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LIONS PFL SEASON XXVI CHAMPIONSHIP RUN
In the 25 season history of the PFL the Detroit Lions
had never been to a Superbowl, much less won a PFL
championship. The Detroit Lions ownership decided that
it was time to change that, and in dramatic fashion.
Coach James “JimQB16” Hatzis was retired and some say
had no plans to return to the sidelines in the PFL. He
had three children since joining the league many seasons
ago and his job had now promoted him to lead Homicide
Detective which limited his free time. He was a Hall of
Famer and a THREE time PFL champion but he had been out
of the league for some time now and his last
championship appearance was six seasons ago. The
question was, did Hatzis still have what it takes to be
a Championship caliber coach? Was his heart still in
it, or were his best Madden days behind him? Those
questions and more would soon be answered.
Before taking a leave of absence from the league, Coach
Hatzis’ resume included FIVE consecutive PFL Superbowl
appearances from Season XVI through Season XX and an
induction into the PFL Hall of Fame. Coach Hatzis won
THREE championships in those five Superbowl appearances
and eventually became commissioner of the PFL. Not long
after becoming commissioner of the league and revamping
it with a restart of the rosters and a revision of all
of the rules, Leonard Barnhart approached the league and
polled the interest of having Coach Hatzis inducted a
second time into the PFL Hall of Fame, this time as a
commissioner. As fate would have it Coach Hatzis was
inducted into the vaunted PFL Hall of Fame a second
time. It was an honor to coach Hatzis and a humbling
experience to come from meager beginnings and eventually
earn the respect of all of his Madden peers. Coach
Hatzis remained the league’s commissioner for four
consecutive seasons, from Season XXI through Season
XXIV. Finally coach Hatzis announced that at the
conclusion of Season XXIV that he would be stepping down
as commissioner and taking a leave of absence from the
PFL and Madden altogether to focus on family and his
job.
Coach Hatzis admittedly would miss the league as well as
all of the great friendships that he had come to know.
Because of that he never closed the door on returning
some day. Well, sometimes fate has a funny way of
bringing people together and that was what was about to
happen. At the start of Season XXVI which was
coincidentally exactly 10 seasons since coach Hatzis had
won his very first Superbowl in the PFL, the Detriot
Lions came knocking. After an opening day loss to
Leonard Barnhart and his Dallas Cowboys, the previous
Lions coach decided to leave the league under the cover
of night. Detroit Lion fans were now once again
devastated and didn’t know what direction the team would
go next. Coach Hatzis decided that the opportunity to
bring a franchise their first PFL Championship combined
with the opportunity to be the only coach to ever bring
a title home in both the PFL AFC and NFC was too
tempting. Coach Hatzis was lured out of retirement and
hoped that he could implement a plan to bring home a
championship sooner than later for Detroit fans. Coach
Hatzis saw a lot of familiar faces in the PFL but rarely
had the opportunity to face the NFC coaches on a regular
basis. Coach Andrew “Baba Booey” Torres even made a
comment that coaches had better be on the alert because
with Hatzis back in the mix the other teams in the NFC
might only have a season left before coach Hatzis would
be back in a Superbowl.
After losing his first game back in the league Coach
Hatzis proceeded to reel off ten wins in a row and
finish the season with a record of 12-4 and earn the #2
seed in the NFC playoffs. The team who had the #1 seed
was Andrew Torres and his New York Football Giants.
Coach Torres and Coach Hatzis had faced off in week 13
of the regular season and the Lions won that match up
16-10. Even though Coach Hatzis and Coach Torres were
great friends this was also a bitter rivalry. Coach
Torres had defeated Coach Hatzis in their only Superbowl
appearance against each other in Season XVII in which
Coach Hatzis entered that match up as the ONLY team to
ever reach the PFL Superbowl as an undefeated team.
Coach Torres ruined that perfect season with a 16-12
upset Superbowl win. After both the Lions and Giants
enjoyed bye weeks in week #18 people were already
beginning to talk about the inevitable. It looked as
though the Giants and Lions might meet up again in the
NFC Championship game. In Week #19 the Lions defeated
the San Francisco 49ers 33-14 and the Giants defeated
the Vikings 26-20 setting the stage for an epic NFC
Title game!
Week 20 could not come soon enough as the Lions and
coach Hatzis finally had a chance at redemption for
their Season XVII Superbowl loss to Andrew and his
Giants. Even though Hatzis and his Lions had defeated
the Giants in week 13, the radio hosts were split in
their choice for who would win the NFC title game and
represent the NFC in the PFL Superbowl. In NFC Title
game the Lions and Giants would go into the half tied at
10 a piece, but the second half Hatzis and his Lions
came out with a fire in their eyes and outscored the
Giants 24-10 to win with a final score of 34-20.
Meanwhile in the AFC the two coaches meeting up to see
who would face coach Hatzis were both prior Superbowl
champions themselves. In a close match up the Buffalo
Bills coaches by TWO time PFL Superbowl champion John
“Mojo Beaux” Whalen defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers and
advanced to the Superbowl to face Hatzis and his Lions.
As Superbowl week approached there was a lot of hype
about this game. A Hall of Fame PFL coach with THREE
previous Superbowl titles versus a TWO time Superbowl
champion attempting to earn his own credibility as a
future Hall of Famer in the PFL. Coach Whalen had also
taken a leave of absence from the league for personal
reasons only to return just prior to Coach Hatzis. The
team that Whalen took over were the previous year’s
Superbowl Champions and had lofty expectations no matter
who took over the helm. That put the pressure squarely
on Whalen’s shoulders to try and bring back to back
Superbowl victories to Buffalo.
During the week leading up to the Superbowl the PFL
radio show hosts all decided that despite Coach Hatzis’
previous resume that Whalen and the Bills would be the
clear favorites to win the game, albeit each host
conceded that the game would probably be a close one.
Another first for Coach Hatzis would be attempting to
record the game so that the league could watch the game
and not just hear about what a great game it might have
been. When game day approached and these two legendary
coaches took to the gridiron the game ended up being
nothing less than an epic match up. Coach Hatzis and
the Lions took an early 7-0 lead but the game would
continue to go back and forth with each team scoring
when it needed to so that the game remained close. It
wasn’t until the fourth quarter that Coach Whalen and
his Bills took their first lead of the game. This was
turning out to be one of those games where the
spectators knew that whoever possessed the ball last was
more than likely going to win the game.
Finally coming down to the wire in the fourth quarter
the Lions took the lead once more, but the Bills knew
that this game could be won by either team. With just
minutes left in the fourth quarter the Bills drove the
field and kicked a 46 yard field goal to tie the game at
24-24 leaving just 38 seconds on the clock and giving
the Lions one last opportunity to posses the ball.
Normally coach Hatzis was a fairly conservative coach
and in a situation like this would play conservative
trying not to make a mistake and attempt to win the game
in overtime. But this was no ordinary game, this was
the Superbowl and you don’t get here very often and when
you do you only have one chance to be the victor. With
that being said, Coach Hatzis decided to throw caution
to the wind and attempt to drive the field for the win.
Well, at the end of the day that strategy paid off as
Coach Hatzis used 24 of those 38 seconds in conjunction
with the two time outs that he had remaining to drive
down into Buffalo Bills territory and kick a 49 yard
field goal. That put the Lions ahead 27-24 leaving the
Bills with just 11 seconds which was not enough to allow
them to come back and tie it again and send the game
into overtime. It was a historic game and hats go off
to both coaches on an amazing season.
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