The Lions’ wild-card win over the Rams at Ford Field last week was of the landmark variety for those born after January 5, 1992. Since mauling (38-6) the Cowboys on that date in a divisional playoff matchup, the Lions were defeated in all nine of their playoff games beginning with the following week’s NFC championship at Washington.
No wonder tears were streaming down the faces of many fans following the 24-23 win over Los Angeles. A 32-year drought was snapped!
Prior to last week’s win, the aforementioned decision over Dallas was, get this, the Lions’ only playoff victory since they won the NFL championship in 1957.
Read: Tampa Bay Buccaneers Preparing For A Crazy Atmosphere In Detroit
A win over the Bucs on Sunday (3 p.m./NBC) truly would be historical for Detroit. Indeed, the championship year of 1957 was the last time the Lions won two playoff games in a season. That was 11 years before Barry Sanders was born and 10 years before the first Super Bowl. For additional context, Dwight Eisenhower was serving his second term at the time. Detroit went the next 11 presidential administrations with only a single playoff win.
Trailing the 49ers by 20 in the third quarter of their divisional round matchup at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco, and without quarterback Bobby Layne, who was injured a couple of weeks earlier, the Tobin Rote-led Lions rattled off 24 straight points to win, 31-27. That set up a meeting with Jim Brown and the Cleveland Browns for the NFL championship.
In front of 55,263 at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium, the Lions’ defense forced seven turnovers and Rote threw four touchdown passes and ran for a score in a 59-14 demolition of Cleveland to win the title.
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