mentality. His mindset is just, he refuses to fail. …Nothing is going to dictate where he goes, what he does. … He will dictate to himself what he’s going to do…”

“His teammates feed off of that.”

Good players perform well in big games. Great players inspire others to play better as well. St. Brown inspired that in Thursday’s win.

Now, don’t misunderstand. This was hardly a perfect game. Too many penalties, too many blown coverages, too much sloppy execution – and yes, the Lions benefitted by the third-quarter exit of CeeDee Lamb, the star receiver who’d been chewing up Detroit’s D.J. Reed all night (six catches, 121 yards) until he was ruled out with a concussion.

But for every hurdle the Lions put in front of themselves, a leap followed.  They went from one takeaway in their previous three games, to three takeaways against Dallas. They went from allowing eight sacks in their previous three games, to allowing just one Thursday.

“They don’t get panicked,” Campbell said of his troops. “They don’t make something out of it that it’s not. Don’t make more of it than it needs to be. There’s a reason why you’re not able to win the game and here’s what it is and oh, by the way, is it correctable? Yes, it’s correctable. …

“I think where you get in trouble is if you start panicking and you … start doing more than you need to do. Just do your job and do it the best you can do it.”

Maybe it is that simple. But know this: Given their injuries, their personnel, and their schedule the rest of the way, if the Lions do reach the end of their yellow brick road, it’s going to be like Thursday. Not dominance. Not blowouts. They’ll have to climb, slip, grab on, climb some more.

It’s not easy. But desire will carry you places mere flesh will not. The Lions knows this. They are living it.

Not dead yet. Don’t count them out. After all, 55% is a pretty decent chance. And it’s never wise to bet against a Saint.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

Because his latest deposit just saved the Lions season.

On the first play of overtime in a game the Lions had trailed in from the opening minutes until the final seconds, Gibbs took a handoff, made one tight cut and bolted for the end zone. Penei Sewell threw his hands in the air, making the touchdown sign – even before Gibbs was halfway through his 69-yard dash to glory. He knew. You don’t catch lightning. 

“(Gibbs) bailed us out today in a big way,” coach Dan Campbell admitted, sounding relieved after the Lions escaped with a 34-27 overtime victory over the lowly New York Giants on Sunday to keep their playoff hopes realistic. Gibbs had the most runs, the most catches and the most touchdowns (three) of anyone on Detroit’s offense, and accounted for 264 yards from scrimmage. His overtime touchdown will go down in Lions lore as the most enjoyable explosion since fireworks.

But just as with fireworks, when the smoke clears, you still have the same sky. And the Lions’ sky is currently rather cloudy.

“Good win,” Campbell said, as if assuring himself. “It’s good win. It’s not perfect, but we’ll take it.”

Well, sure. You always take a W. Especially one in which you were outdone by your opponent in yards, first downs, third-down efficiency, penalties and sacks. 

But the question gnaws: Why was it so hard to take? Why did Detroit come so close to losing a game it, frankly, never should have lost?

Why, if not for Jake Bates’ 59-yard field goal toward the end of regulation, and Gibbs’ theatrics early, midway and late in the game, might they have been looking at a mountain to climb just to get to the postseason?

It’s always good to have a miracle man.

It’s never good to rely on miracles.

Another embarrassing Lions moment?

“I wasn’t really thinking about carrying the team,” Gibbs said after Sunday’s game, when someone suggested he had. “I just do whatever it takes to win, whatever they call me for.

“It was a must-win. I think the next six or seven more games are must-wins, so we’ve got to keep going.”  He’s right about the must-win part. Detroit knew it. The fans knew it.

But when the scoreboard lit up with “LIONS WIN!” and people in Honolulu Blue jerseys began dancing to the familiar victory song, you couldn’t help but contrast what a sea change this was from less than an hour earlier: fourth quarter, the boos raining down, fans shaking their heads.

In that moment, Ford Field seemed to forget about all the recent success, the Dan Campbell turnaround, the shift in culture, the dreams of a Super Bowl. In that moment, it felt like just another embarrassing moment in Detroit Lions football. 

The Giants, with a backup quarterback, an interim head coach and two wins in 11 games, had just duped Detroit’s defense again, with a pitch to a wide receiver named Gunner Olszewski, who escaped the defense, stepped up and threw to – are you kidding me? – Jameis Winston, the 31-year-old quarterback who had no business catching a pass and even less business eluding the grasp of Derrick Barnes and spinning into the end zone.

But he did both things, which gave the Giants a 10-point fourth quarter lead.

And the boos came thundering down.

“Look, there’s things we can clean up,” Campbell said, offering a positive spin. “I know that. But there was a number of things that we got thrown our way [Sunday] that we adjusted to, we got hit on, they’re not always going to all be that way.”

