It was more than a decade ago — the year 2000, the 1999 National Football League season — since the Lions last participated in the playoffs.

It was a weird game, played under trying circumstances for the Lions.

Unlike this season, the Lions lost their last four games of the 1999 campaign. As such, they backed into the postseason beeping like a golf cart in reverse.

Then the Lions went to Washington to face the Redskins, where they were decidedly thrashed. There were two things that stood out to me about that game.

One was Redskins' quarterback Brad Johnson slamming Lions' Pro Bowl defensive end Robert Porcher to the turf — and doing a muscle-arm impersonation for the crowd afterward. Kind of expected it to be the other way around given the physical stature of the two men. Surreal.

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