Detroit Lions’ path to Super Bowl will go through San Francisco

ALLEN PARK — The Detroit Lions’ path to the Super Bowl will go through San Francisco.

The top-seeded 49ers stormed back to beat the seventh-seeded Green Bay Packers 24-21 on Saturday night, clinching their spot in the NFC championship game. They’ll host the winner of Detroit and Tampa Bay, who square off in a divisional game on Sunday afternoon at Ford Field.

The Lions have enjoyed a tremendous home-field advance this season, and the noise reached record levels for their wild-card win against the Los Angeles Rams last weekend. They would have hosted the NFC championship game too had Green Bay prevailed on Saturday night, and the Packers led for most of the evening. But rookie kicker Anders Carlson missed a 41-yard field goal wide left in the fourth quarter, then the 49ers responded with a 12-play, 69-yard drive that was capped by a 6-yard touchdown by Christian McCaffrey with 1:07 remaining in the game.

With that, the Lions are set to host their final game of the season against Tampa. If they prevail in that game, they’ll head to San Francisco for a play-in game to the Super Bowl.

The Lions haven’t faced the 49ers since giving them all they could handle in the first game of the Dan Campbell regime in 2021, storming back from a 41-17 deficit in the final two minutes to pull within 41-33, before finally bowing out on a fourth-and-9 misfire from Jared Goff at San Francisco’s 24-yard line.

Of course, a whole lot has changed since. Only 18 players who saw a snap in that game for Detroit are currently on the 53-man roster — a total rebuild that has now propelled the Lions to their first playoff win in 32 years. Win a second straight playoff game for the first time since 1957, and Detroit will be headed to San Francisco, with a trip to Las Vegas at stake.