They were Sunday. You know how, when you have a lingering cold, you say “I just don’t feel like myself”? That was the Lions during regulation against the Giants. You watched them and you wanted to invoke Butch Cassidy: “Who are these guys?”

They were dropping footballs. They gave up critical third downs. They drew penalties at the worst times. They played from behind. They gave up nearly 500 yards of offense to a team that is already just playing out the string.

If not for a foolish decision by interim coach Mike Kafka, who eschewed an easy field goal and a potential six-point lead to try for a nail-in-the-coffin touchdown in the closing minutes of regulation, the Lions likely would be talking about defeat.

Instead, they slugged their way to the Giants’ 41, and with 33 seconds to go, Bates hit that career-long 59-yarder to tie the game.

“I just want to be somebody that this team can count on,” the typically modest Bates said.

Nice. 

And then, to paraphrase the Coasters, along came Gibbs.

The most important Lion

Let’s just say this right now. At 23, Gibbs is the most important Lion on the field. He is capable, with a handoff or a pass, of turning any play on its side and scoring. Multiple times this season, he has yanked the Lions offense out of a torpor with some eye-blinking feat.

“That dude is as good as they come in our league,” quarterback Jared Goff said, after throwing 11 completions to Gibbs in addition to all those runs.  “He’s making his claim across our league as one of the best players, regardless of position, and we are lucky to have him, man. He’s so electric.”

Gibbs’ first touchdown, in the second quarter, was a catch-and-run where he stretched the ball into the end zone while flying out of bounds, was a thing of kinetic beauty. His second touchdown, early in the fourth quarter, was a 49-yard burst that broke two tackles en route to a slow step into the end zone.

His final TD, well, that was his coup de grace, and nothing less than season-changing. He burst straight ahead through the line, made one tightly-muscled cut, and was off to the end zone.

“I was just running,” he said.

Yeah. And Picasso was just painting.

Goff knows better. He know Gibbs is a game-changer.

“You can tell the fear in the defense when the ball gets in his hands,” he said.

And even when the play is designed to go elsewhere, defenses must keep always an eye on Gibbs, which energizes the play-action that Goff loves to use so effectively.  Quite frankly, without Gibbs’ threat, the Lions are a different team.

But he’s there, and for now, he pulled the Lions form the fire and kept them in the hunt, a 7-4 record and still on the heels of the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North.

A win is a win – for now

But no matter what the final score, Sunday was not a performance, in totality, for the Lions be proud of. The Giants didn’t just dent Detroit’s defense, they gashed it open and bled it out. They had 10 plays of over 20 yards. Ten plays? In regulation, the Lions surrendered 517 yards of offense, including that trick-play touchdown to Winston, who had never caught a pass in his 11-year career. 

Those were embarrassments. The Lions couldn’t stop a third-and-17. They were just 50% on stopping third downs at all. They had nine penalties. Some Giants receivers were so wide open, they could have held a square dance.

Meanwhile, Detroit’s offense, until the very end, still looked like a shadow of itself. Amon-Ra St. Brown, although hugely effective at later moments, still had some drops that are not like him. Goff was better than last Sunday, but still looks uncomfortable when pressured. And the offensive line was hit-and-miss, opening some great plays for Gibbs but allowing some awful sacks of Goff when they could least afford it.

Who are these guys? The old, find-a-way-to-win Lions, or the new, suddenly struggling ones?

These are fair questions to ask. If the 2-9 Giants were this effective against the Lions’ secondary and pass rush, what makes anyone think that the Bears, Packers or Los Angeles Rams won’t fare just as well – or better? It feels good that they won, and everybody roared when Aidan Hutchinson extinguished the Giants’ last hope with a fourth-down sack, Detroit’s first sack of the day.

But forget stats. Use your eyes. Do you see the defense that played on Sunday stopping any elite team in the playoffs?

For now, a win is a win. And for now, a savior is a savior. Detroit may have caught a cold, but nobody is catching Gibbs.

And the Lions, who can’t afford to rely on miracles, can still be grateful for a miracle man. This would be quite a different season without him.

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

When he’s calling the plays. 

“I just wanted to change it up a little bit,” Campbell told the media, after surprising fans and reporters alike in calling the offensive shots during a mammoth 44-22 Detroit Lionswin over Washington on Sunday, Nov. 9. “Let’s just see if maybe a different play caller can get us a little rhythm, that’s all. It’s honestly nothing more than that.” 

Spoken like a humble captain. But if a ship starts rocking, the captain is who you look for. And the Lions were listing last week, heading into the schedule’s toughest stretch and coming off their most disappointing loss of the year, an offensive splat at home against the Vikings in which “play-calling imagination” seemed to equal “bad screen pass.” 

