Nothing is assured, but Lions are poised for more than ‘one shot’ at Super Bowl

Carmen Vitali

NFC North Reporter

The NFL, among its many players, coaches and executives, bears another acronym: Not For Long.

That has many applications. National Football League players aren’t guaranteed to have long careers. The league average hovers around just three years. Coaches aren’t guaranteed to be employed by the same team or on the same staff for a significant amount of time. If your head coach gets fired as an assistant, odds are you’re out the door, too. Team success can be fleeting, too.

Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell knows that better than anyone.

It’s why he was realistic with his team when the Lions lost in the NFC Championship game, blowing a 17-point halftime lead to succumb to the San Francisco 49ers by a measly three points. Detroit had improved so much from the time Campbell took over. 

They went 12-5 in the regular season, the first Lions team to do so since the Kennedy administration. They won the division for the first time in over three decades, and the first time since it had been rebranded the NFC North. Detroit hosted its first playoff game in over 30 years and then hosted another one, the first postseason action in Ford Field history. But their end result was the same as everyone else’s.

“This could have been our only shot,” Campbell said he told his team. 

He went on to say he didn’t believe it was. He didn’t think that was the case going forward. NFL coaches can’t think that way. But Campbell also said getting back to the championship game in hopes of moving on to the ultimate goal of a Super Bowl would likely be twice as hard.

A lot of it has to do with the teams around the Lions. Within their own division, the Green Bay Packers not only made the playoffs with the league’s youngest team, but dominated the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium. The Minnesota Vikings suffered a catastrophic injury when quarterback Kirk Cousins tore his Achilles but their defense under Brian Flores…

Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/nothing-is-assured-but-lions-are-poised-for-more-than-one-shot-at-super-bowl

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Publish date : 2024-02-01 14:07:37

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