A rally good season

THEY ARE the “Cardiac Kids’’ of the NFL right now, darlings of the fourth quarter. But, in the end, what will this mean for the Lions?

Have their NFL-high seventh fourth-quarter comebacks this season hardened the Lions for a postseason run that leads to a first playoff victory since 1991?

Or is the fact they’ve put themselves in position to have to scramble in the waning moments of these games a troubling sign of something they won’t be able overcome one of these weeks when it really counts.

The Lions are 7-4 and atop the NFC North entering Sunday’s game in New Orleans, but they have trailed in all 11 of their games this season. That has to be concerning to coach Jim Caldwell. So it’s fair to ask questions about whether this becomes the Lions’ calling card en route to a first deep postseason run in nearly 21/2 decades or whether it catches up to them.

Matthew Stafford, a No. 1 pick in 2009, is having perhaps the best season of his career, averaging 262 passing yards per game, with a completion percentage of 66.8, 19 TDs and just five INTs. He leads the NFL with seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season.

“Never in my life, man … have I seen consistently one person every week win us a game, somehow, some way, some shape, some form,” Lions tight end Eric Ebron told reporters after the Lions came back in the final seconds to beat the Vikings on Thanksgiving. “It’s ridiculously impressive.”

Here’s the thing, though: All these fourth-quarter comebacks will be forgotten if Stafford and the Lions don’t back them up by finishing the job, winning their division and winning in the playoffs for the first time since 1991, when Stafford was 3 years old.

“We’ve played OK,’’ Stafford said this past week. “I think we’ve had some spurts where we’ve played really good and efficient and had some really nice long drives and gotten touchdowns out of those. [But] there’s too many periods of the game where we’re going threeand-out, three-and-out.’’

Too many more three-and-outs and the Lions might be one-and-done in the playoffs — if they get there at all.