They stood around in disbelief, trying to digest a wild final minute that left the Detroit Lions with another only-the-Lions loss and put their playoff hopes on life support.
Isaac TeSlaa stared at the giant scoreboard high above the southwest end zone at Ford Field, frozen in place.
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Jameson Williams stopped to watch a replay on the same screen, threw both hands in the air as if to say, “What the …?” then got a condolence hug from Lions mascot Roary before disappearing down the tunnel.
Jared Goff approached three officials to get an explanation for why the Lions didn’t get one final play after his touchdown, scored on a lateral from Amon-Ra St. Brown, was nullified by an offensive pass interference penalty with no time on the clock, then made the slow walk to the locker room.
Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell talks to referee Carl Cheffers after 29-24 loss to Pittsburgh Steelers at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.
JEFF SEIDEL: It’s mourning in Detroit, as Lions 2025 playoff hopes on life support
“I don’t even want to get into it,” coach Dan Campbell said. “Because it’s not going to change anything, we still lost. I mean, look, you think you score, you don’t score. And then you think you’re going to have another play, replay it or back it up, one more shot, and it doesn’t. And that’s just, I guess that’s the way it’s written in the rulebook. So that’s frustrating. But there again, it should never come to that. We had our opportunities. We weren’t able to put it in before that play.”
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The Lions played one of their most uninspiring games of the season Sunday, Dec. 21, on a day they could least afford that kind of performance.
They had 15 yards rushing – their fewest in a game not just in the Campbell era, but since November 2016. They allowed three 45-yard plays – two rushing touchdowns and a passing TD – plus a sack for a safety. And when they couldn’t finish their captivating final drive with points, they fell to 8-7 – and the brink of playoff elimination one season after setting a franchise record with 15 victories.
Pittsburgh Steelers players react to a missed catch from Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff (16) to wide receiver Isaac Teslaa (18) at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.
THE PLAY: Were Lions robbed by refs on wacky final play vs Steelers? You decide
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The Lions have a 8% chance to make the postseason, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. They need to win their final two games – at the Minnesota Vikings on Thursday ( and at the Chicago Bears in Week 18 – and have the Green Bay Packers (9-5-1) lose their final two games – against the Baltimore Ravens and at the Vikings – to earn the NFC’s final wild-card spot.
Anything short of that and they’ll be spending the playoffs at home for the first time since 2022.
“We know the percentages and what not,” Goff said. “We know we’re not eliminated but we need some things to go our way. [We’re going to] find out who we are, see if we can win these last two and see if we can get in. And we’ll be dangerous if we can, just that’s the hard part.”
The Steelers (9-6) took a 12-point lead on Jaylen Warren’s second 45-yard touchdown run with 6:41 to play and had a chance to put the game away when they started their final possession at their own 34 with 4:11 left.
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Twice, the Steelers ran out of bounds on first-down plays to stop the clock; that was followed by oft-reliable kicker Chris Boswell missing a chip-shot 37-yard field goal off the right post with 2:05 left, leaving the Lions enough time for a dramatic finish.
After converting a fourth-and-2 on a defensive pass interference penalty and picking up another 15 yards on a tripping penalty that negated a sack, the Lions had first-and-goal from the Pittsburgh 1 with 25 seconds left when they marched backwards down the field.
First up, rookie receiver Isaac TeSlaa was called for an offensive pass interference penalty that negatived a St. Brown touchdown on first-and-goal, after lowering his left shoulder and running into safety Kyle Dugger on a rub route.
A false start penalty on Kingsley Eguakun, making his first career start in place of injured center Graham Glasgow, left the Lions in first-and-goal from the 16, and after a short completion from Goff to Jahmyr Gibbs and an incomplete pass to Jameson Williams, TeSlaa couldn’t come up with a jump ball in the back of the end zone.
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That left the Lions with one final play on fourth-and-goal from the 9.
St. Brown lined up slot left and ran full speed into Steelers safety Jalen Ramsey, knocking Ramsey off balance in the end zone. Goff, meanwhile, fired a pass to St. Brown on the goal line as two officials threw flags, and cornerback Joey Porter Jr. met St. Brown on the catch and tried to wrestle him to the ground.
A split-second before his arm hit the ground, St. Brown tossed the ball to an unsuspecting Goff, who caught it and leaped into the end zone for what appeared to be a touchdown.
Officials huddled for more than two minutes to discuss the play before referee Carl Cheffers announced Goff had scored a touchdown but that the play was overturned by an offensive pass interference penalty and the game was over.
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“It is a pretty complex play,” Cheffers said in a pool report. “We had the original player who had the ball, lose possession of the ball. So, we had to decide if that was a fumble or a backwards pass because of course we have restrictions on the recovery of a fumble inside of 2 minutes.
“We ruled that it was a backward pass, so the recovering player was able to advance it and that recovering player advanced it for a touchdown. We had to rule on that and then because of the offensive pass interference, it negates the touchdown. Because it is an offensive foul, we do not extend the half. Therefore, there is no score and there is no replay of the down. That’s the way the rule is written.”
Detroit Lions head coach Dan Campbell talks to referee Carl Cheffers after losing 29-24 to the Pittsburgh Steelers at Ford Field in Detroit on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025.
Campbell, Goff and St. Brown all said they weren’t aware of the rule, though none disputed St. Brown’s penalty. Goff took more umbrage with TeSlaa’s pass interference penalty, which he described as “a bad call.”
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“Those guys have a hard job and I don’t want to make any excuses or anything like that,” Goff said. “We’ve been on the right side of a lot of these, we’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of these. I think a few plays prior, the one on TeSlaa was a little bit more, in my head, up for interpretation. But listen, man, they got to make the calls and I promise you, if I was sitting on the other side of that right now, we’d be saying great job. But those sting for sure and you wish they weren’t called, but so be it.”
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said he knew “the whole time” officials were discussing the final play that his team had won the game, as suspenseful as it was.
“It’s this time of year, man,” he said. “That’s why I love it. If you’re a competitor, you run to this stuff. I think we’ve got a collection of competitors.”
Warren ran for 143 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, and the Steelers outrushed the Lions, 230 yards to 15.
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The Lions had one run in the second half, and seven of their 12 rushing plays went for negative or no yards.
Goff finished 34-for-53 for 364 yards and three touchdowns for an offense which struggled for most of the first three quarters.
“We’re big boys in this league,” Campbell said. “You pull your pants up and you go to work. And you can’t feel sorry for yourself. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t sting, it doesn’t feel bad. But we have nobody to blame but ourselves. It’s on us, and it’s also on us to finish. We’ve got two to go.”
Dave Birkett covers the Lions for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Bluesky, X and Instagram at @davebirkett.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Lions stoic after devastating finish vs Pittsburgh Steelers