When was the last time the Lions reached the NFC Championship game?

On Sunday the the Lions will go on the road to face one of the giants of the conference. Facing a historic moment and a tough opponent, the team is now just one step away from the Super Bowl. Can they make it?

The Detroit Lions so far

If you missed it, the Detroit Lions put down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-23 in the Divisional Round last weekend, and as a result of that victory now find themselves in the NFC championship game. Of course, it’s not like this is truly surprising when considering the fact that the Lions came into the postseason on the back of a 12-5 finish, a record that was good enough to clinch the NFC North title. As we look ahead to Sunday’s game, we’re almost assured to have a tight game. On one side, we’ve got a team that has been playing very good football, however, has only played at Ford Field in Detroit during the playoffs so far. Now on the road for the first time in the postseason, the Lions will face a defense that is more than good enough to get to quarterback Jared Goff, and that’s before we touch on the Niners’ own man under center, Brock Purdy. The man they called ‘Mr. Irrelevant’ has been in scintillating form this season and we don’t expect that to change this Sunday.

So, when was the last time the Lions were in the Conference championship game?

Believe it or not, you’d have to go all the way back to January 12th, 1992, for the last time that the Lions were in the NFC championship game, some 31 seasons ago. On that day the Lions faced the then-Washington Redskins and were thoroughly beaten 41-10 by the team that would go on to win the Super Bowl. As you can imagine quite a lot happened between then and now. Indeed, for the purpose of perspective we thought it a good idea to go through a few of those curiosities.

Starting with music, it was the year that the late Michael Jackson’s classic “Black or White” was the No. 1 song on the Billboard in the U.S.A., while Eric Clapton’s moving ballad, “Tears in Heaven” would win song of the year at the Grammy Awards. Where cinema is concerned, the chilling story of a serial killer would win best picture at the Academy Awards. Indeed, “Silence of the Lambs” and its spectacular performances would disturb audiences en masse, with both Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster winning Best Actor and Actress respectively for their roles in the film. Yet, perhaps the best factoid to note is that back when the Lions last played in the Conference championship game, you couldn’t text your friends about it as text messaging didn’t become widely available until December of 1992, not to mention google which wasn’t invented for another six years. Yet, perhaps funniest of all is the fact that the large majority of the Lions’ current roster was not even born the last time the team was at this stage. From Jared Goff and Amon-Ra St. Brown, to Sam LaPorta and Jahmyr Gibbs, many of the players weren’t even a thought yet. This is all to say that it’s clearly been quite a while since the Lions last got this far. With that in mind, we imagine they will be itching to go one step further than they did last time.