So suddenly, there was Campbell on Sunday, with the reading peepers and a huge playboard in front of him, chattering into the headset like a NASA technician. 

The result: 44 points, 546 yards of offense, no punts, not a single sack allowed, and a quarterback field day. 

Trust your passes to guys who wear glasses. 

“I thought he did a great job,” said Jared Goff, who had a stellar afternoon with Campbell calling the shots, hitting 25 of his 33 passes for 320 yards and two touchdowns. “It’s knowing when to go and when to pull, and push and pull and push and pull. It’s one of his best strengths as a leader — not to cross leadership and play calling.” 

Ah, but that’s exactly what happened Sunday. Dan Campbell the leader became Dan Campbell the play-caller because he had a sense his team needed it. Taking the reins away from offensive coordinator John Morton wasn’t about power. It wasn’t about control.  

It was about winning.  

As Campbell quipped in a post-game radio interview with 97.1, the Ticket: “I just wanted to … see if we could push a little oxygen into the O.” 

The O just floated over a skyscraper.  

Campbell picked right opponent 

Now, let’s be honest. If you’re going to dive back into play-calling, it helps to do it against one of the worst defensive teams in the league. Washington ranked in the bottom three or four of the most important defensive categories. And they lost players early in Sunday’s game to both injury and temper tantrums. 

The results were Lions receivers with huge cushions or with single linebackers trying to cover them, and Jameson Williams racing in a TD pass so unencumbered, he had time to do a forward flip into the end zone and not hit anything but his rump. 

The Lions O-line created rushing holes the size of a Buick. David Montgomery piled up 71 yards on the ground and Jahmyr Gibbs doubled that, with 142 yards and two touchdowns, including a 44-yard burst where he was barely touched.  

Even Goff admitted the Commanders were ripe: “The way that they play on defense gives you a chance to get the running back in advantageous matchups.” 

That’s how Berkeley grads say it.  

Others say: “They can’t stop a Hot Wheels car.” 

Either way, this win was just what the Lions needed, a reset of their offensive excellence, and another victory after a rare defeat, something they have consistently provided under Campbell. The Lions have now gone more than three years without losing back-to-back games, the longest such streak in NFL history. 

That says something about Campbell’s feel for the players. And he wasn’t about to risk that record in a road game against the team that knocked the Lions out of the playoffs last year. He could tell the offense under Morton was getting predictable. And let’s face it, with so many weapons – I mean, consider Goff, Gibbs, Montgomery, Williams, Amon-Ra. St. Brown, Sam LaPorta, it’s almost like an All-Pro team at every key position — you shouldn’t be dull, repetitive, or, in most cases, even beatable. Getting the offensive line to buy in with an inspired performance is a huge part as well. 

So, Campbell took over. And note it was done with no fanfare, no big announcement, nothing that might embarrass Morton or make him look like a culprit. 

“You gotta give Johnny a ton of credit for handling it the way he handled it,” Goff told the media. “As a veteran coach and a guy who’s shown to have no ego over and over, to have that happen and for him to not miss a beat in game planning, and helping me in the pass game, the whole thing was really cool and impressive by him. It all worked really well.” 

What about Philadelphia Eagles? 

Of course, success breeds expectations, and it will be tough for Campbell to take off the glasses anytime soon. The Lions play the NFC East-leading Eagles in Philly on Sunday night. You don’t really think they’re going back to Morton calling plays for that one, do you? 

“I told (John) I need ya, I need ya,” Campbell said. “And listen, John Morton is all team, man. He’s a grinder. He’s a worker.” 

But he’s not the head coach. And I admire Campbell for what he did, because leaders recognize that their job is not the same as everyone else’s. They can’t just react. They have to anticipate. Campbell was looking at his team and seeing what many others were seeing: something less than the sum of their parts. 

“When you’re a head coach and you know how you want it to look,” he said, “it’s one thing to say how you want it to look, but … it’s hard to crawl into my head … 

“I have a good feel for our players. I know what they’re capable of.” 

On Sunday, they showed it. Next Sunday will be tougher against an Eagles team that has already beaten the Rams, the Chiefs and the Buccaneers this year. And there’s still the question of the defense and its secondary injuries.  

But one safe bet is that playboard will be in front of Campbell next game, and those reading glasses will be perched on his nose. 

“I can’t see anymore,” he grumbled. 

Well, in case he missed what took place offensively under his direction, let us sum it the way they say it in the eyewear world: 

It was a spectacle. 

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

The smile was new. 

“I’m a Michigan Man, through and through,” he said of his throwback clothing. “I love this state.” 

