This is an opinion piece from MLive.com reporter Kyle Meinke.

DETROIT -- The batted ball game in Seattle? The pass interference game in Dallas? The complete the process game in Chicago? The Hail Mary game against Green Bay?

Everyone loses games. But it seems nobody invents ways to lose like Detroit, the only team to drop all 16 games in a season, the only team with just one playoff win in 58 years. Nobody loses like this.

Now here we are, another Monday where we're picking over another absurd Lions loss, this one a heartbreaking 30-26 setback against the Atlanta Falcons.

The Falcons (3-0) are good. Like, just-went-to-the-Super-Bowl good. Like, got-a-reigning-MVP good. They looked like it to open the 2017 season too, winning both games by double digits. They're playing like the best team in the NFL.

Then Matthew Stafford drove 89 yards for what appeared to be a game-winning touchdown pass to Golden Tate on Sunday. The Lions looked like they would be 3-0 for the first time since 2011. They looked like they had beaten the best team in the NFC.

Ford Field was going bananas.

Then the refs took it all away.

Upon review, Tate was ruled short of the goal line. And because the review occurred in the final 2 minutes of the game, Detroit had to give up a timeout. But it didn't have a timeout to give, which meant 10 seconds had to be drained off the clock instead per NFL rules.

And there were only 8 seconds left.

So that's how it ended. With the ball sitting about 6 inches from a seminal victory. The game's greatest fourth-quarter quarterback right now, being told to head for the showers rather than one last play.

The team that brought you the Calvin Rule, now brings you the Golden Rule.

"There's a bunch of them," Stafford said of Detroit's tough, often weird losses. "But that's the way it goes."

The rule was enforced correctly, but that won't make the loss go down any easier either. The officials screwed up the original spot, and didn't have to pay the price for overturning the call. Detroit did, with its final down. That's not fair, even if it was by the book.

Welcome to Detroit, everybody. Remember to tip your servers.

"It hurts," Tate said. "It hurts. It hurts to lose one like that at home, especially when your defense just kept coming up with turnovers. It hurts."

But there is a silver lining here, which is the Lions are obviously good. They're contenders. They're capable of making a Super Bowl run. No, I haven't been hitting the Kool-Aid. Yes, I'm serious.

Why not?

People around here are conditioned to be suspicious of nice things, and after 58 years of eating dirt, that's understandable. That's why you saw so many people trying to poke holes in the Lions' 2-0 start, and that's understandable too.

Those wins came against the Cardinals and Giants, two franchises on the downswing with aging quarterbacks. The special teams were a dumpster fire in Game 1, and the offense went silent in Week 2. I get it.

But the Lions also won both those games, and did so by double digits. That's tough to do in the NFL, no matter who you are and who you're playing. Only Atlanta did it the first two weeks in the NFC, along with Oakland and Kansas City in the AFC.

Those teams are all considered Super Bowl contenders. So why shouldn't the Lions be considered among them?

They've got a top-five quarterback who is in the midst of his prime, and killing people with his arm and his legs. Matthew Stafford single-handedly took Detroit to the playoffs last year. And now, it appears, he doesn't have to do it alone anymore.

Detroit's defense has picked off seven passes, which is second in the league. They've forced eight turnovers overall, which is second as well. And there's no greater predictor of wins and losses in the NFL than turnover margin.

Detroit's sitting at plus-six, which trails only the Ravens across the league.

Oh, and the defensive line is murdering quarterbacks. They pressured Carson Palmer an absurd 44.9 percent of the time, tops throughout the league in Week 1. They knocked the skittles out of Eli Manning in Week 2, sacking him five times.

They got to Matt Ryan twice more on Sunday, and picked off three of his 35 passes.

Ryan hadn't thrown any in his previous 309 attempts.

"We got a team that'll fight you right down to the end," coach Jim Caldwell said. "They're never out of a ball game. They find a way to get back in. But we're not perfect in any stretch of the imagination, and we should play better."

OK, so the defense wasn't exactly great against Atlanta. They clearly missed Jarrad Davis, their imposing rookie middle linebacker. The Falcons ran the ball right at Detroit, and that fourth-ranked rush defense crumbled. After not allowing more than 62 yards on the ground in their first two games of the season, they allowed Devonta Freeman to gut them for 106 yards.

And that's not counting Tevin Coleman's 46 yards, nor the backs' combined 75 yards receiving.

But even then, facing the league's best player and the NFC's best team without their starting middle linebacker, Detroit hung around. It started somebody named Zac Kerin at guard, and didn't force a punt until the final minutes of the game, yet came within 6 inches of the reigning conference champions.

The Lions clutched defeat from the jaws of victory, and that's going to hurt for a while. But in defeat, the Lions proved just how dangerous they can be. They weren't at their best against the last unbeaten in the NFC, and came within a half-foot of taking them down.

They're good, no matter how bad today tastes.