The quarterback took the snap, checked off his options, felt the pressure, and lofted a pass to the corner of the end zone, a ball in the air to win it, a ball in the air to gut the Detroit Lions' season opener, a ball in the air to send 65,000 Ford Field fans out the doors screaming about the collapse they had just witnessed.
Except the ball sailed just beyond reach of the well-covered receiver, the 2-point conversion failed, overtime ended, and instead of losing by one, the Lions had just won by the same margin. The whole building exhaled.
And like a glimpse of the tail of the Loch Ness monster, everyone struggled to explain what they’d just seen.
“We made the last play to win it, that's the most important thing” Lions coach Dan Campbell said
after this crazy marathon finally ended, 31-30, Lions over the Saints. “It's good to have the win [and] now you can clean it up, and you don't have the L and have to clean it up.”
Yeah. What he said.
Let’s face it, Lions fans. This was a thing of beauty until it wasn’t, and then, at the end, it was again. The Lions, on opening day of their 2026 season, decided to give the hometown crowd three games for the price of one: the first 36 minutes, the last 24, and overtime. If you paid by the emotion, you got your money’s worth.
But if you were hoping for a smooth-sailing forecast for this year’s team, you went home hungry.
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“The way they come doesn't matter to us,” said quarterback Jared Goff, who looked as relieved as the rest of his teammates to be going home victorious. “Yeah, of course we'd love to keep scoring and win 49-0. … But listen, it's the NFL. This thing's hard.”
It is.
It’s also occasionally, as in the case of Sunday’s game, bonkers.
The first act
Here was an afternoon in which the Lions plowed steadily to a 21-0 lead with just under nine minutes left in the third quarter. At that point, they were Maximus near the end of “Gladiator,” glaring over his vanquished foe.
An hour or so later, they were Apollo Creed at the end of “Rocky," bloodied, dizzy and mumbling, “Ain’t gonna be no rematch.”
What happened in between? Everything. Tyler Shough, the Saints’ second-year quarterback with a last name no one gets right on the first try, came out for the third possession of the third quarter like a punching bag being hung in a dirty gym.
At that point, he’d completed less than half of his passes, had been sacked twice and picked off twice. His previous two drives had ended in an interception and a fumble. He might as well have been wearing one of those T-shirts that says, “Don’t talk to me, I’m having a bad day.”
And then.
And then the kid caught fire. His name is pronounced “Shuck” − and the Lions defense suddenly looked like his oyster. He began with a 47-yard bomb to wide receiver Chris Olave.
Next thing you know, the shucker was Tom Brady.
Shough led the Saints to a touchdown on that drive, a touchdown on the next drive, a field goal on the next drive, and a touchdown on the next. He completed 20 of 28 passes for 252 yards in that stretch. That’s a great game for most NFL quarterbacks. This was in a half!
“When you're able to get more swings at the bat, and they come a lot quicker, you can find a little rhythm, and that's kind of what happened,” said Campbell who, rather than faulting the defense, blamed a string of punt-it away Lions possessions that allowed Shough and the Saints to get their groove.
“We possessed the ball a little bit more in that first half, and then we fizzled on offense," he added. "And so, if I'm going one way or another, I'm like, man, we've got to be more efficient on offense. We kind of spit and sputtered there and then they … had some tempo going.”
Some tempo? They outscored the Lions 24-3 and had a 62-yard field goal attempt to win it in the final seconds of regulation that just missed.
Had that kick gone through, we’d be having quite a different discussion this morning. A ball in the air can change everything.
A second chance
Instead, the attempt failed and the Lions got overtime penance to correct their sins. Offensively, they did, marching 70 yards in 10 plays to take a 31-24 lead on Goff’s 4-yard scoring pass to Amon-Ra St. Brown.
But the defense, particularly the pass defense, which was most people’s concern coming into this season, could not keep Brady – sorry, Shough – from driving New Orleans 80 yards, including a fourth-down conversion to Olave for 20 yards and a whippet 8-yard touchdown pass to tight end Noah Fant.
The crowd held its breath. At that point, the Saints could have kicked an extra point and hoped to eke out the final 94 seconds for a tie. But they went for the two points to win it. No surprise, according to Campbell.
“If I’m [Saints coach Kellen Moore], I’m doing that,” Campbell said. “You’re going for two.”
The Lions defense stiffened. They took away Slough’s first two options, and with the pocket collapsing, all he had was that corner throw to receiver Bryce Lance, a ball in the air that didn’t connect.
“It was a close play,” Shough said afterward. “Was trying to give him a chance, and they made a good play on it. So [it] just sucks.”
Well, not if you’re a Lions fan.
Senses tingling
But if you are, there is reason for both optimism and doubt. On the upside, Jahmyr Gibbs' debut as the bell cow of the Detroit offense could not have gone any better. Detroit worked him and worked him some more: 29 carries for 156 yards and two touchdowns, another five receptions for 30 more yards.
Campbell called it “a very promising Week 1.” He could have been winking when he said it. Gibbs is simply Superman right now. And how great was it to see Sam LaPorta back doing his thing, eight catches for 48 yards? And St. Brown was his usual clutch self, and Goff looked like he just took a shower after last year’s season finale then trotted back out there and picked up where he left off.
Defensively, there was Derrick Barnes, who had a monster game, including a momentum-swinging interception and a huge sack. Barnes is being called upon to do more this year with the shifting cast of the linebackers, and Sunday’s game was a fantastic start.
He not only made history as the first Lions linebacker with two pass defenses, a sack and an interception in one game, he also became the first Lion to ever arrive for a game dressed as Spider-Man.
I’m not making this up. He and his son came to Ford Field in Spider-Man costumes, and took photos together outside the stadium in the signature Spidey poses.
“My wife’s best friend got the costume,” he explained. “I saw the package coming, it was pretty heavy, and it was a Spider-Man suit. So I was like, I know where this is about to go.”
Hey, if he plays that way as Spider-Man, next week he should come dressed as the Incredible Hulk.
Now what?
Which brings us to the Game 2, Thursday night at Buffalo, and the previously mentioned reasons for concern. Let’s be blunt. If Tyler Shough can shred your defense for 410 yards, you shudder to think what Josh Allen might do.
The Lions’ secondary was hit and miss Sunday, and their pass rush, while noisy enough to produce five sacks, didn’t get home when it had to multiple times. Allen will make you pay for that. Rock Ya-Sin has his moments, but I’m not sure Avonte Maddox or Chuck Clark are scaring any quarterbacks from going their way.
And Jamison Williams had a case of slippery fingers Sunday, with multiple pass drops and a botched pitch from Goff. You hope that clears up fast.
But hey, there’s no point in projecting trouble from a squeaky win over a Saints team that was 6-11 last year, any more than saying Michigan barely edging Western Michigan means they’ll get creamed by Oklahoma. (Oops.)
You’ve simply got to play it out.
“Week 1,” Campbell said, “you never know which way it’s gonna go. Just glad we got the W.”
That’s W as is wild, weird, wacky, and wow. A ball in the air? A game on the line? A sold-out crowd on its feet? Tell me it’s not fun to have our football team back in action.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on X.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Mitch Albom: Lions' zany win a classic Week 1 moment. It can't be their normal