Could have fooled us. It’s been a while since a former Michigan quarterback returned to rub the Detroit Lions’ faces in defeat. Elvis Grbac did it decades ago. Tom Brady used to do it regularly, but his last visit was in 2020, when he was steering the Buccaneers to a Super Bowl. 

On Sunday, Brady was in the broadcast booth at Ford Field as McCarthy, his latest Wolverines successor, made his Detroit pro debut. He’d only played in two NFL games before this one, having missed all last year because of an injury, and the last five games with a high ankle sprain.  

But if folks around here somehow thought that meant the Lions would have an easy time, you don’t know J.J. McCarthy. 

The kid who once stood against a kitchen wall in his home in La Grange Park, Illinois, just hoping he’d be tall enough to be an NFL quarterback, came out like a giant Sunday, with pinpoint passing and fearless mechanics. Showing the same moxie he’d displayed in a maize and blue uniform, he shredded the Lions defense for touchdown passes on his first two drives. He stood tall against the Detroit pass rush, often beat it, drew penalties on it, and, when it got to him, bounced back up and returned to business.  

In the third quarter, he scrambled away from the Detroit defense and ran 9 yards for a touchdown himself. 

Mind you, this was his third real game as a pro. 

His third game? 

“I felt like I went out there 100% today,” he explained, after accounting for all three touchdowns in the Vikings’ 27-24 upset victory, a game in which the Lions had been favored by 8½ points. “I was back to where I left off.” 

Where was this McCarthy?

Actually, he was much better. The first two games of his career saw three interceptions against two TDs. On Sunday, he played like it was his 30^th game, not his third. 

Had he been doing this in Ann Arbor, locals would have relished it. Doing it in Detroit is a different story. It felt weird. Like he should know better than to hurt our feelings. 

But the NFL is not college, and this year is not last year for the Lions, who despite a desperate rally in the closing minutes, went down to defeat Sunday because they could not overcome their own mistakes and Minnesota’s doggedness. And they couldn’t overcome McCarthy when they needed to.  

On third-and-5, with 1:41 left in the game, McCarthy dropped back and threw a perfect pass to the back shoulder of Jalen Nailor, who pulled it in for a first down gained (Vikings) and a last chance snuffed (Lions.)  

Moments later, the kid who led Michigan to a national championship took a knee, the clock ran out, and the Lions had their third loss of the year against five wins. 

Welcome back, J.J.  

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.  

Not the same Lions 

What a house of horrors this was for the Lions. Double-digit penalties. A David Montgomery fumble. A blocked field goal. No running game. Jared Goff sacked five times.  

I thought Halloween was last Friday. This game was all trick, no treat. 

“It’s been a long time,” Goff said after the defeat, “since we had this feeling of playing kind of poorly in all three phases.” 

The way Sunday went, if there was a fourth phase, they would have lost that, too. 

The truth is, after a week off, the Lions came back barely recognizable. It was like meeting up with someone who just returned from Brazil with a ton of plastic surgery. Hey, Lions. Did you…lose weight? 

Suddenly, Detroit couldn’t run the ball – against a team that is really lousy against the run. Last week the Vikes gave up 207 rushing yards to the Chargers. Detroit had 65 yards Sunday.  

Sixty-five yards? With Jahmyr Gibbs and Montgomery healthy? That’s insane. The Lions had 25 yards rushing at halftime; Gibbs often gets that on a single play. 

Meanwhile, Detroit was drawing penalties the way Walt Disney drew cartoons: 10 flags for 76 yards. Their offensive line, which had been gelling, couldn’t stop the Vikings pass rush and got leveled by injuries as the game went on. 

Goff, under pressure all day, had numerous misthrows. There was no rhythm to the Lions offense after the first TD drive, and their awful third-down efficiency (5-for-17) was exceeded only by the fact that they had 17 third downs in the first place. That means a lot of failed first and second downs. 

As for the defense? It was herky-jerky at best, when it wasn’t discombobulated. It earned some sacks but got way too many penalties that resulted in first downs. It was one of those games that the stat sheet lies about. Goff, for example, actually threw for 284 yards, compared to McCarthy’s 143. But there was no question whose yards did the most damage. 

Overall, it was a laid egg. What made it worse, is that this was a home game, and one that most experts had already chalked up in the win column when assessing the Lions season. 

Which is why they play the games, and don’t just predict them. 

Dan Campbell takes the blame 

“We did everything we needed to do to lose that game,” a clearly disappointed Dan Campbell said afterwards. “We made every critical error. When you don’t play well in all three phases, it falls on the coach. … I didn’t have them ready coming out of the bye. … (We were) out of sync. We never looked comfortable. We just didn’t make enough plays.” 

Well. That about covers it. 

