What's next for the Lions after the Commanders crushed their dream season into dust?

In the end, losing more than half their starting defense was a wound from which the Detroit Lions could not recover.

The Lions had some of the league’s worst injury luck, losing starters like Aidan Hutchinson, Alim McNeill, Carlton Davis and Alex Anzalone in stretches throughout 2024. By the time the fourth quarter rolled around of their 45-31 loss to the Washington Commanders in the Divisional Round of the 2025 NFL Playoffs, nearly 60 percent of their opening day two-deep was unavailable.

This created mistakes on both sides of the ball. Detroit took a spirit-crushing 12 men on the field penalty as Washington lined up for fourth-and-goal where a stop would have given the Lions all the momentum they needed in front of a raucous home crowd. This forced Jared Goff to try and level up his game playing from behind — a gunslinging operation that led to a pick-six and an end zone interception that took points off the scoreboard for Detroit and padded the Commanders’ lead. When Jameson Williams was asked to pick up the slack with a trick play, it went about as poorly as it could have.

The Lions couldn’t generate pressure when they needed it most and Jayden Daniels had all the time he needed to thrive. It didn’t matter how good Detroit’s coverage was when Daniels was launching rainbows like this.

This leaves a devastated Detroit to pick up the pieces after having their Super Bowl dreams dashed for the second straight January. What happens now?