The final 30 seconds of Sunday’s Lions-Steelers clash delivered one of the wildest finishes of the NFL season - and for Detroit, one of the most frustrating. Two potential game-winning touchdowns were wiped off the board by back-to-back offensive pass interference penalties, and just like that, a comeback turned into heartbreak. The Steelers held on for a 29-24 win, while the Lions were left to wrestle with what could’ve been.
Let’s break it down: With the Lions trailing and time running out, Jared Goff hit Amon-Ra St. Brown for what looked like a clutch one-yard touchdown.
But the celebration was short-lived - a flag came flying in. The call?
Offensive pass interference on rookie Isaac TeSlaa, who was ruled to have created space illegally. Touchdown off the board.
Detroit regrouped and went back to St. Brown again with just eight seconds left.
This time, he was stopped short of the goal line, but in a heads-up move, he lateraled the ball back to Goff, who scrambled in for what appeared to be the go-ahead score. Again, a flag.
Again, offensive pass interference - this time on St. Brown himself.
Two touchdowns, two penalties, and zero points.
Controversial? Absolutely.
One of the craziest finishes you will ever see in your life pic.twitter.com/j9znGOQmdq
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) December 22, 2025
But what stood out just as much as the chaos on the field was how the Lions handled the aftermath. Head coach Dan Campbell and quarterback Jared Goff didn’t point fingers at the officiating crew.
They looked inward.
“We weren’t able to close it out,” Campbell said postgame. “And at the end of the day, that’s on us. We’re the ones who put ourselves in that position to where we had to try to score on the last play.”
That’s classic Campbell - accountability over excuses. He acknowledged the sting of the loss, but made it clear the Lions aren’t interested in playing the blame game.
“It doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel bad,” he said. “But we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
It’s on us. And it’s also on us to finish.
We’ve got two to go.”
Goff echoed that mindset. While he admitted he thought the first OPI call on TeSlaa was “bad,” he wasn’t about to let the officiating become the story.
“The officials have a hard job,” Goff said. “I don’t want to make any excuses.
We’ve been on the right side of a lot of these, and we’ve been on the wrong side of a lot of these.”
That’s a quarterback who’s been around the block. Goff knows how these things go - sometimes the calls help you, sometimes they hurt.
“I promise you if I was sitting on the other side of that right now, we’d be saying, ‘Great job,’” he added. “But those sting for sure, and you wish they weren’t called.
But so be it.”
The loss doesn’t just sting emotionally - it hits hard in the standings too. The Lions now find themselves sitting eighth in the NFC, just outside the playoff picture.
According to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, Detroit’s postseason hopes have dwindled to just 8%. In a conference that’s been tight all year, this one could be the turning point that ends their playoff push.
Still, if there’s any silver lining for Detroit, it’s in the way their leaders responded. No panic.
No finger-pointing. Just a clear message: We own this.
And with two games left, they’re not mathematically out of it yet. But the margin for error?
It’s gone.
Sunday was a gut punch - no doubt about it. But for a team that’s been building a culture of toughness and accountability under Campbell, how they respond in the next two weeks might say even more than how they finished this one.