Super Bowl trip receives assist from reckless Lions
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The San Francisco 49ers felt it all slipping away. Not just the game, but their dreams. Their bond with each other. Their window to get to the Super Bowl. Their moment.
They stood in their locker room at halftime, angry and embarrassed. The 49ers had been manhandled on their own field by the Detroit Lions. The 49ers were trailing 24-7 and looked incapable and incompetent.
“Guys were extremely pissed,” head coach Kyle Shanahan said. “They don’t want to go out like that.
“They didn’t want this to be the last day.”
So down 17 points, they went back out on the field, determined to change their fate. To grab the momentum.
Fortunately for the 49ers, Detroit head coach Dan Campbell helped do it for them. He personally changed the 49ers’ fate. His decision-making changed the momentum and outcome of the game.
And because of that shift in energy, and the 49ers’ monumental comeback, they are headed to Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas for a rematch with the Kansas City Chiefs. It is doubtful that Andy Reid will gift-wrap any such comeback opportunities or energy-changing moments.
“Obviously it’s huge, just the feeling of redemption, of coming back,” quarterback Brock Purdy said. “To have a performance like that was huge. We’re always
going to remember it.”
The 49ers’ players — most of whom were born in the 1990s — could have taken some halftime inspiration from their franchise’s history. In a 1957 playoff game, the 49ers had a 24-7 halftime lead over the Detroit Lions. They ended up losing that game 31-27, a crushing defeat that longtime fans still talk about. So it could be done.
The 21st century 49ers came out of their locker room determined to change the trajectory of the game. But they couldn’t do it right away. They moved down the field but sputtered again and had to settle for a field goal.
“I felt like we kind of blew it when we didn’t get a touchdown,” Shanahan said.
The 49ers still needed something to change. Their fans were flat and tense. The large number of fans in Detroit’s Honolulu Blue were making themselves
heard. The 49ers had come back eight nights earlier against Green Bay, but they hadn’t been down by three scores. These have been the front-running 49ers, and comebacks have not been their forte.
They needed some help, and Campbell gave it to them. As Dan “Gamble” is inclined to do, facing a 4th-and-2 on the 49ers’ 28-yard line, he decided to go for it rather than kick a field goal that would have put the Lions back up by three scores. Receiver Josh Reynolds dropped a pass from Jared Goff. The crowd roared. The 49ers celebrated.
And the offense rushed back on the field.
“You could definitely feel it,” Purdy said. “When the defense got a stop like that, obviously the stadium erupted. Then everyone on offense, when we were jogging out there, we were like, ‘All right, it’s our time. This is the momentum we’ve been looking for.’
“As an offense, we’ve got to do our part and pick up the defense that got that stop. We all felt it.”
The 49ers took possession on downs and on the second play, Purdy hit Brandon Aiyuk for a spectacular 51-yard reception: The ball bounced off cornerback Kindle Vildor’s facemask and into Aiyuk’s hands for a catch. Three plays later, Purdy found Aiyuk in the end zone for a 6-yard touchdown.
Suddenly, the 49ers were down by only seven points. Levi’s was shaking. The 49ers’ sideline was going crazy. The energy definitely had changed.
“It got the fire ignited a little bit,” Aiyuk said.
The momentum shift carried into Detroit’s next play as safety Tashaun Gipson punched the ball out of running back Jahmyr Gibbs’ hands, Arik Armstead recovered the fumble and the 49ers’ offense was back in business.
By this point, a comeback — one that would tie the 49ers’ franchise mark as the second largest in its playoff history — was starting to feel inevitable. Christian Mccaffrey scored on the ensuing possession to tie the game. The 49ers had scored 17 third-quarter points.
Early in the fourth quarter, Jake Moody hit a 33-yard field goal to give the 49ers their first lead of the game. The Lions got the ball back, drove down to the S.F. 30-yard line, where they faced a 4th-and-3, and instead of opting to try to tie the game with a field goal, Campbell decided to … well, you already know what he did. He went for it. Again. And again he didn’t make it.
The 49ers took possession and scored again to grab a 10point lead with just over three minutes to play. In other words: pretty much game over.how big were those fourth-down decisions by Campbell?
“Huge, both of them,” Shanahan said. “We look at that almost the same as a turnover. So that was huge for us. You live and die with that stuff. It would have been really hard to deal with if they had moved the chains.”
Shanahan wasn’t surprised by his counterpart’s decisionmaking.
“Not really, that’s how they’ve done it most of the year,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons why they were here.”
That’s true, and Campbell’s defenders insist they would rather ride with their risk-taking coach who got them to the NFC Championship Game, and one half away from the franchise’s first-ever Super Bowl, than play it safe. But there is also such a thing as situational football, and going up by three scores in a title game on the road definitely seemed like the smarter move.
Campbell said he didn’t regret his decisions.
“I just felt really good about us converting and getting our momentum and not letting them play long ball,” Campbell said. “They were bleeding the clock out. That’s what they do. And I wanted to get the upper hand back.”
Of course, the 49ers weren’t bleeding the clock out midway through the third quarter. But Campbell has his story, and he’s sticking to it.