DETROIT – For sure, many Lions fans found pure enjoyment watching the Dallas Cowboys lose Sunday in controversial fashion to the Green Bay Packers.
The Lions felt the same thing happened to them a week earlier when they had a big pass interference flag picked up in the fourth quarter as they were driving in Cowboys' territory.
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Still, Lions fans should be careful what they rejoice about. This play could also happen to them.
Oh wait. It already did.
It's kind of funny to hear so many NFL fans crying over the reversed call on Sunday because it wasn't long ago that many fans were crying, begging for full-blown instant replay.
Many fans claimed NFL referees were killing them, missing calls and costing their teams games.
NFL owners agreed. The move to replay was supposed to take the human element out of it. The video proof was supposed to avoid controversy, make everything perfect in pro football.
Nope.
The Packers, not the Cowboys, are going to the NFC championship after a 26-21 victory and will take on the Seattle Seahawks next Sunday.
For a minute, it looked as if the Pack weren't going to get there. The controversy stems from a play in the fourth quarter, involving Dallas star receiver Dez Bryant.
On a fourth-and-two play at the Packers' 32-yard line, Cowboys QB Tony Romo looked as if he delivered on what was going to setup the potential game-winning TD.
Bryant leaped over the defender and grabbed a 31-yard pass. As he was going to the ground and trying to reach for the goal line, the ball touched the ground as he landed.
Initially, it was ruled a catch down at the one-yard line. It was supposed to be first and goal for the Cowboys.
Packers' coach Mike McCarty, though, threw the challenge flag.
After review, the call was reversed.
Sure, it looked like a catch with the naked eye. No doubt.
But if you're honest - and not a Cowboys' homer - the reversed call was correct.
Lions fans know this rule all too well. It happened five years ago in Chicago when Calvin Johnson had a game-winning touchdown taken away for not "completing the process."
Plain and simple: the ball can't come loose when you land on the ground. You must secure the ball.
Just like Johnson on that play in 2010, Bryant didn't secure the ball.
You can't blame the refs. You would have to blame the rules committee that wrote the language of the rule.
NFL head of officials Dean Blandino explained it simply on Twitter. "Bryant going to the ground. By rule he must hold onto it throughout entire process of contacting the ground. He didn't so it's incomplete."
Bryant, of course, was shocked when his fantastic moment was taken away, reversed. "C'mon man. I think that was a catch," said Bryant to the media. "They took it away."
It sounds good - and in the heat of the moment - it plays to the masses.
Fans and other players around the league all chimed in. Most were in disbelief, many with anger and frustration.
Some Lions players called it karma on Twitter.
Nonetheless, we get it. Most want players to decide games, not refs, especially at the end of a game.
But they are there to make calls - in the first minute or the last minute.
And the silly notion that by having replay you would eliminate the human element, human error - if you will - and be spared controversy was never real.
First, humans were still going to be looking at the replays. So there was a chance that even a review of a play could still be missed or called incorrectly.
Let's face it. Humans make mistakes. That's why they put erasers on pencils.
In this case, there was no mistake by the officials who reversed the call. They were correct by rule.
Replay is here to stay and fans now have to just live with it. After all, it's what you wanted. Yes, you too, Lions fans.