For Taylor Decker, a pair of losses last season were proof that the Lions would start winning. He points to Week 3 when they outplayed the eventual division-champion Vikings on the road but let the game slip away in the final minutes, and Thanksgiving when they went toe to toe with the Super Bowl-contending Bills before falling on a last-second field goal.
"We lost those games, but it didn’t feel like it used to feel. It felt different. Can I verbalize or put into words what exactly it was? Not really, but you just have that feeling in the locker room, like we were making strides and getting small victories. We were just moving in the right direction," Decker said Wednesday.
Then they started getting actual victories, eight in their final 10 games. They capped it off by making a statement at Lambeau on national TV, and sending Aaron Rodgers Packing. After starting last season 1-6, the Lions went into the offseason as a team on the rise, and entered this one, said Decker, with "all these expectations."
"And those expectations are all for naught if you don’t deliver," he said.
They've delivered, alright. And after two home playoff wins, their fans have been delivered from their pain. So has Decker, the Lions' longest-tenured player who admitted this season after his 100th game with the franchise that there were times in Detroit when he was exhausted by his own anger, when he lost his love for the game, and when he wondered whether he'd ever be a winner again.
"Nobody wants to be a loser," said Decker, the team's stalwart left tackle. "I’ve always felt personally like I’m a winner, but I wasn’t, because that’s not what the record said."
Look what the record says now: 14-5 this season, including the playoffs, 24-7 since last November. The only NFC team with more wins over that stretch is the one standing between the Lions and the Super Bowl. Detroit has become America's Team.
For Decker, a first-round pick of the Lions in 2016 who signed an extension with the team in 2020, "it’s just validating of my decision to want to be with this organization for my whole career," he said. Amid a franchise-worst stretch of four straight last-place seasons, Decker signed up for four more years. His contract runs through next season, and he has no plans of leaving when it expires.
"Even when times weren’t good, I wanted to be a part of positive change and I wanted to help do everything I could to get us to the point where we were having success and we were respected, we were able to play in some of these bigger games and have an opportunity in the playoffs. It just makes me glad that I stuck it out and saw it through, basically," he said.
Decker might be proud, but he and the Lions aren't content. They have every intention of going to San Francisco on Sunday and advancing to the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history. It won't be easy against one of the best teams in the NFL, but the Lions wouldn't have it any other way.
"As we advance in these playoffs, the games are going to get harder and harder," Decker said.
The 49ers' front seven, which fueled the NFL's third-ranked scoring defense this season, has "got to be one of the best in the league," said Decker. They have stars all over, from Nick Bosa, Javon Hargrave and Chase Young up front to linebackers Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw. It will be yet another challenge for the Lions' offensive line, which has been the bedrock of their newfound success.
While the Lions saw a barrage of blitzes from the Buccaneers last week, they won't see many on Sunday. The Niners go best-on-best and defy you to stop them. As Dan Campbell put it, their defensive linemen have "their rear up in the air, their face about an inch off the ground and they are just shooting the gaps, penetrating, all out."
"You have a pretty good idea of where they’re going to be at," Campbell said. "They’re just saying they’re better than you and they’re going to play harder than you."
Decker says bring it. He's only been waiting for this moment his entire career.