The Detroit Lions made an NFC championship game once. It was the 1991 season. Barry Sanders was in just his third season. The Lions lost that title game 41-10 to a really good Washington team.
Then the Lions were the only NFL team stuck on one conference championship game appearance. The Houston Texans are the only team to never make it to the NFL’s final four, and they’ve been around only since 2002. The Lions have been in Detroit since 1934.
But this postseason, the Lions are rewriting a sad history. They had one playoff win in the Super Bowl era before this postseason started, and they’ve doubled that in an eight-day stretch. The Lions beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-23 on Sunday and are heading to the NFC championship game for the second time in franchise history.
The Detroit Lions took a 14-point lead in the fourth quarte r but then had to hang on in the final two minutes. Linebacker Derrick Barnes interception with 1:33 left sealed the win. Detroit will play at the San Francisco 49ers next Sunday with a Super Bowl appearance on the line.
But as head coach Dan Campbell reiterated in the locker room, this team isn’t done yet.
They feel like they have the team to beat the San Francisco 49ers and advance to the first Super Bowl in franchise history.
Detroit Lions LB Derrick Barnes Had Hilarious & Emotional Instant Reaction To Game-Winning Interception
With the crowd rocking so it was impossible to hear within the confines of Ford Field, Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had 1:38 remaining one timeout and were on second down with five yards to go. Their goal? To pull off a miraculous drive, score a touchdown and get a two-point conversion to take the game into overtime.
Mayfield had played a solid game up to that point and had a fantastic drive for the Bucs one drive previous, so while the crowd was raucous, Detroit Lions fans throughout the country were gripping to their seats.
The whistle blew, Mayfield dropped back and faced pressure in his face from the Lions defense as he did all day. He unloaded a pass in the middle of the field intended for tight end Cade Otto, and Lions linebacker Derrick Barnes read the Bucs QB’s eyes, and undercut the route with an athletic interception by extending his arms as far as possible.
And that was it, the Lions were advancing to the NFC Championship game for just the second time, and the first since 1991.
NFL reporter Stacy Dales caught up with Barnes after the game-wining play and on Monday, shared some of what he told her.
First, she credited the Detroit Lions brass for building a roster with players like Barnes, who other teams overlooked but made the biggest play when it mattered the most.
“It’s the perfect example of the roster Dan Campbell and Brad Holmes built,” she said. “And I think Derrick Barnes is really symbiotic of that, a great illustration with his interception at the end, this is a guy they drafted in the the fourth round in 2021.”
Dales then mentioned how Barnes said he studied Mayfield and there was an emphasis all week about his tendency to throw to the middle.
“And Barnes told me after the game in regards to that interception you guys, they studied the tape, and the emphasis going into the game was hey, Baker loves to throw it to the seams and he was right place, right time.”
Finally, Dales shared the priceless instant reaction from Derrick Barnes when he realized what he just accomplished.
“When I asked him what the experience was like to get that interception? He told me ‘what the hell just happened?’
Dales then described how emotional Barnes was after the game-winning play that meant so much for the Detroit Lions, their fan base and the entire city.
“He said ‘I just sealed the game for us was going through my mind, first career interception and the first game.my son has been at.’ His son guys is two weeks old and he’s getting that game ball from Derrick Barnes.”
While the Lions have bigger aspirations, that play will go down as one of the greatest in team history.