The Detroit Lions are one of four National Football League franchises to have never had the honor of playing in a Super Bowl (the others are Cleveland, Houston and Jacksonville). A year ago they stopped two quarters away from the dream, in the Conference final against San Francisco, and 2024 seemed like it could be the good year. All the pieces seemed to be in place, from the quarterback to the receivers, from the runners to the defense. However, Detroit’s ambitions may have suffered a serious blow at the beginning of the third quarter of the match against Dallas (which they won 47-9, demonstrating the Lions’ potential), when defensive end Aidan Hutchinson, the 24-year-old native, was injured. of Medeglia. Second overall pick in the 2022 draft, Hutchinson suffered a fractured tibia in his left leg in a game collision with teammate Alim McNeill. Remaining in Dallas, the player immediately underwent surgery, but for him the season was already over. For the Lions this is a very hard blow, as they lose their best pass rusher, who at the time of the injury was at the top of the special rankings with 7.5 sacks. On the attacking side of the line of scrimmage, the human material available to coach Dan Campbell is of undoubted quality (Jared Goff in the control room, the Montgomery-Gibbs duo with ball on the ground, Williams, St. Brown and LaPorta via air) and seems capable of dragging the team to the playoffs and beyond: the defense is equally solid, but someone will have to be able to make people forget the loss of Hutchinson, also because Marcus Davenport, the other starting defensive end, had already ended up in the infirmary. And in modern football, putting pressure on the opposing quarterback is a critically important exercise on the path to team success.
The first test, Sunday on the field of the undefeated Minnesota Vikings…
What else did the sixth day of the championship say? First of all, Baltimore, after the crisis of the first two days, now appears to be the team in better shape. On Sunday he put Washington under, in what was the most captivating challenge of the day. He did it both in the air (323 yards) and on the run (176 yards). The addition of a runner of Derrick Henry’s caliber has given the Ravens’ attack a new dimension. Opposing defenses must focus on Herny’s runs, on the receptions of an electric Zay Flowers, but also on the mobility of the usual Lamar Jackson, with the high possibility of making a wrong reading. Jackson, thanks to his 40 yards rushing against the Commanders, overtook Cam Newton in the special classification (5’631) and became with 5’661 yards the second most prolific quarterback in the running game, behind Michael Vick (6’109 ), whose record, however, risks falling already during this season.
Other? Yes, for example that Washington has proven to be up to the task and that Jayden Daniels is increasingly a candidate for the title of rookie of the year after playing on par with the much more highly regarded Jackson. Or that San Francisco has returned to victory after two consecutive defeats, but while awaiting the return of Christian McCaffrey (he will still have one for another month) it does not appear capable of aiming for the Super Bowl, even more so in light of the recent injury of his replacement McCaffrey, the amazing Jordan Mason. Or that Dallas has packed a poisonous gift for the 82nd birthday of its owner Jerry Jones. The defeat against Detroit is the worst suffered at home in the 35 years of the presidency of the oilman born in California and raised in Arkansas.
Europe is calling
What if one day the Super Bowl was played east of the Atlantic? Moving the bandwagon of the NFL championship final to Europe is not a new idea, it has long piqued the imagination of commissioner Roger Goodell. Whether it is also achievable is another matter entirely. The number one of the National Football League returned to talk about the topic on the occasion of the second English round of the International Games. At the Tottenham Stadium, Goodell confirmed the possibility that one day the Super Bowl will move to Europe, specifying that at the moment it is, in fact, a hypothesis and nothing more. For years the NFL has been pursuing a policy of expansion in other continents, particularly in Europe. England (since 2007) and Germany (since 2022) have already hosted regular season matches, next year it will be Spain’s turn (at the Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid), while in the future the landing on the Emerald Isle is practically certain.
But it’s one thing to talk about regular season games, the Super Bowl is a very different matter. This is the event par excellence and it is by no means a given that US fans will willingly accept a possible move. The cities in which it could be organized are not many and in any case it seems obvious that they are in Europe. London is obviously the overwhelming favourite, despite the doubts linked to the weather conditions.
If the landing in Europe of the final is, as far as possible, far from imminent (the current season will end in New Orleans, the 2025 season in San Francisco and the 2026 season in Los Angeles), the situation is different for the expansion of regular season games. Even more so if the commissioner’s project, intended to structure an 18-game season and only two pre-seasons, comes to fruition. In that case the intention would be to play 16 matches outside the US borders, in Europe as well as in South America (it started last September with São Paulo and in 2025 it should be in Rio) and above all in Asia, where according to Goodell’s interest is growing exponentially. Furthermore, Jacksonville, already committed to London for two games per season, intends to increase the number of trips to the English capital in the coming years in conjunction with the renovation work on the EverBank Stadium.
