This game really tore Packers fans apart. You had guys ready to tar and feather anyone rooting for the Lions because of the NFC North rivalry (???) and you had people, like me, just passively rooting against two weeks of Shanahan worship. I guess it's a rivalry because the Packers and Lions are both in the NFC North, but I didn't even know Lions fans were a real thing until I saw them almost outnumber Packers fans in Lambeau this year in person. What a horrific event. Anyway, the Lions choked, let's talk about it.

Lions

The Lions lost to the 49ers 34-31. 

Game Notes

• Let's start with Jared Goff for our final game notes of the year. He was peak Jared Goff in this one, going 25/41 for 273 yards and a TD. Somehow both efficient and not efficient simultaneously. The usual suspects, La Porta and the Sun God, carried the majority of the load here with the other receivers on the team mostly contributing key drops. 

• We knew going in that the Lions would need to recreate the Packers' strong run game against San Francisco to have a chance. They did early, with a few big runs on the same pin and pull play that sprung Aaron Jones a few times, but Jahmyr Gibbs ended up averaging under 4 YPC and they just couldn't put the game away with the run in the second half. 

• Offensive coordinator Ben Johnson decided to come back to Detroit, after the loss, for another season. It's possible that the team will continue to improve, and Johnson has proven that he has what it takes to run an adaptive modern offense, but you have to wonder if he's pushing it here and Jared Goff will turn into a pumpkin. He says he wants to win a super bowl, but can you get closer than this with Goff as QB?

• Defensively, the Lions were just as bad as we expected and allowed Brock Purdy to manage the biggest ever championship game comeback. The worst thing that could happen for Packers fans this off-season is for Aaron Glenn to get a head coaching job. 

• I guess we have to talk about the fourth down stuff? I'm less mad about it than just about everyone. My personal philosophy, in Madden and while ranting at my wife during Packers games, is that you should play to win the game, which means going for it on fourth down. None of Campbell's decisions were bad according to the analytics (by analytics I mean Ben Baldwin's 4th-down bot - it turns out analytics can mean whatever the hell you want it to mean). Except for the one time he didn't go for it at the end of the first half, but even that is understandable because if you use super analytics it makes sense that you should be more willing to kick a field goal when you can't pin the other team deep in their own territory because there's no time left in the half. All of this said, I don't know if I would've had the intestinal fortitude to go for it all those times in the fourth quarter, but Dan Campbell's whole deal is that he has intestinal fortitude. Is he supposed to stop now and play to not lose because the game is important? Do what got you there. And, the calls didn't work because of poor execution not because it was a poor decision to make them. The main tenent of super duper analytics is to judge by the process not the result. I doubt Dan Campbell was thinking that Josh Reynolds would drop the ball or that Goff would miss Amon Ra by like 12 yards. The process was sound by Dan Campbell standards and if the Lions want to continue being good, they will do it by being aggressive, not by playing not to lose.  

Hope you enjoyed reading about the NFC North this season. Look for off-season North content in this time slot moving forward.