Here\u2019s how Detroit Lions can still make playoffs after loss to Steelers<\/a><\/p>\nThe Lions came into the 2025 season saying Super Bowl or bust. Now, it doesn\u2019t even look like they\u2019ll be in the conversation.<\/p>\n
Needing a victory in their final home game of the season, Jared Goff and the Lions offense laid a dud for the majority of the game, managing just 10 points through the first three quarters.<\/p>\n
The Steelers possessed the ball for over 14 of 15 minutes in the third quarter — the only Lions offensive drive went for minus-3 yards and a safety.<\/p>\n
The Lions\u2019 highest-paid offensive players — Jared Goff ($53 million per year), Amon-Ra St. Brown ($30 million per year), and Jameson Williams ($26.6 million per year) — were virtually nonexistent until the fourth quarter, when the offense put together three long drives — two touchdowns and a third touchdown that was twice called back by penalty.<\/p>\n
The Lions scored twice on that final, game-winning drive, but both times it was called back for offensive pass interference. On the final play of the game, Goff hit St. Brown on the 1-yard line, and St. Brown fought to stay up, ultimately pitching the ball back to Goff.<\/p>\n
Goff scored, but St. Brown was called for offensive PI after a long discussion by the officials, and the game ended.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the defense put up a heck of a fight, holding the Steelers to 10 points before that third-quarter safety. Their leader, Aidan Hutchinson, had two sacks. Jack Campbell had 13 tackles and two passes defended.<\/p>\n
But they were on the field far too long in the second half, and they finally broke in the fourth, the the Steelers gashing them for back-to-back 45-yard touchdown runs. Still, they held out long enough to give the offense a chance.<\/p>\n
Playoff race<\/p>\n
Now, the Lions only have one path to the playoffs: If they win their final two games against the Vikings and Bears, and the Packers lose their final two games to the Ravens and Vikings.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s very unlikely, and even if it did happen, the Lions would be the No. 7 seed and have to play the entire postseason on the road.<\/p>\n
Coming off a 15-2 season in which they had the No. 1 seed in the NFC, there\u2019s no other way to view this year than as an epic failure.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DETROIT \u2013 A penalty erased the Detroit Lions\u2019 insane game-winning touchdown on Sunday and all but ensured that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2071],"tags":[26571,146,113,2506,7,147,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-619449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-lions","8":"tag-2025-detroit-lions","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-lions","11":"tag-detroitlions","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-lions","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115762763210111946","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}