The Detroit Lions talk a good game, but once you peel back the kneecap-biting and running up the score against bad teams, they are exposed as the footballing personification of a schoolyard bully.
They can trash-talk with the best of them when they're winning, but crash out the moment they get punched in the nose. Green Bay Packers fans know this already, but a national audience witnessed the Lions' ugly side in the moments after their loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football.
Patrick Mahomes extended his arm to Lions safety Brian Branch for a postgame handshake, but Branch refused. It understandably angered Chiefs receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who confronted Branch, only for the Lions safety to slap him across the face. It was an embarrassing display after a hard-fought but fair contest, but it's true to form for this Lions team.
"They can do all the extracurricular stuff they want to do, but we play the game between the whistles," Mahomes told the NBC broadcast following the game.
Patrick Mahomes needed one quote to expose the Lions reality Packers fans knew all along
Poetically put by the Chiefs' MVP quarterback.
The Lions will run up the score at any opportunity and let you know all about it. The Packers have been on the receiving end.
From an illegal hit that put Zach Tom on the sideline for a month, to Amon-Ra St. Brown arriving at Lambeau wearing a "GreenBay Sucks" hoodie, the Lions have worked hard to erode their "loveable losers" tag and become a team nobody wants to root for.
Xavier McKinney put it best when he said the Lions "try to embarrass people." That's all well and good when you can drop 52 points on the Chicago Bears or 37 on the Cincinnati Bengals.
But you'd better be able to accept defeat. Detroit is 4-2 on the season but has fallen at two heavyweight hurdles — 27-13 and 30-17 at the hands of Green Bay and Kansas City, respectively.
For all of the Lions' regular-season dominance, they've also faltered on the grandest stage. They threw away a 17-point lead to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game and, a year later, got one-and-doned by the Washington Commanders despite going 15-2 in the regular season.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell condemned Branch's postgame behavior: "What Brian Branch did is inexcusable. It's not gonna be accepted here. It's not what we do. It's not what we're about."
Campbell deserves credit for that message, but the reality is that this is what the Lions do. It's the "extracurricular stuff" Mahomes spoke about.
Packers fans are no strangers to this, and it's what made the dominant victory at Lambeau Field in Week 1 even sweeter. The Packers will thank Mahomes, not just for putting them back in control of the NFC North, but for shining a national spotlight on the ugly Lions reality they already knew.