For a few ugly seconds during its telecast of an ugly game between the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, NBC cut to an aerial shot of a stadium.

"Those are the ruins of the old Silverdome in Pontiac, which was the home of the Lions for so many years and the site of a Super Bowl back in the 1981 season," announcer Al Michaels said.

It was a cringe-worthy moment for Lions fans, putting a national spotlight on an open sore in Pontiac while the Lions were going down to defeat — a "ruin porn" moment, the kind we are all too familiar with.

Which leads us to this point: Tear it down. The Silverdome must be demolished. The stadium's owner, Triple Properties, has promised to raze the sad, old stadium this spring, but such deadlines seem to come and go without the swinging of a wrecking ball.

Triple Properties has sued the brokerage firm it hired to market the property, accusing the firm of ignoring an opportunity to extend the lease on a portion of the site for parking.

Those are excuses. We've run out of patience. Tear it down.

We watched Tiger Stadium rot for a decade before it was demolished; the site is now being converted to other uses. The Palace is about to lose the Pistons, and Joe Louis Arena is about to lose the Wings to the new Little Caesars Arena in downtown Detroit.

The Silverdome site has many of the same advantages as the Palace site: a big chunk of contiguous space near freeways and lots of office and light industrial areas, including the FCA US headquarters. Hopefully, Palace owner Tom Gores can do what the Silverdome's owners have so far failed to do: Find a new use for his building, an unlikely result, or demolish it.

Joe Louis Arena is required to be razed and replaced with a hotel, offices, retail stores, and residential and recreational space by 2022, under terms of a deal struck with bond insurer Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. during Detroit's bankruptcy. But there's wiggle room. For example, if the developer chosen by FGIC is unable to complete the project, the parcels revert back to the city.

That worries us, but a least there's a plan and a contract. Nothing like that in Pontiac.

Tear it down.