SAD NEWS: A HEAD COACH FOR DETROIT LIONS ABOUT TO MAKE A MOVE TO

DETROIT — The roar was primal. It was visceral. It was generational. It felt like it couldn’t get louder, and then it did. It felt like it couldn’t last, and then it never waned. It rattled the beams of Ford Field and poured out of television sets across the country.

It was loud, of course. More than 66,000 screaming Detroit Lions fans inside a roofed stadium downtown. That doesn’t count the millions more in crowded bars or living room watch parties or even alone, pacing in nervous panic, at least until head coach Dan Campbell called for victory formation, the scoreboard secure at Lions 24, Rams 23.

But this was about more than traditional crowd noise — whether designed to distract or celebrate — because this was more than just an NFL wild-card game. It was the roar that some waited 32 seasons to deliver while surely many others had lost hope that it would ever arrive.

It came from the depths of so many lost seasons and so many lost chances; lost chances at what they were now, at last, experiencing. So often across the decades, it didn’t even feel like Detroit had an NFL team, at least not in anything but a supporting role.

They hadn’t won a playoff game since the 1991 season, hadn’t hosted since 1993. Prior to that, no postseason victories since 1957. Instead, they had winless campaigns and Millen Man Marches and ridiculous moments, such as the time a player got cut and stole the luggage of his replacement or the time an assistant coach was arrested for being drunk and naked in the Wendy’s drive-through.

That was the Lions, a punchless recurring punch line, a constant reminder of failure in a city that desperately wants to be seen for what it is becoming, not what it once was.

All the while, Lions supporters had to watch other fans in other communities, even expansion franchises and bandwagon supporters, enjoy the thrill of professional football.

These magical January nights, these playoff runs, have a way of galvanizing communities. They transcend city and suburb, boss and employee. They bridge races and religions and political persuasions.

They cause old friends to text and new ones to be made. They connect those who moved away with a sense of home. They bring parents and kids, no matter the age, in front of the same screen.

In Detroit, they almost never had that. They seemingly talked only about next year’s draft.

So on Sunday, from the pregame “Jared Goff” chants to the third-down explosions to that final frenzy that they almost couldn’t believe, these fans just seemed to get louder and louder, deafening and then more deafening after that.