DETROIT -- The Lions went 30 years without hosting a playoff game. Now they’ll host their second in as many weeks after topping Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams 24-23 in a wild-card classic on Sunday night.
The third-seeded Lions advance to the divisional round of the playoffs, where they’ll host either No. 4 Tampa Bay or No. 5 Philadelphia at 3 p.m. Sunday on NBC. Detroit is hosting the game after No. 2 Dallas was upset by No. 7 Green Bay earlier in the day, providing a huge advantage with a trip to the NFC championship game at stake.
Los Angeles had multiple procedure penalties while dealing with a frenzied atmosphere on Sunday night, plus burned two critical timeouts late in the play clock early in the second half. That prevented them from stopping the clock on two Jared Goff passes in the final 2 minutes, and Goff was able to take three knees to end the game.
“Man, that was arguably the best environment I’ve ever been in,” head coach Dan Campbell said. “That was absolutely electric. What’s crazy is I was coming down for pregame warmups, and you could just feel it. It was humming. The building was humming. And I swear you could feel the electricity down the tunnel when I was coming down, and it only grew from there. Man, our fans showed up in a big way. That was clearly -- man, for two years that building has been rocking. That was different today. That was a whole other level. That’s what the playoffs are all about. Our fans showed up in a big way. They helped us win this game.”
The Buccaneers and Eagles face each other on Monday Night Football, giving Detroit an extra day of rest, plus an opportunity to watch their future opponent live. They already manhandled the Bucs 20-6 in Tampa back in October, a game that featured one of their best defensive performances of the season. On 37 attempts, quarterback Baker Mayfield completed just 19 passes for 206 yards, one interception and his worst passer rating of the season (56.8). Tampa also ran for just 46 yards, and was held out of the end zone for the only time this season.
Detroit finished that game without both of its top two running backs, but Jared Goff enjoyed one of his best games of the regular season. Although he might have played even better against Los Angeles, completing 22 of 27 passes for 277 yards, one touchdown pass to Sam LaPorta and no turnovers. His passer rating was 121.8, by far the best game of his seven starts in the playoffs.
Detroit has not faced the Eagles, who scuffled down the stretch, losing five of their final six games in the regular season. They also promoted former Lions head coach Matt Patricia to defensive playcaller.
So one week after Matthew Stafford was booed in his return to Ford Field, Patricia could be looking down the barrel of similar -- and probably worse -- treatment. Patricia hasn’t been back in this building since getting run out of it in a 41-25 massacre on Thanksgiving in 2020. He was fired in the hours after that game, then spent two seasons in New England before making his way over to Philadelphia this year.
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