How about getting revenge 66 years later?
Come on, what are we talking about?
It was Deja vu in reverse.
I don’t think many people remember. But I do.
The year was 1957. Long before many of our readers were born.
It was a time when the National Football League consisted of 12 teams. Six in what was called the Eastern Conference and six in the Western Conference.
The San Francisco 49ers and the Detroit Lions wound up in a tie for the Western Conference title.
So they had a playoff game.
The winner would go on and face the vaunted Cleveland Browns for the NFL Chmpionship.
The game was played at Kezar Stadium, then the home of the 49ers. The Niners dominated the first half and took a 24-7 lead into halftime.
But the Lions stormed back and ultimately beat the 49ers in the one of the great comebacks in pro football playoff history, 31-27.
The next week, the Lions trounced the Browns 59-14 and won the NFL title.
It was the last time the franchise played for the league championship.
Fast forward to last Sunday. The Lions faced the 49ers in the NFC title game, with the winner moving on to the Super Bowl two weeks hence in Las Vegas.
The Lions had never played in the Super Bowl.
This was their golden opportunity.
This time, 66 years later, it was Detroit who jumped out to the big halftime lead. The score was 24-7.
Sound familiar?
And this time, 66 years later, it was the 49ers who rallied and triumphed 34-31, also considered one of the memorable playoff comebacks in league history.
Of course, there is no revenge involved, but how coincidental the two games are.
For the Lions and their long-starved fans, a huge letdown from what might have been.
You have to feel for them after coming oh, so close.
Now, the 49ers will play in the Super Bowl, and try to give head coach Kyle Shanahan his first ring, against the Kansas City Chiefs, who have made a habit of getting to the big game, and winning the big game in recent seasons.
It will be the Chiefs fourth Super Bowl appearance in the last five years. They’ve won it on two of those occasions, including the 2022 campaign.
To get there, the Chiefs defeated the top-seeded Baltimore Ravens and smothered the league’s probable MVP, quarterback Lamar Jackson, 17-10.
For some reason, the Ravens, boasting the top rushing game in the league, ran the ball only 16 times, the fewest since Jackson became the team’s starting quarterback with seven games remaining in the 2018 season.
While the Chiefs have displayed a dazzling attack featuring Patrick Mahomes, arguably the best quarterback in the league and all-pro tight end Travis Kelce, more renowned then ever with his much-publicized relationship with Taylor Swift, the ultimate success for Kansas City lies elsewhere.
It’s been the Chiefs’ defensive performance throughout the year, engineered by coordinator Steve Spagnuolo, that has K.C. defending the Vince Lombardi Trophy in Vegas.
I thought it would be timely to look back on my NFL preview which hit the stands back on Sept. 6.
There was good, and there was bad.
But I start with this:
“Finally, no Super Bowl prediction. But a feeling that it may be time for Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers to make a major charge on the Chiefs”.
Now the good and the bad.
The good.
I wrote:
It seems that the Aaron Rodgers story will be a spectacular one. I’m sorry, but something tells me it’ll not be what’s anticipated. Not bad short term, not good long term. He’s not getting any younger, he’s not the team leader people think, and he’s surrounded by a group of players who have yet to learn what it takes to win.
Rodgers was knocked out of the season by injury on the fourth play of the first game.
I wrote:
If Patrick Mahomes stays healthy, the Chiefs are the best team in the league. We’ll see.
No one in the AFC East will beat the Buffalo Bills.
It took the last game of the regular season to save me there.
It’s Jordan Love’s time in Green Bay and he will prove worthy.
Jared Goff is capable of leading the Lions to even greater heights.
Why, in the back of my mind do I feel the Eagles won’t get to the Super Bowl again this year?
We all keep waiting for the Dallas Cowboys to take charge, but they never do.
I can’t see why the picture will change in 2023.
It almost did.
Now, the bad.
I wrote:
You may laugh, but I feel certain the Patriots will be one of the surprise teams in the AFC.
Alright, you can stop laughing now.
I wrote:
Kenny Pickett is on his way to a big career with the Steelers.
I really like Daniel Jones’s with the Giants, who I think will have a better year than the Jets.
It still may happen with Pickett, but not off of this season of non-production and injury.
The Jets had a better record than the Giants, and Jones got hurt and was out most of the year.
I wrote:
I see the Bengals winning the AFC North.
Their outstanding QB Joe Burrow also was KO’s with a season ending injury.
I thought the Saints would emerge in the NFC South, and the Falcons would be solid.
The Saints almost did, the Falcons didn’t, and the Bucs, who I wrote off, won the division crown.
Finally, I was high on the Jacksonville Jaguars, who turned into one of the league’s great disappointments.
Because of his Achilles injury on the fourth play of the opening game, Aaron Rodgers was not the continuing story week after week.
Who was?
Taylor Swift.
The weekly coverage of Swift sitting in a suite wherever the Chiefs played, watching her beau, Travis Kelce, was criticized by some who grew tired of a story they felt took away from the game played on the field.
But I saw it as a delightfully sweet diversion that showed a human side of sports.
One we never anticipated when the season began.
But an ongoing tale of the reality of life shown in full view of the nation.
And what’s wrong with that?