And Hutchinson is carrying an even heavier load through the previous four games, with studly showings in his first two tastes of the postseason. The second-year edge defender is leaving no room to complain, either, finishing those reps with eight sacks in the last four games.
In the team’s 31-23 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the divisional round, he had another sack to go with eight pressures. And just to put everything into perspective, the 31 pressures he created through the previous four weeks would rank Hutchinson third on the Lions, including the regular season and two postseason games.
Hutchinson is up to 118 pressures dating back to Week 1, the most in the NFL, ranking as the top edge defender around through the last month of action, per Pro Football Focus.
It’s hard to (say) — it’s very hard to (say what this means),” Hutchinson, a Michigan native, said after helping the Lions reach their first NFC title game in 30-plus years. “This fan base deserves all of it, and guys on this team who have worked their asses off all year long. I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to do, the adversity we’ve been able to overcome, and we have another obstacle in the way with San Francisco.I feel like getting one under our belt, getting a playoff game under our belt, getting the win, we can move on from the 30 years, from all the history of what we haven’t been able to do in the past and it was good to get over that hump. We’re just getting over mountains right now. That’s what we’re doing. It’s just one mountain after another. They said we couldn’t win two playoff games in a row, now we’re going to keep climbing that mountain and keep moving forward.”
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