DETROIT — Derrick Barnes sat at his locker to finish another interview as the room cleared out, leaving only boxes of equipment and a platter of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. His phone rested on the top shelf, face down, as text messages and notifications rattled across the screen.
“Shoot, I haven’t even checked it,” he said before grabbing his phone and scrolling through the dozens of notifications. His eyes lit up.
“And this is just in the last 20 minutes, too,” he said.
Rewind to three years ago, when Barnes was a fourth-round pick out of Purdue and Dan Campbell was a first-year head coach with lofty dreams of turning around the crummy Detroit Lions. Barnes was “a late bloomer,” Campbell said Sunday. The college running back spent his first seasons in Detroit finding his footing as a linebacker, seeking confidence, searching for his role on an evolving defense.
It wasn’t until last summer that Barnes seemed to gain a footing. And it all came together Sunday in a surreal moment not even he could fully explain.
In the final two minutes of an offensive duel between the Lions and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Barnes came up with the game-sealing interception, inciting an earsplitting roar from the crowd of 66,201 at Ford Field. His play — a leaping grab like a third baseman snagging a line drive — handed the Lions a 31-23 victory, their first divisional-round win in 32 years, and put them one win from the Super Bowl.
“It’s a dream come true to me,” Barnes said, still grinning ear to ear as a swarm of reporters crowded his locker. “You see where we started at [three] years ago with Dan. Everybody believed in Dan — what he was going to build, what he had an eye for.”
It’s fitting, really: The young linebacker, once uncertain of his future but finding his way with a little trust, a little coaching and plenty of work, sealed a victory more than three decades in the making for a city built in a similar mold.
NFC divisional playoff game
“Here, man, it’s harsh winters, auto industry, blue collar,” Campbell said. “… And I just think that’s what we’re about. You want something the city can be proud of. … I feel like these guys, they have a kinship with this city and this area.”
Also fitting: Three years to the day before Sunday’s game, Campbell proclaimed at his introductory news conference that his team would “take on the identity of this city” and “scratch and claw” and bite off kneecaps to become a competitive, resilient group.
Detroit’s win over the Buccaneers was a scratch-and-claw effort, led by quarterback Jared Goff. His career revival came full circle in the first round, when he led the Lions past his former team, the Los Angeles Rams. It hit another level Sunday when he overcame a dull first half and guided the Lions to three consecutive touchdowns in the final two quarters before the defense took the spotlight.
Seven of the Lions’ 10 longest plays came in the second half as Goff began to air it out and the running game came alive.
Throughout the week, the focus in Detroit was on a Bucs defense that had rattled Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts a week earlier and was known to dial up blitzes. Yet Sunday, it was Detroit’s defense that had two interceptions to bookend its victory.
“We got dogs on our side of the ball, too,” Barnes said.
The Lions’ offensive line, a stalwart throughout the season, lost guard Jonah Jackson to a knee injury early Sunday. Center Frank Ragnow — the anchor of the front five — got rolled up on a sack of Goff with just under two minutes left in the first half. But he didn’t miss a snap and had a key block to help running back Craig Reynolds into the end zone on fourth and one in the third quarter.
“The dude’s just a warrior, man,” left tackle Taylor Decker said, choking up while thinking of Ragnow. “And he’s been through it. He’s been through it personally; he’s been through it with us as a team. … It seems like he’s just always fighting through pain all the time. I don’t want to speak for him, but I feel like a little bit of him is paranoid to not be out there with us because we’ve been through so much together.”
That Reynolds and Barnes, reserves who arrived in Detroit in 2021 and worked their way onto the roster, starred in a historic victory only validates Campbell’s methods. They arrived with intention, not by happenstance, and found their way to starring roles at a critical moment.
Like so many others on the Lions’ roster, they bought in to a vision that initially seemed more like a pipe dream.
“I feel like when you were on the Lions in previous years, when I got here, you’d tell your friends you’re on the Lions and: ‘Oh, you guys aren’t no good. You guys aren’t going to do anything,’ ” receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown said. “Everyone on this team, I’m sure someone has told them that. … We know what the perception is of being on the Detroit Lions, but we feel like we have a chance to change things not just for this year but for years to come.”
Aidan Hutchinson, a Michigan native and the No. 2 draft pick in 2022, understood it more than most. He was once one of those fans at Ford Field, watching his team toil in futility. Sunday evening, as teammates celebrated at midfield, Hutchinson stood on the sideline with eye black smeared across his cheek, canvassing the crowd and taking in the magnitude of the moment.
Campbell’s vision had become reality, but these Lions aren’t done yet.
“I envisioned that we would have a chance to compete with the big boys, and that’s where we’re at,” Campbell said, his face still red from the excitement. “I’m exhausted, and I didn’t even play.”