Here is a tale of two once-great cities. They lost their steel mills and auto plants. The factories went quiet. The populations dwindled. In spite of that, they never lost their football teams, which became sources of ragged pride amid snowy desolations. Now, these survivors stand at the edge of something spectacular.

A Super Bowl between the Buffalo Bills and the Detroit Lions, the best teams in the AFC and NFC, respectively, would be more than a championship game. If the current odds hold, with Detroit heavily favored to win the NFC and Buffalo about as likely as the Kansas City Chiefs to take the AFC, it would be sweet vindication for two places that America long ago wrote off as finished. Buffalo kept its Bills despite noise about them moving elsewhere. Detroit has kept supporting its loveable-loser Lions.