Pride of Detroit
This season didn’t end the way we wanted, but the Detroit Lions will be back.
Let’s set the table a bit here. In 1990, I was born into this world a Detroit Lions fan. Since I can remember, I have loved this city and this team with every part of my soul. Early on, it was fun for a kid that was into sports to be a Lions fan in the 90s.
Detroit had a player by the name of Barry Sanders, who routinely did things that made you question if he was of this world or not. And for the most part, teams in that era of Lions football were competitive, with the early portion of the decade being the most successful.
Chances are you if you are reading this, you know where things turned from there. Sanders retired just before training camp in 1999, nine-year-old Morgan was absolutely devastated, and former general manager Matt Millen ushered in an especially dreadful era of football in Detroit that culminated in the infamous (and winless) 2008 season.
From that pivotal moment in franchise history and through the 2020 season, the organization evolved over time. It was no longer considered a laughingstock—save for that period from 2018 to November 2020 that we will be skipping over for the sake of our sanity. Some of the old ghosts were now gone, but they never came particularly close to building a sustainable winner. One-and-done playoff appearances in 2011, 2014, and 2016 gave fans a tiny taste of the postseason that left everyone wanting more.
Then, in January of 2021, everything changed in Detroit. Thankfully, owner Sheila Hamp decided she was going to do things her own way. She wanted a collaborative approach to building a team, and assembled a group of really smart people to help her find the right candidates. After the thorough search was complete, Brad Holmes was hired as general manager six days before Dan Campbell was named head coach, and together the two would do what some believed to be nearly impossible—turn the Lions into a winner.
And to make thing even more impressive, they have done it the right way, tearing what was once a roster almost completely devoid of top-end talent down to the studs, and rebuilding through the NFL Draft.
3-13-1 in 2021 led to 9-8 in 2022. 12-5 in 2023, 15-2 in 2024. The progress is evident, and the proof, as they say, is in the banana pudding. In the time since they took over, Holmes and Campbell have accomplished what they set out to do when they were first hired in Detroit: sustained, year-to-year success.
“Every move that me and Dan make, it has been made to sustain what we are building,” said Holmes during his year-end press conference following the 2023 season. “Every single move, and I would say every single move we make and every single move we do not make, is to sustain what we have been building.”
That kind of success...
