A controversial ending to Sunday’s game at Ford Field left the Detroit Lions locker room nearly empty. Most players exited quickly, while the few who remained searched for answers as their postseason goals continued to fade away.
In their regular-season home finale, the Lions fell 29-24 to the Pittsburgh Steelers, dropping to 8-7 and suffering back-to-back losses for the first time since 2022. According to ESPN, their playoff chances also dropped to 16%.
Lions receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown, who was in the middle of the final drive fracas, did not hide his disappointment when speaking to reporters after the game. With the Lions playing a short week and a Christmas Day game Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings, he shared his mindset, knowing there’s still a small window to make the postseason.
“For us, we just got to, like I said, going into a short week to Minnesota, a divisional game. We know what they did to us last time here in Detroit. We just got to turn the page, obviously correct the mistakes from this game as quickly as we can, and just get ready for Minnesota,” St. Brown said. “That’s the biggest thing. It’s a short week. It’s always hard to get ready in four days and really practice. So, divisional game, it’s always going to be tough, especially playing there. So we got to be ready.”
Lions pass rusher Aidan Hutchinson, who had a solid performance Sunday with two sacks, echoed St. Brown’s tone and acknowledged that the season’s course has taken him and his teammates aback. He specifically noted they have not stacked consecutive wins since October.
“It’s definitely been a little bit of an up and down year just from a team, win-win, lose, win, win. It’s a little bit—yeah, definitely not how we thought this would go,” the Lions defender said. “But I don’t know what the chances are with the playoffs now, but all I know is we’ve got two games left, and we’ve got a game in four days that we’ve got to be ready for. And I know (Lions coach) Dan (Campbell) will have us ready.”
When asked if the short turnaround could help the team quickly shift its focus away from the Lions and on to the Vikings, Hutchinson added, “Good or bad. These Thursday games hit pretty quickly. So I don’t know what the numbers are, but all I know is we got to beat the Vikings.”
Over the past two seasons, the Lions have been in control of their own destiny down the stretch, finishing 12-5 in 2023 and a franchise-best 15-2 in 2024, winning consecutive division titles in the process.
Staring on the outside looking in at the NFC playoff picture, for a brief moment, was a foreign feeling for the organization, one that was pegged as a Super Bowl contender at the beginning of the season.
With two games left and little margin for error, St. Brown shared what he feels lies ahead for him and his teammates as their playoff hopes are now beyond their control.
“It sucks, man. Losing sucks. Not being in control sucks,” St. Brown said. “As you said, I feel like a lot of us have gotten used to being in control. So I mean, it is what it is. We can’t change it. We’re here now. We just got to come together. I mean, at the end of the day, as you said, we don’t really control much. We control our game and what we do on Thursday against Minnesota.
“But for us, man, we want to, whether we make the playoffs or not, we want to finish out strong the right way and play our brand in football. I think that’s the biggest thing. Get back to what we do and just play Lions football.”
