Expectations are ass. Hope is fun.
The Washington Commanders, on the road and on short rest against a heavily favored team coming off a bye, delivered nearly flawless football Saturday night and kept their wholly unforeseen dream season alive by dispatching the top-seeded Detroit Lions, 45-31. Washington’s win gives the team its first appearance in a conference championship since the 1991 season, and guarantees the Lions will go yet another year without the franchise's first Super Bowl appearance.
Commanders fans, still suffering from PTSD brought on by the Dan Snyder era, already were saying “Just happy to be here!” and “Playing with house money!”—and meaning every word—before the team qualified for the playoffs by closing out the regular season with an amazing four-game streak of wins on the final play from scrimmage. After so many years of organizational dysfunction and gameday suckery, getting to watch rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels week after week really was its own reward. The satisfied chorus only got louder and more sincere after Washington’s doink-off win over Tampa in Sunday night’s Wild Card matchup, the franchise’s first playoff triumph in 19 years.
The Lions, meanwhile, earned last week off and home-field advantage by going 15-2 in the regular season. The top seed played like a team happy to be here. Detroit was done in by five turnovers, including three interceptions and a fumble from quarterback Jared Goff. Hyper-heralded offensive coordinator Ben Johnson weirdly avoided any reliance on Jahmyr Gibbs, the Lions' ridiculously quick second-year running back. Gibbs, who finished with 14 carries for 105 yards and two touchdowns, as well as six catches for 70 more yards, seemed to make things happen whenever he touched the ball; he just didn’t touch it enough.
The game was full of gigantic plays from both sides. The second quarter, which featured an NFL playoff-record 42 total points, was particularly wonderful, the gridiron equivalent of the second round of the 1985 Hearns-Hagler title fight. Among the haymakers the Lions and Commanders threw at each other in this one marvelous period: Sam LaPorta’s nonsensically great one-handed catch in the end zone; a 58-yard touchdown scamper down the sidelines by Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin; Washington safety Quan Martin intercepting Goff’s horrible overthrow, then winding 40 yards through traffic for a pick-six; erstwhile high school football coach Teddy Bridgewater subbing in for one series as sideline medics evaluated Goff after Frankie Luvu laid him out on Martin's house call; Jameson Williams's 61-yard handoff for a touchdown, followed by him getting busy with the turf to celebrate; and Dyami Brown somehow catching a bomb from Daniels while Lions DB Kerby Joseph covered his opponent's eyes. Whew.
After all that, Washington took a 31-21 lead into halftime and never lost it. The Lions' comeback chances were dealt a heavy blow by a wayward pass from Jameson Williams on a misguided gadget play called by Johnson, with his team down by 10 in the fourth quarter. Commanders defensive back (and former Michigan Wolverine) Mike Sainristil picked off the pass, his second interception of the night.
“Not a great time for a trick play,” Fox Sports color commentator Tom Brady said after the Lions’ dipsy-doo play went to doo-doo. Since Brady, a minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, is also headhunting for a new head coach, who knows whether the call did any damage to Johnson’s job prospects.
A short touchdown run by Jeremy McNichols on Washington’s ensuing drive midway through the fourth quarter put the Commanders up by 17 points, and killed any real chance of the Lions rallying. Home fans started to head for the exits. “I was expecting us to beat them by 40, to be honest,” Lions fan Jamaal Hines told the Detroit Free Press, in one of several interviews that according to the paper were conducted by its reporter outside the stadium before the game was over.
Now the Commanders, a team that went 4-13 a season ago, are one win from the Super Bowl. I watched the game with old friends and one of my sons, all diehard Washington fans, with everyone but my kid old enough to have lived through the glory days of a franchise that has appeared in five Super Bowls and won three, but hasn't been in the title game since 1992. I wore an old Michael Westbrook No. 82 jersey to the watch party because I wanted to wear team colors but couldn’t find my Heath Shuler No. 5 jersey, which from the front doubles as a Jayden Daniels jersey. (I’d thrown away or donated all my other vintage team merch in a Snyder-era funk and because it had the off-putting old name on them; the bygone handle isn’t on the two jerseys I kept.) I yelled at the TV and high-fived my buddies and boy all night long. For all the wondrousness I witnessed from this team long ago, this football season has been the most fun I can remember. I can’t wait to get together with my pals next week to watch the Commanders play again—not that I'm expecting anything.