Maybe this was karma. The Lions had defeated the Vikings the last five times they’d played. Minnesota was coming off an embarrassing blowout to the Chargers. The Lions were coming off a vacation. As Campbell said, that can be a challenge. 

Or maybe the Vikings, with McCarthy in charge, need to be reassessed as an opponent and perhaps worthy candidate for the NFC North crown. 

“I just couldn’t sleep (these last few weeks),” McCarthy said of waiting to return to action. “It felt like I was catching this glare from this silver platter, with a juicy opportunity right on top of it.” 

OK., that’s a tad poetic, even for a Michigan grad. 

But a Vikings rise, at 4-4, would not be great news for Lions fans. It means every team in the division is a threat for the title. As it is, the Lions, now halfway through the season, trail the Packers by half a game, are tied with the Bears, and are just one game ahead of Minnesota – and last place. 

“It’s probably one of the worst games we’ve played in a long time. …” Campbell said. “It’s like a slap in the face. You don’t want it to happen. (But) you’re forced to stand there and stare at it.” 

Yep. Like staring at a kid you used to cheer for who comes back in his college shirt and punches you in the gut. Hail to the victor may be cool to say on Saturday, but it’s no fun on Sunday. No fun at all.  

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

Here were the Detroit Lions on Monday, Oct. 20, before a raucous, thunderous, but nervous Ford Field crowd, piling up stats like so many winning hands, over 150 yards in the first quarter alone.  

But one drive ended in a fumble. Another on a fourth down. And as halftime approached, Detroit was dominating the game but ekeing out the points, 7-0. The football demons were whispering. “Don’t let Tampa Bay hang around. That’s why they’re 5-1. Baker Mayfield will come back and kill you.” 

Well, you can’t kill what you can’t catch. And when Jahmyr Gibbs took a first-down handoff and cut through a hole the size of the federal deficit, nobody was catching him. 

“All I saw was (Lions) jerseys,” Gibbs would say of that play, after his team’s eventual 24-9 victory, “and I was like, ‘Oh, (expletive). Just run straight.’ ” 

Running straight is not a problem — not if, like Gibbs, you are fuel-injected. He raced 78 yards for a touchdown, the longest run of his NFL career, and the fans could exhale.  

Before the night was done, Gibbs would account for 218 yards of offense, with three times as many rushing yards (136) as the entire Tampa Bay team combined and more receiving yards (82) than any Tampa Bay pass catcher.  

Football is a team game, and the Lions won as a team, but memory tends to isolate heroes, and Gibbs was the offensive standout of this affair. And given his age (23) and talent (boundless), it won’t be the last time. 

“I feel like I got the best seat in the house,” quarterback Jared Goff said when asked about his backfield teammate, “just to like see him hit the hole and then just like take off. I don’t know how many safeties in the league who could catch him. As soon as he gets there, it’s over. He’s gone.” 

Like a cool breeze. 

Chip, cashed. 

Deal the Lions in 

Which brings us to the defense, supposedly the Lions’ Achilles heel coming in. Detroit had lost its entire starting cornerback lineup, plus its top backups, and its two best safeties (Kerby Joseph and Brian Branch) were out for injury and bad behavior. The assumption was that Mayfield would have a field day picking on the secondary, which was really the thirdary, the fourthdary and, in a few cases, the who-are-you-again-dary? 

So, the chips were stacked in Tampa’s favor. But you still have to deal the cards. And what do you know? If Detroit’s offense on Monday night could be summed up by one guy, then its defense was the sum of a couple of guys you know well — a returning Alim McNeill, Aidan Hutchinson, Amik Robertson and the linebackers — plus a swarm of never-heard-of-thems on the back end. They arrived wearing Brian Branch jerseys, a tribute to their missing teammate, but also a demonstration of the kind of camaraderie this team has.  

And once the game started, what was supposed to be a Wild West shootout (the over-under was 53) instead came down to defenses, and the Lions defense often came down to newbies, castaways, and roster bouncers. 

You know what? They did great. Or as coach Dan Campbell put it, “It wasn’t too big for them.”  

Even if it should have been. 

Get out your scorecard, folks. Follow along. Here was a guy named Erick Hallett — who? — a sixth-round draft pick last year by Jacksonville who never played a regular-season down until Monday night, and he finished with a team-high eight tackles at safety, six of them solo.  

Here was a guy named Arthur Maulet, an undrafted free agent who has played with New Orleans, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Houston and the New York Jets, lacing them up for the first time with Detroit and producing the most-determined interception you will ever see: He jammed his arm into the grip of Tampa Bay’s Cade Otton and simply wouldn’t let go, until the ball — and much of Otton’s bicep — was in his possession.  

