All right, make all the jokes you want.
The Detroit Lions won’t go 0-17!
The Lions didn’t lose a game!
The Lions still haven’t won in Pittsburgh since the Eisenhower administration!
But here’s the thing. No team in the NFL is laughing at the Lions after Sunday. No fan base outside of Detroit thinks they’re a joke.
LIONS GRADES: D’Andre Swift, OL get high marks
LIONS INSIDER: Why the Lions look much better after the bye
JEFF SEIDEL: Even a tie is progress for the Lions, especially with a functional running game
Not after the Lions went into Heinz Field and gashed the Steelers for a season-high 229 rushing yards. Not after they held a 16-13 lead in the fourth quarter. Not after they stopped Pittsburgh’s four-game winning streak.
Of course it’s easy to laugh, isn’t it? Especially when the only alternative for Lions fans over the past 60 years has been crying.
But don’t let what the Lions did in Sunday’s 16-16 tie against the Steelers be forgotten, washed away like tears in the rain.
Because a lot of good things came out of this game. Chiefly, they took advantage of the bye week, regrouped after a deflating 44-6 loss at home to the Philadelphia Eagles that had everyone questioning everything — but mostly whether they were on the right path under this new regime — about the Lions.
Well, you can’t question that now. Coach Dan Campbell answered any misgivings about whether his message and tactics are working; they clearly are.
Just think: If replacement kicker Ryan Santoso doesn’t miss an extra-point attempt, or if he doesn’t skull a wedge from 48 yards in overtime, the Lions win this game against mighty Pittsburgh, which hasn’t had a losing season since 2003. The Steelers do winning the way the Lions do heartbreak.
But I’ll let you in on a little secret. If you listened carefully to both teams’ post-game news conferences, it felt like the Lions won and the Steelers lost. Through their tone and words, coaches and players from each team had markedly different demeanors.
“Just met with the team in there,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said, “and acknowledged the fight but didn’t congratulate them for it.”
That was in stark contrast to how Campbell opened his conference.
“I told the guys I was upset we didn’t win,” Campbell said. “But I was also proud of them because of the fact we put ourselves in a position to win that game in overtime and it didn’t work out.”
CAMPBELL IN CONTROL: Detroit Lions’ Dan Campbell takes over offensive play calling: ‘I don’t think it’s a big deal’
It boils down to perspective. The Steelers are a good team that expects to win and do big things. The Lions are the opposite of that.
All week in Allen Park, reporters asked Lions coaches about the secret to the Steelers’ decades of sustained success, because they’re one of the exceptional franchises in American sports. That’s the reason I lobbied hard for the Lions this year to pry away general manager Kevin Colbert from the Steelers. Instead of hiring a guy who worked for a guy who did it, just hire the guy who did it.
But even without quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who was placed on the COVID-19 reserve list Saturday, the Steelers remain a good team and were favorites at home against an 0-8 team. They’re coming off a division title and are near the top of the AFC North again this year. They know how to win.
Yet, there were our plucky little Lions on Sunday, leading in the fourth quarter and forcing Yinzers to cover their concerned faces with those terrible “Terrible Towels” at Heinz Field.
Sure, the Lions caught a huge break playing against accuracy-challenged Mason Rudolph instead of Roethlisberger. But the Lions have plenty of their own injury concerns. Romeo Okwara, Frank Ragnow and Jeff Okudah are out for the season, three of 12 Lions on injured reserve. You have to use exponents to figure out the depth-chart status of the No. 2 cornerback, plus Jared Goff played with an oblique muscle strain.
“I mean, look, here’s the positive of it is, that’s a good football team,” Campbell said of the tie. “And that’s a winning football team. They’ve done it right for a long time. They play a physical, bully-type brand of football. And we went toe-to-toe with them. And I think that’s what it says.
“So in that regard, I was proud of those guys. And I think you do take something away from that as we were able to go in there. And no, we didn’t win, but we didn’t lose, either. All you can ask for is improvement. We improved. We did.”
If you want to keep making jokes, go right ahead. Sure, the Lions could have won this game. But they also could have lost it several times. A bad coach wouldn’t have had an answer for such a disappointing loss two weeks ago. A bad team without hope wouldn’t have recovered a forced fumble, snatching a victory away from a team used to getting them so often.
So the game officially goes down as a tie. But if you really want to know who won this game, just look in the mirror. Because you may be laughing, but you definitely aren’t crying.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.