In 1957, two professional football teams met for a playoff game in northern California. Just like this year, it pitted the San Francisco 49ers against the Detroit Lions. Just like this year, a berth in the league championship was at stake. Just like this year, the home juggernaut was favored.
This was 1957: San Francisco dominated early, taking a 24–7 lead into halftime. Detroit rallied, scoring three touchdowns (plus one field goal) and limiting the Niners to three second-half points. The Lions won, 31–27 (Detroit’s last road playoff victory), en route to the franchise’s fourth and most recent pro football championship.
This was 2024: Detroit dominated early, taking a 24–7 lead into halftime. San Francisco rallied, scoring three touchdowns (plus two field goals) and limiting the Lions to seven second-half points that came far too late. The Niners won, 34–31, en route to … well, they’ll find out soon enough.
Maybe the reverse symmetry on this Sunday, some 66 years later, marked no more than coincidence. Or maybe it signaled what’s upcoming. But in a game so rich with history, and so rife with historical implications, the hosts might as well have placed textbooks next to programs. Whatever happened figured to be memorable, either way.
Memorable, in this instance, marked a zero-sum exercise for two franchises who reside at opposite extremes on the spectrum of professional football success: the 49ers, tied for the third-most championships with five, and the Lions, one of four teams to never make a Super Bowl. One could upend decades of recent disappointment. Both would give themselves a chance to triumph in the game that matters most, whether vying for their sixth title—to tie the Pittsburgh Steelers and New England Patriots for the most ever—or their first.
The ‘who’ changed dramatically over the course of Sunday afternoon, as disaster led to silence until euphoria threatened to rupture eardrums. Niners fans near tears cursed at Journey’s halftime show, when “Don’t Stop Believin’” played less like an anthem of hope and more like a mocking soundtrack to another conference title game defeat. But not so later Sunday night, after the sun dropped, Detroit withered and San Francisco pounced.
There stood Joe Montana atop a stage, holding the George Halas Trophy in both legendary hands. Smoke swirled. Fireworks exploded overhead. Confetti fell in sheets like rain had a week earlier. The largest comeback in conference championship history had just unfolded, and while owner Jed York thanked The Faithful, his coach, Kyle Shanahan, could only shake his head.
“We played as bad in the first half as we could,” he said.
Nobody ever said it would be easy. And nobody knows that better than Shanahan, the coach who has guided one of the NFL’s most complete rosters for the past several seasons, his brain among the most gifted to ever scribble plays onto a whiteboard. And, still, not a Super Bowl champion as a head coach.
Not yet.