Here was another undrafted kid named Nick Whiteside, out of Auburn Hills and Saginaw Valley State, who four months ago was playing with the St. Louis Battlehawks in the UFL. And he was out there Monday night breaking up a two-point conversion try and knocking down another end zone pass late in the game on Tampa’s last gasp drive. 

Standing by his locker after the game, Whiteside grew momentarily sentimental when asked whether he wondered if this moment would ever come.  

“Yeah, for sure. Just last year, being in the league and not making the most of my opportunity, waiting the whole NFL season, working out with teams, not sticking, continuing to work, continuing to talk to God every day. …. 

“It’s crazy. I keep telling my family, my teammates, growing up in Michigan, watching the Lions play, being out of the game for a whole year then coming here and not doing enough to stick around, then being brought back?” 

Crazy. Yeah. You could say that. Then again, holding Tampa Bay, considered by many experts to be the best team in football, to just nine points, when your defense is supposed to be a MASH unit?  

If that’s not crazy, what does the word mean? 

Chips, cashed. 

Lions’ unexpected performances 

These are the Lions under Dan Campbell. They don’t lose back-to-back games. They rise to the occasion. His staff creates game plans that bend and twist to the personnel available. On this night, it was just about making sure the new guys did what they were supposed to and allowed their more experienced teammates to have their backs. 

“I’ve said it before,” Campbell explained. “You get in there, you don’t have to be perfect, just challenge and compete and we will help you. The guys around you will help you, and we’ll play with three units.” 

And one will pick up the other. So, on a night when Goff, often the superstar, had an interception, a fumble, and four sacks, and Jake Bates, the sturdy and steady kicker, missed one field goal and hit the uprights with another, and David Montgomery, the ramrod running back, would only gain 21 yards on 13 carries, here was Gibbs to carry the day.  

No problem. 

And on a night when the defensive backfield was supposed to stumble, bumble and bleed out early, it kept intact, taking just a few scrapes and scratches, and standing tall on a final drive by Mayfield and company, who kept punching the wall but could never break through it.  

As a result, the 4-2 Lions rose to 5-2 and took their place amongst the NFC leaders, and now they get a bye week and a chance to heal. “The good news is that we are going to start to get a lot of players back,” Campbell said. 

The even better news is that when those players are out — as others will inevitably be again — Campbell and his staff can cajole a performance out of backups like they did Monday night. Those are the kind of chips you cash in for big wins. You know what we just witnessed Monday night? A well-played hand, that’s what. 

Or, as McNeill announced to the crowd after the win, “A typical Monday night for us in Detroit.” Been a long time since we could say that with a straight face. We can now.   

Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.

This showdown between the Detroit Lions and the Chiefs, on a warm humid Sunday night before a raucous Arrowhead Stadium crowd, went pretty much the way anyone who didn’t have a dog in the hunt would have figured.

The Chiefs, coming in, were a great team with a bad record. At 2-3, they needed this game to right their ship. And you don’t have all those Super Bowl trophies on your mantel and not know how to rise to the moment.

The Lions, coming in, were a great team with a depleted secondary. Depleted? There are phone booths that could fit more healthy bodies. Detroit was missing its top five cornerbacks, and a few safeties were gimpy. I don’t want to say they were working in a lot of new guys. But I think I saw some of them wearing name tags.

Which meant if the Lions were to win this game, they would have to score almost every time they had the ball – touchdowns, not field goals – while they chewed the clock, and prayed for a couple of stops on Patrick Mahomes and the often-unstoppable K.C. offense.

Well. They tried.

But in the end, the Chiefs did exactly what they needed to do, and the Lions did not. Near-perfection was required; it was not achieved. A drop here. A penalty there. And if you thought the Lions, after four wins in five games, were some kind of Superman, then you just saw their kryptonite.

Injuries – which every team has.

And a unique offense that is built to score early, but not to come back late.

“You gotta play your best,” Dan Campbell told WXYT-FM (97.1) after the 30-17 defeat, “when you play a team like that.”

That was not their best.

No surprise.

‘We’re so freaking close!’

Now if you watched this game on TV, you saw Campbell almost burst a blood vessel during a halftime interview by saying “We’re so freaking close! We’re three plays away from turning this thing on its head!”

