The 49ers Showed The Power Of Championship Seasoning

I watched the great NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions, which San Francisco won 34-31, with complete fascination. By the end of the game, two numbers stood out to me as the most instructive of all: 77 and seven.

Those are the number of Championship games played by members of each side. To be precise, San Francisco players had played in 77 Championships and Detroit players in seven. And while I know that numbers and statistics don’t actually play the game — that’s still up to the players — the power of having been there before served the 49ers very well.

In Sunday’s game in San Francisco, the inspired and inspirational Lions went to work immediately and, drawing on their coach Dan Campbell’s aggressive, kneecap-gnawing ways, seemed to push the 49ers all over the field. In the first half, the Lions scored three touchdowns and a field goal to the 49ers lone touchdown. Given the degree of passion surrounding the Lions march to glory this year, there seemed an odd inevitability to their domination over San Francisco as the teams headed for the locker room at halftime.

But San Francisco, a veteran team playing in its fourth NFC Championship Game in five years, saw nothing inevitable about their opponents fast start out of the gate. “We're not going out like this,” Coach Kyle Shanahan told his 49ers team in the locker room. “We've got to be a lot more aggressive here in the second half in everything we do, offensively, defensively, special teams. ...”

San Francisco quarterback Brock Purdy, who threw for 267 yards and a touchdown, captured the professionalism that defined his team’s mindset despite the adversity heaped upon them moments earlier. “No one was rah-rah. No one was freaking out. This is football,” offered Purdy after the game. “There were a lot of veterans who have been in crazy situations. The offense had to move the ball, put up points, convert third downs. The defense had to make some stops…. We kept it simple.”

And when the teams returned to the field, the winds of inevitability began to shift as San Francisco began to make their plays, while Detroit began to drop passes and fail to make their plays. Down 17 points at halftime, San Francisco proceeded to scored 17 unanswered points to tie the game and then another 10 in the fourth quarter to take a commanding lead. Detroit never threw in the towel and managed to score a late touchdown and extra point to come within three points of drawing even with San Francisco. But in the end, it was the vastly more Championship-seasoned team that hung on to finish the job by closing out the game and booking a date to play Kansas City in the Super Bowl in February.

There was no grand narrative being played out at Levi's Stadium but rather a textbook case of a great team course-correcting and making adjustments when things were going sideways. Tighter defensive coverage of receivers and more pressure on Lions quarterback Jared Goff. Better blocking by the offensive line. More committed running from Christian McCaffrey. While pass after pass bounced off of the Lions receivers’ hands, helmets and shoulders, 49er receivers Deebo Samuel and Brandon Aiyuk held on to their passes.

We wrote about Detroit’s coach Campbell here, but I feel confident we’ll see more of him and his Lions in years to come because I think they will learn something from the loss. One of my all-time favorite coaches, the late Bobby Bowden of Florida State, once said, “The four stages of coaching are first, you lose big; then you lose small; then you win small; and then you win big.”

I won’t quibble about whether this loss was big or little for Campbell, but I do believe he will come back stronger next time because he is a leader, and a leader understands that while we all want to get where we’re going fast, there is a process to excellence that takes more time. Next time, rather than try (and fail) to go for a first down on fourth-and-three in the fourth quarter, he may choose to attempt the field goal that would tie the game and, perhaps, halt his opponent’s momentum. There are other “what-if” decisions and plays Coach Campbell and his team will study and learn from.

But I hope the Lions don’t lose sight of the fact that next year, rather than having seven players with Championship game experience, the team will likely field dozens who will know that big games are rarely, if ever, put away by or against great teams after just two quarters.

And they’ll be ready.