The

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

season resulted in a tie for the Western Conference championship between the Detroit Lions and

San Francisco 49ers The San Francisco 49ers (also written as the San Francisco Forty-Niners) are a professional American football team based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The 49ers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National ...

. Both finished at 8–4 and had split their two games during the regular season in November, with the home team winning each. The tie thus required a one-game playoff to be held between the two teams. This conference championship game was played on December 22 at

Kezar Stadium Kezar Stadium is an outdoor athletics stadium in San Francisco, California, located adjacent to Kezar Pavilion in the southeastern corner of Golden Gate Park. It is the former home of the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders (first AFL s ...

in San Francisco, and Detroit won, 31–27. The Lions moved on to host the

Cleveland Browns The Cleveland Browns are a professional American football team based in Cleveland. Named after original coach and co-founder Paul Brown, they compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (A ...

on December 29 in the

championship game In sport, a championship is a Competition#Sports, competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match sy ...

, and won in a 59–14 rout at

Briggs Stadium Tiger Stadium, previously known as Navin Field and Briggs Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium located in the Corktown neighborhood of Detroit. The stadium was nicknamed "The Corner" for its location at the intersection of Michigan and Trumbul ...

for their third title in six years. Through , it is Detroit's most recent league title, and second-most recent victory in a postseason game.

Tournament bracket

Western Conference championship

The Lions trailed the 49ers 24–7 at halftime, and were down twenty points in the third quarter. Quarterback

Bobby Layne Robert Lawrence Layne (December 19, 1926 – December 1, 1986) was an American football quarterback who played for 15 seasons in the National Football League. He played for the Chicago Bears in 1948, the New York Bulldogs in 1949, the Detroit ...

had been lost for the season two weeks earlier, and backup

Tobin Rote Tobin Cornelius Rote (January 18, 1928 – June 27, 2000) was an American football player who played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers and Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL), the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football Le ...

lead the Lions' rally, scoring 24 unanswered points in the second half to win, 31–27. The game was featured on

NFL Top 10 The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

as #2 on ''Top Ten Comebacks''. As of

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

, this is the last time the Lions have won a playoff game on the road.

NFL Championship game

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1957 NFL Playoffs

1957 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1957th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 957th year of the 2nd millennium, the 57th year of the 20th century, and the 8th year ...

Playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eit ...