Hey Friends! Welcome back, and thanks for joining me again this week. I wanted to explore a different theme this week, and I hope you enjoy it. With the NFL Draft kicking off next week (Round 1 starts at 7pm on Thursday, 4/23), I was debating whether I wanted to write this column this week or wait until Thursday, but figured this week was more practical, since I’ll be busy watching the draft on Thursday night.
Unfortunately, I’ve been a fan of the Detroit Lions my entire life. I am convinced that they’re a good portion of the reason I am finding random gray hairs sprouting despite only being in my early 30’s. Even if you don’t consider yourself a fan of professional football, or sports in general, you undoubtedly know one thing . . . the Detroit Lions are not a good team. How would something like that be so widely known as to be apparent to non-sports fans? It’s because the Lions have been so consistently bad for so long that it’s no longer a question of whether or not they’re good this year (as is the case with most teams in sports, that tend to have periods of dominance mixed in with periods of down years), it’s now a question of how bad they are this year.
I could try to utilize different sports and teams and whatnot for my comparisons, but for the purposes of this post, I’ll be keeping my comparisons within the NFL.
The Super Bowl is one of the biggest sporting events in the world, attracting millions of viewers each year, unfortunately, the Detroit Lions have only ever enjoyed watching the Super Bowl, having never made it to one. They have won league championships, but their last championship was in 1957, and the Super Bowl as we now know it was not introduced until 1967. The fact that the Lions have never been to a Super Bowl in 53 years is shocking enough (since there are only a total of 4 teams currently in the NFL to have never played in a Super Bowl, and the Lions are the most tenured of those 4 teams), but the even more shocking stat is that they have only even won one playoff game since their 1957 championship (in 1991).
Of the 4 teams to not yet have appeared in the modern Super Bowl (Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Houston Texans) the Lions have the longest playoff-win drought, having been playoff winless longer than the Jaguars (1995) and Texans (2002) have even been in existence. To give a little perspective on the other end of the spectrum, the New England Patriots have only failed to make the playoffs twice since 2000, and have reached the Super Bowl 9 times and won 6 of them in that same time frame.
Having suffered through so many years of futility, a Lions fan has to ask why? Why is the team we so begrudgingly love so consistently bad? Is it the players? Is it the coaching staff? How about the management? It is my belief that it is none of these things. Since the team’s last playoff victory in 1991, the team has employed:
- 10 different head coaches (for comparison, the Patriots have employed one)
- 4 General Managers (one as an interim for one year)
- 22 different starting quarterbacks (some started few games due to injuries – the number of “full time” starting quarterbacks since 1991 is more like 10 – compared to 9 total / 4 “full time” for New England in the same time frame)
At some point, us fans have to realize that, if our team is going to be bad no matter who our head coach is, who our coordinators are, who our GM is, or who’s quarterbacking the team, the problem has to start at the very top – with the owners. Until the Lions are able to change ownership from the very top, it is unlikely that their unwinning ways will change. And yet, we keep coming back.
There’s something beautiful about maintaining loyalty to your team through the (few) ups and (mostly) downs. It gives a sense of pride that your will cannot be broken, and resilience that if we keep moving, no matter how slowly, luck will break in our favor eventually. And that’s why us Lions fans keep tuning in and showing up at the stadium year after year, draft bust after draft bust, and heartbreaking loss after heartbreaking loss. It’s because all of the heartbreak makes the few shining moments feel that much more special. And who knows, with how crazy the world is this year, maybe . . . just maybe . . . 2020 will be the Lions year to win it all! (A guy can dream, eh?)
That’s all for this week friends, it’s a pretty short and sweet one and I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any comments or insight or anything, feel free to leave a comment below. Sorry this week’s was late, and next week’s post will likely be late as well (tune in to the Draft if you’re an NFL fan!), but I’ll make sure to have something for you by the end of the weekend at least.
Thank you again for joining me, and see you all next week! 🙂
Musings Of A Struggling Creator 