Notes: After falling just short, it’s Super Bowl or bust for Lions

The loss to the 49ers in the Conference title game should be motivation for everyone heading into 2024.

Make no mistake about it, 2023 was a massive year for the Detroit Lions organization. They won their division for the first time since 1993, and they hosted and won two playoff games. By most accounts, this past season was an incredibly successful one for the franchise.

However, don’t expect the players to rest on their accomplishments. Just ask All-Pro receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown. Eric Woodyard of ESPN has more on how the last loss of the season will motivate the team as they begin to prepare for 2024.

“I don’t think any one of us want to feel that again if we can,” St. Brown said after the heart-wrenching loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship game. “I think the feeling that we have is enough to motivate us for next year. We had a good year as a whole, but it is all for nothing if you don’t win the whole thing.”

Along with St. Brown, defensive end Aidan Hutchinson is another that will lean on the playoff experience from this season moving forward.

“I don’t know if there’s one thing that we can do right now. I feel like what we did last season and the experience that we had and the experience that we have now going into the NFC championship,” Hutchinson told ESPN during Pro Bowl weekend in Orlando. “I feel like that alone is going to carry us far next year, having that playoff experience when we do get in the playoffs. So that’s what I feel like is the most important thing, is having that experience.”

You can read the entirety of the article from Woodyard here.

And now, onto the rest of today’s notes:

• Lions Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee Frank Ragnow joined ‘The Insiders’ to talk about his foundation, Rags Remembered.

• Despite already hiring their coach, the Washington Commanders still seem to feel some type of way about Lions’ offensive coordinator Ben Johnson withdrawing his name from their coaching search. Riley McAtee of The Ringer has more on the drama.

• Wednesday was National Girls and Women in Sports Day, and in honor of that, women in the Lions organization wrote letters to their younger selves. There’s an entire Twitter thread here that’s worth reading: