Somehow, the Detroit Lions lost a game after it looked like they clearly won, and they didn’t even get to play the final few seconds to save the victory.

With the Lions at the 1-yard line, Matthew Stafford hit Golden Tate for what looked like the go-ahead touchdown with eight seconds left. As we know, however, all scores get reviewed. And, what do you know, this was close.

As it turned out, Tate was ruled down just inches before he crossed the goal line. The Lions had no timeouts left, and then came the confusing gut punch: There was a 10-second runoff so the game was over.

The Lions’ Twitter feed summed up the finish pretty well:

There was plenty to unpack here. First off, it did not seem conclusive that Tate was down. I’m not sure how the officials overturned it. Then came the runoff. It makes sense that the officials couldn’t just let the Lions have another play with eight seconds left and the clock stopped. Had Tate been ruled down at the 1-yard line initially, the clock would have been running. However, the Lions could have hustled and gotten off a play before time ran out had Tate been ruled down right away. It just seems unfair that the Lions never got another chance to get a snap off.

In any sense, it was a brutal, horrible loss for the Lions. They went from euphoria to confusion and anger in the matter of seconds. It seems like another rule the NFL will have to look at in the offseason.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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