It hit the cross bar. Of course, it bounced over.
It was Tom Dempsey and Paul Edinger morphed into one despicable, poisoned dagger to the heart. An NFL-record 66-yard field goal by Ravens’ kicker Justin Tucker as time expired. Really. Yep. Again. Your Detroit Lions.
Tucker had done this before. Remember 2013 when he banged through a 61-yarder to knock the Lions out of the playoffs. At least he only had four field goals instead of the six he booted that dreary December Monday Night at Ford Field. It essentially cost Jim Schwartz his job.
It was a moment that summed up the Lions as we’ve known them.
Celebrate Calvin Johnson. Lose the football game in the worse possible fashion.
The Lions, currently and their history, were defined Sunday during halftime at Ford Field.
Johnson was resoundingly cheered, as you’d expect, when he was presented with his Pro Football Hall of Fame ring.
Sheila Ford Hamp, and the Ford family, were robustly booed.
Ford Hamp’s words were drowned out by jeers as she spoke.
At least they shook hands, but the message was clear.
Johnson is a hero, the second-best player in Lions’ history. And we all know how Barry Sanders’ career ended.
Frankly, the Lions’ dispute with Megatron is silly. And Johnson is culpable to the degree he just won’t let it go that the Lions made him pay back $1.6 million of his signing bonus when he retired, even if the organization is now willing to do so.
Sanders was no saint in his matter, either, leaving a contending Lions’ team without a starting running back on the eve of training camp.
That wound has healed, but took decades.
Johnson holds all the cards in this depute - and knows it. In nearly six decades of ownership by the Ford family, the Lions have displayed an unprecedented degree of ineptitude. It was on display, too, in the first half as the Lions were flagged for numerous penalties, including a fumble recovery being negated because the gunner on the punt coverage unit willingly ran out of bounds.
What side is the public going to be on, Megatron’s or the Ford’s? It’s not even close.
I give Ford Hamp, and her mother, Martha Ford, credit for showing up and taking their medicine. Too often in such situations Lions’ ownership has chosen to hide in an ivory tower.
Since Ford Hamp has taken controlling ownership of the Lions, she has attempted in earnest to put Humpty Dumpty back together after a six-decade fall.
But here’s some unsolicited advice for the Fords and the Lions: Understand why they are perceived this way.
The truth is, if the Lions were a playoff contender, or have had a degree of success since Megatron’s retirement, there wouldn’t be such angst about this issue.
The Lions were just 49-86 in games Johnson played. During the season he set the single-season receiving record, they were 4-12. He was a great player on mostly terrible teams.
All fans have had to hang onto, though, has been the exploits of individual players. The team has been a completely different story.
There is only way for the Lions and Ford Hamp to change the narrative.
Win, treat the fans with respect and understand exactly why they weren’t treated with such Sunday.
Think if the Lions, who played much better in the second half, had won. Do you think most people leaving Ford Field would have been focused on Johnson.
But they lost, and in the most Lion-like manner possible. It’s a tradition this town lives with frustratingly, hauntingly and, hopefully, not forever.