“Winning isn’t everything — but wanting to win is.” — Vince Lombardi

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” — Phil Jackson

Here we are again, and I can’t believe it.

The Lions begin their playoff run tonight against the Washington Commanders as a 15-2 team, the winningest Lions squad in franchise history. They went perfect on the road, only the 11th team in NFL history to do so.

They begin with the No. 1 seed, meaning they got a bye in the first round of the playoffs, the first time a Lions team has accomplished that feat.

The Lions begin as the NFC North champions for the second year in a row, another first.

And the Lions are the odds-on favorite to not only make it to the Super Bowl — which would be yet another first — but to win the big game.

It’s the first time since the Lions were so dangerous before Super Bowl I that my heroes in Honolulu blue have so much hype surrounding them. Not even in the great Barry Sanders era of my young childhood was Detroit so threatening.

The great knee-biter, Coach Dan Campbell, seems to have obliterated the curse of Bobby Layne.

It makes me nervous.

I thought we had it last year.

Last year, we’d pieced together this miraculous squad that dominated on both sides of the ball. We had so many weapons on offense, an impenetrable offensive front, and a sac machine on defense.

We made it to the NFC Championship against San Francisco. We were up by 17 points at the half and it seemed like we’d cruise to the Super Bowl for the first time since the great football gods created that marvelous game.

Then we blew it. San Francisco ate up our 17-point lead, beginning with a 51-yard bomb and a miracle catch that turned the tide, and our dreams died.

And, as we host Washington tonight to begin what could be our first league championship title, I can’t help but remember that it was Washington that clobbered Detroit in the 1992 NFC Championship, marking the beginning of the end of the great Sanders era and kicking off a decades-long playoff drought.

So I’m nervous.

But I’m hopeful.

These Lions are different, better even than the Sanders squad. We have a savvier front office that knows how to pick winners and a better coach who knows how to make winners out of mediocre players.

We’ve accomplished everything we’ve accomplished this year despite having the most injured defense in the league, without our defensive leader Alex Anzalone and without our terrifying sac leader Aiden Hutchinson. We earned the No. 1 seed by drumming Minnesota in week 18 without one half of our unmatched running back combo.

Somehow, we just keep finding ways to win.

A lot of that, I think, has to do with the fact that we don’t crumble under adversity. We don’t panic. We don’t let the hiccups tear us down, as we have in the past. Quarterback Jared Goff threw five interceptions against Houston earlier this year, arguably his worst game of the season, and we still managed to send the Texans weeping into the Gulf of Mexico.

That comes from good coaching.

So I’m hopeful.

And, no matter what happens tonight or, Lord willing, in the NFC Championship, these Lions have been so much fun to watch.

They’ve given new hope to an entire state — and much of the nation.

And that’s the best part.

At the end of the day, sports doesn’t matter much. It’s a game. It’s a TV show. It’s entertainment.

The Lions winning the Super Bowl would spur some serious economic activity as Michiganders buy plane tickets and book hotels and head to bars, but the team can’t bring down inflation. It can’t make Washington or Lansing work and it can’t end racism or sexism or homophobia. Dan Campbell can’t bring the hostages home out of Gaza or make Vladimir Putin pull out of Ukraine.

But the winningest Lions in Detroit history can give us something to root for and pull us together at least for a few hours once a week, and that can make all that other stuff disappear at least while Goff’s got the ball in his hands.

You see it all over the place. The Alpena County Sheriff’s Office joined several other police agencies around the state in allowing its deputies to wear Lions hats on duty. My son’s old elementary school in Battle Creek popped up in my Facebook feed celebrating a “blue out” day as teachers and students all wore their favorite Detroit gear. Politicians from both sides of the political aisle have changed their Facebook profile pics to Lions emblems.

And all across the nation, no matter where Detroit roared into town, you could hear chants rising from the stands: “Jared Goff! Jared Goff! Jared Goff!”

And that means something.

Justin A. Hinkley can be reached at 989-354-3112 or jhinkley@TheAlpenaNews.com. Follow him on X @JustinHinkley.