He was right. And when it was over, they were about five plays away. And that’s the story in the NFL. Almost every game can be broken down to four or five key plays that determine the outcome. Here were the Lions tide-turners:

• A first quarter touchdown that was called back when Jared Goff failed to set up properly on an otherwise beautiful trick play where he caught a pass from David Montgomery and reached the end zone. Detroit, after a brilliant drive that chewed nearly 10 minutes off the clock, settled for a field goal.
• On the ensuing drive, a fourth-and-3 for the Chiefs that the Lions couldn’t stop, resulting in a 6-yard touchdown pass from Patrick Mahomes to Xavier Worthy.
• A dropped pass by Amon-Ra St. Brown on a fourth down in the second quarter that would have kept a drive alive and likely kept KC from getting the ball back before halftime. Instead, the Lions got no points, and the Chiefs scored a touchdown with 37 seconds left.
• An avoidable roughing-the-passer penalty on Aidan Hutchinson in the fourth quarter that pushed the ball to midfield, and energized a K.C. touchdown drive that would be the nail in the coffin.

“That’s a good football team,” Mahomes told NBC after the game. “(We) showed what we can do.”

And what, on this night, the Lions could not.

No surprise.

Lions feel Mahomes effect

Once Detroit fell behind by 10, the game felt as if things were running uphill. It didn’t help that the Chiefs never committed a turnover and somehow didn’t get a single penalty called on them.

That may feel strange. Even unfair. But remember, these Chiefs have been to four of the last five Super Bowls, and won three of them. They were not going to fall to 2-4 without putting up their hardest, most focused effort.

And Mahomes is exactly the kind of quarterback to exploit a weakened secondary. He scrambles and eludes long enough for even veteran defenders to break down. Then he takes advantage, either by running or locating a receiver in a gap. The Lions needed their pass rushers to control this game, and while they were officially credited with three sacks, they never got to Mahomes when it really mattered. The Chiefs tagged them for 112 yards rushing (including 32 from Mahomes) and 257 yards passing.

The Lions offense, meanwhile, is more like a futuristic machine. When it hums, it truly hums. But if it falls behind and has to swallow up big gulps of pass-only offense, it’s not as good. This is a running game/play action offense when it’s at its best, and it was much of Sunday night.

But down the fourth-quarter stretch, you felt it strained. Detroit’s last two drives went for four yards and nine yards. Campbell later told a media interviewer that it felt as if they were watching K.C. take a knee for 10 minutes.

“When we do those long drives if we don’t finish those with touchdowns, were kind of putting ourselves behind the eight ball,” Goff told the media after the loss. “I think they played just a little bit better.”

A little bit is all it takes when two teams are this close.

Does it ruin everything? Of course not. Does it send a concerning message? Sure it does. The Lions have Tampa Bay next Monday night at home, and the Bucs are 5-1, a conference rival, and a regular thorn in Detroit’s side. Baker Mayfield is likely already studying how Mahomes exploited the Lions defensive backfield.

But this is how the journey goes in the NFL. You start with a solid boat, you take hits, you develop holes, you patch, you bail, you watch your opponents navigate the same angry waters, and you try and whip your vessel together come the postseason.

We are a long way from that. But some storylines are already etched in the oars. The Chiefs still have championship DNA. The Lions are terrific, but they can’t win one-handed. And losses in October instruct as much as they sting.

Let’s see what the Lions learn from this. Does the defeat hurt? Yes. Is it surprising? No. But remember, should these two teams meet again this season, that can only mean one good thing. One very good thing.

Mitch Albom will sign copies of his new novel “Twice” this Friday, Oct. 17, at 6:30 pm, Book A Million in Beverly Hills, and this Saturday, Oct. 18, at 930 a.m., Barnes and Noble in Ann Arbor, 3235 Washtenaw Ave.

Done? Done. The season is over. And yet suddenly a moment flashes across your brain, a moment that could have changed everything. … 

There is Tarik Skubal, on the mound, squashing Seattle batters like a tank over a mudfield on Friday, Oct. 10.

Thirteen strikeouts in six innings? Taking out the mighty Cal Raleigh on three pitches in his final confrontation? If only he could have come out for a few more frames. Even one more frame? 

Then things might be … 

No. Can’t torture yourself. You take your cleats and wipe the mud from the spikes. You tuck the laces under the tongue and put them back on the rack. 

Done? Done. A season that felt like a cross-country road trip, through the mountains, through the prairies, through the ocean, wet with foam? A season that saw our home team, at one point, so far ahead they were a dot on the horizon, but now that horizon is a sunset, with other teams moving on and winter’s darkness descending?  

Done? Done. Just accept it, right? And yet, there it is again. A flash across your eyes …  

The eighth inning. Tie game. Two Tigers on. No runs scored. The 11th inning. Two Tigers on. No runs scored. The 12th inning. Bases loaded. Gleyber Torres flies out. No runs scored. And it all ends in the 15th inning, 3-2, Mariners. … 

Stop. Can’t do it. You take the socks from the dryer, and fold them neatly. Why torture yourself? Why wonder if one hit, one measly, stinking hit, just a bloop single, a dying quail, a seeing-eye ball that dropped between two charging fielders, might have changed everything, sent the Tigers to the ALCS for the first time in 12 years? 

