It was chaos and confusion down to the wire. In the end, it was a devastating defeat for the Lions, whose season is hanging by a thread after a 29-24 loss to the Steelers that came down to two called-back touchdowns for Detroit in the final seconds of the game.
The Lions appeared to have won the game in impossible fashion when Amon-Ra St. Brown caught a pass on fourth and goal just shy of the goal line, then flipped the ball to Jared Goff as he was being tackled, allowing Goff to hurl himself into the end zone as time expired. After a lengthy review inside an anxious Ford Field, the officials announced that while the play did indeed result in a touchdown, they had called offensive pass interference on St. Brown, wiping out the touchdown and ending the game.
"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," said Dan Campbell. "And it doesn’t (work like that). 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."
The Lions had another potential game-winning touchdown called back four plays before that on first and goal from the 1-yard line on another offensive pass interference call, this one on Isaac TeSlaa for a rub route that helped free up St. Brown for an easy catch in the end zone with 25 seconds to go. That's the call that seemed to bother the Lions the most after a loss that all but ended their season.
Goff initially said the call was "up to interpretation" before circling back later and saying, "In my opinion, that's a bad call."
"But listen, man, they’ve got to make the calls, and I promise you if I were sitting on the other side of that right now, we'd be saying, 'Great (call),'" said Goff. "Those sting for sure, and you wish they weren’t called. So be it."
St. Brown refused to point his finger at the refs. While initially confused by how the game ended and why the Lions didn't get another opportunity after the final offensive pass interference call, St. Brown said he "needed some explanation and I got it." As lead official Carl Cheffers explained in a pool report, "because it is an offensive foul" that erased the touchdown, "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."
Asked if he felt like Steelers defensive back Jalen Ramsey sold the offensive pass interference call when St. Brown pushed him at the goal line to create some separation, St. Brown said that he hadn't really seen the replay and then pointed out that the Lions were the beneficiaries of a pass interference call against the Steelers on a fourth down throw to Jameson Williams that extended the game earlier on the drive.
"I mean, look, we got a PI on them — Jamo did on that drive — so we got a call, they got a call. If we don’t get that PI on Jamo, the drive’s over, some might say that. At the end of the day, the refs have a job to do, and they’re trying their best to do it, and we have a job as players to go out there and make plays. And we didn’t make enough plays today," said St. Brown.
The loss leaves the Lions gasping for air in the playoff race. After dropping back-to-back games under Dan Campbell for the first time in three years, Detroit's only hope of making the playoffs is winning its last two games and the Packers losing their last two.
It was an ugly day all around for the Lions, but especially for a defense that was gouged on the ground for the second week in a row. The Steelers came into Ford Field with a banged-up offensive line and ran for 230 yards and 8.5 yards per carry, including two 45-yard touchdowns in the fourth quarter. And the Lions couldn't run it at all. They totaled 15 yards on 12 carries, their lowest output in nine years.
Aidan Hutchinson, who had two sacks in the first half, said after the game that he was still grappling with the bizarre ending: "There's an argument for, you can blame the refs. There’s an argument for, defensively, we didn’t even have to put our offense in that position in the right place."
"There’s two ways you can look at this, but in my opinion, obviously we want to be better in the run game," he said. "We don't want to give up those explosive touchdowns in the second half. That sucked. But the intervention I saw from those refs late in that game, I’ve never seen two offensive PI’s to lose a game like that.
"I don't know. I'm sure there will be discussion between the NFL and this game to validate or deny the calls. It sucks because there’s no changing it. I can bitch here all I want about the call, but the fact is, it’s the result. As a player and as a team, the only thing you can do is fix your mistakes and move on, because lot of that stuff is out of our control when it comes to the intervention of the refs late in the game for the win. Mixed feelings, I'd say."
St. Brown might have said it best: "Those are the rules, and you can’t change them."
"But it never comes down to one play," he said. "It’s never just because of that play. There was plenty of plays throughout that game that we could have made. We had calls go our way, too, throughout that last drive, so it goes both ways," said St. Brown. "We just have to execute better."