Don't Let These Tears Fool You
Jamaal Williams goes from tears to burying the Packers in a shallow grave during best postgame interview of the season
Jamaal Williams and the Detroit Lions had a heckuva season. Sure, they were eliminated from playoff contention before kickoff on Sunday night, but it didn’t soften their bite one bit. They showed up at a frigid Lambeau Field with nothing to play for but pride and ran out 20-16 winners, sending Aaron Rodgers to the beach, perhaps for good. The win was their eighth in the last 10. They finished the season 9-8—a better record than Tom Brady’s fourth-seeded Tampa Bay Buccaneers—as Williams capped off a 1,000-yard, 17-touchdown campaign with two more tuddies. It was a storybook ending for the Lions’ whiplash season, one summed up perfectly in the star running back’s now-viral postgame interview, which ebbed from tears to anger to defiance and then back to tears again all in the span of 30 seconds. Watch this and then go run through a wall.
There’s so much packed into this 28 seconds. It’s a vibrant Skittles bag of human emotion, an ultraviolet spectrum of unguarded reaction. It’s a post-vacation suitcase of impulses that, try as you might, can’t be squeezed into the overhead baggage compartment. It’s a Motor City-approved drag race down the highway of the soul. Most of all, though, it’s the perfect embodiment of the Detroit Lions season:
It began in sadness, a 1-6 start that had some wondering if Dan Campbell’s machismo was merely a mirage, and ended with two middle fingers flying high above Green Bay. DON’T LET THESE TEARS FOOL YOU, IT’S ALL DOG AROUND THIS MUG!