Why ask why? As Skubal told the media after the longest winner-take-all playoff game in Major League Baseball history was over, when you lose, “It’s meant to hurt.” 

Done? Done. 

Tigers create so many questions 

You clean the uniform and hang it up neatly. You run your hand wistfully across the orange and black “Detroit” letters. The part of you − the part of every fan − who plays the game along with the actual players, goes through withdrawal the same way the players do. Is it the same pain? Of course not. Is it still painful? Of course it is. 

You think about how many chances the Tigers had in that final, maddening, nearly five-hour marathon. They used eight pitchers, lefties, righties, relievers, starters. For 15 innings, until the final at-bat, they only gave up two runs.  

And yet at the same time, Riley Greene, Spencer Torkelson, Torres and Colt Keith, the Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 hitters in the lineup, went 0-for-23. Really? 0-for-23?  

A game that started a little after 8 p.m. Friday night and ended just after 1 a.m. Saturday was long enough to be two games, and in many ways it was. Because while the Tigers missed one chance after another, they made sure the Mariners did the same. 

Didn’t Seattle actually strand more runners (12) than Detroit (10)? Weren’t the Mariners just as bad with men on base as the Tigers were (2-for-12 with runners in scoring position)? How many double plays did the Tigers turn to get out of trouble? How many times did the Seattle fans throw their heads back and say, “Not again!” 

But maybe that makes it worse. The Tigers played so much of that final game — in a raucous, thunderous, negative environment — as if they were toying with the home team, letting them get close, but denying them again and again. And all it would take would be one mighty swing, like the one Kerry Carpenter had in the sixth inning, a ball over the wall, a two-run homer, and that would be it. Tigers would win. 

Except that really was it. Carpenter’s dinger was the extent of the Tigers’ offense. And we had a novel without the final chapter. A movie with the battle scene clipped just short of victory.  

“That was an incredible win for them,” A.J. Hinch told the media after this was over, “which means it was an incredible loss for us.” 

Done? Done. 

Tigers felt like so much more 

You take your bats and zip them in a bag. You throw your batting gloves, your sunglasses, and various other accessories into a knapsack. You wash the eye-black off your face. No need for that anymore. You dry it with a towel and notice you are wiping away a little extra moisture. 

Because this was a Tigers season unlike any other. It set your heart pounding, then it broke your heart, then it mended it, then broke it again. 

It began with predictions like “possible playoff contender” and “maybe 87 wins” and three straight losses to the Dodgers and then, oh, my, next thing you knew, suddenly, Detroit was so far out ahead, you needed to FedEx the Tigers your applause. 

What was that lead on July 8? Fourteen games over the next closest AL Central teams? The Tigers had the best record in baseball for many days this season. 

And yet they had the worst finish. They lost 20 of 27 games down the stretch and 13 of their final 16. Had they not had the better head-to-head record against the Houston Astros, they would have missed the playoffs altogether.  

Let’s face it. On the last weekend of the season, they were Cinderella after midnight, riding a pumpkin, just hoping to sneak into the house before the prince discovered they were more rags than riches. 

But then the postseason game. And the Tigers showed incredible moxie and beat Cleveland two out of three, despite all three games being on the road.  

And then, the Mariners series, and surviving another elimination game with a sudden burst of offense in Game 4, then pushing things all the way to the 15^th inning of a winner-take-all slugfest in Game 5. 

And after all that, after the last showers and the final bus to the hotel, the Tigers got exactly as far as they did last season. Second round of the playoffs. Inches away from playing for the pennant.  

And yet it feels like so much more. There is great promise on this team, just as there is great disappointment. There is a singular superstar in Skubal, just as there are not enough other superstars in the lineup. There is a tremendous core, just as there are a few gaping holes, and the front office will have to address that. 

But that’s what you do in the offseason, right? 

“I’d love for this series to go another sixth or seventh game,” Hinch told reporters, “but I don’t think any of us have the pitching to get through two more games.” 

Or the stomach acid. Done? Done.

You close the locker door, you turn the key, you walk down the tunnel and exit through the parking lot. A U.S. President once famously said, “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” 

Except tomorrow the Tigers are on airplanes to various homes and vacations, and you are back on the couch, the baseball gear stored away until next spring.  

You sigh. You lean back. And you ask yourself the only thing a Detroit sports fan can ask himself today. 

What time do the Lions start? 

Mitch Albom will sign copies of his new novel “Twice” this Friday, Oct. 17, at 6:30 pm, Book A Million in Beverly Hills, and this Saturday, Oct. 18, at 930 a.m., Barnes and Noble in Ann Arbor, 3235 Washtenaw Ave.