A LOVE LETTER TO THE LIONS
- Frank Leon, Contributor
Growing up as a Lions fan has never been easy. You sit through disappointment after disappointment with the promise that there will be a next season but never that the next season will be a successful one. The best we've ever seen was one awesome year where the end result was a heartbreaking loss in the first round to the Dallas Cowboys that was taken from us because of the refs (a true shocker obviously if you know the lore of the Lions). This is my story and why the 2023-2024 Detroit Lions are creating the memories that I had always hoped for and making my wish and many wishes across the country come true.
My story starts in the summer of 2000. I had been in the US for just over 5 years at this point and was still learning English so I would watch all kinds of TV shows to help me understand the culture better and learn new words. I was usually watching pro wrestling or UPN TV shows and the only sport I knew was baseball because of where I came from. I was in a summer program at a day care at the time and all of the older kids would play video games all day including NFL games. So I started to join in because it looked fun. I kept picking this one team because they had cool blue uniforms and their name in Spanish was my last name and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever. So that is how I became a Detroit Lions fan. And every day since 2000, I've been one.
Through middle school, I watched seasons of the Lions and always thought, "Wow this could be a great year!" But every year, they'd disappoint. 2 wins, 3 wins, high draft spots that led to Joey Harrington , Roy Williams, Charles Rogers, Mike Williams (GOD remember when we drafted WRs three straight years??) and more guys with big promise but no delivery.
Then, we finally drafted a STUD. Calvin Johnson from Georgia Tech. This was the guy. The guy that was going to be the answer to our dreams. The best player wearing Honolulu Blue since Barry had retired. There was no way he could fail. And he delivered. He was great as a rookie, he was even great during that 2008 season when we were 0-16. That was my senior year of high school. Imagine, your senior year of high school and your favorite team sets an NFL record for losing? Well no worries, we were getting the number one pick and he was going to be the franchise QB that we needed. The answer to everything. The guy from the same high school as Bobby Layne, the curse would be broken. Matthew Stafford was going to lead us to the promise land. He could throw a mile. He could take the hits and lead the team with his tenacity. His rookie year, he broke his shoulder during a game and came back in to throw a game winning TD. Him and Calvin were going to pair up for a decade and become a legendary duo and we'd finally win a playoff game.
And all of those promises went right out of the window as the fall of Brett Favre from Green Bay led to the rise of Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers became that thorn in our side that would always win against us. No matter how well the team played, some miracle throw by Rodgers would put us down. No division title. No playoff win. Calvin and Matthew were putting up the stats and they were historic but the wins weren't coming in huge spurts. 2011 and 2014 were our huge years with 10 and 11 wins but they were followed by heartbreaking losses in the wild card round. Just more heartbreak for us Lions fans. Always so close to winning but never actually getting it. Always get the star but never get to the destination their abilities could unlock. ALWAYS BEING SCREWED OVER BY THE REFS. It happened so frequently they made rules named after our players. Calvin Johnson rule, the Seahawks punching the ball out of the end zone, the Cowboys not getting a PI called during the playoff game. Just a million things that could go wrong would always find their way into our games.
Matt Patricia era was the toughest part of being a Lions fan. They hired this guy who was going to bring the Patriots level of success to Detroit and they got him a GM from New England so we were set to win! Instead, he gave us nothing but terrible football. He ruined prime years of Matthew Stafford's career, he ruined our defense, he drafted terrible players. He set us back so many years with his arrogance and incompetence. Just another bunch of years where we never thought we'd see the light at the end of the tunnel. You wonder why Lions fans have always said "Just One Before I Die!" , It's because we are always stuck in this never ending cycle of hope and never reaching success.
But 2021 came around and we hired this brash dude that was the PC principal from South Park come to life. A football guy that had played in the league and was a tough guy with a tough guy exterior. He came in talking about biting kneecaps and the sports media world could not stop talking about how bad of a hire this was. What did he know about coaching football other than his interim role for a few weeks in Miami? He wasn't a coordinator on offense or defense. This was a dude that was a rah rah guy and what would he do for us? Hype us up to victory? Yeah right. This will still be the same old Lions all over again. Well, that guy hyped up the team into believing every word he said. He took a team that had no stars and along with Brad Holmes at GM, they have drafted superstars that have turned into franchise cornerstones.
They traded Matthew Stafford away to the Rams because he didn't want to be in another rebuild and that broke a lot of hearts. The guy that we all loved was gone and he was going to win wherever he went. And we cheered for him to do it. But the pieces given to us for him have turned this franchise around. Jared Goff was one of the pieces in that trade. The guy that everyone thought was done because all he could do was be successful when Sean McVay was in his ear during the game. The guy that had been successful before but he definitely couldn't be good anymore. He played in a Superbowl but he was carried there. What could he do for Detroit? He couldn't fix us. He started out pretty terribly in Detroit too. Interceptions and bad throws, bad audibles, bad reads, bad play overall. 3-13-1 our first year with Jared and Dan. But we were believing in Dan and you know, we could always find another QB.
But Jared turned it all around in 2022. Him and Ben Johnson changed everything our offense was about and the entire fan base started to believe in our QB again. 2023 has been the year that has changed everything about football for me as a Lions fan. We're winning. We're getting to play in big games. We won the division for the first time in my lifetime. We expected to win the division and we ACTUALLY won it.
We beat great teams and even though we had a referee screw us in a big time game like we always expect, we rallied behind it and turned it into a big time momentum shift. We won A PLAYOFF GAME FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 32 YEARS.
We were the only team in the NFL that hadn't won a playoff game in this century. But Dan Campbell and the Lions delivered the franchise the win that changed all of our lives forever. You saw fans crying on TV and I'm sure people said "who cries over football?" But I was one of those people that cried. The moment Jared took that knee, every single thought and sentence I wrote before this one came into my head. 23 years of being a fan and never once seeing this type of success will do that to you. And the only thing my body could do was cry and hug my fiance who has watched me get pissed and lose my shit over Lions games for years.
Not too many people are built for being a Lions fan. It's easy to have given up years ago and just started cheering for any other team. They've all won at least and even my local teams have won before. But I'd never give up on this franchise as a fan. I love being a Lions fan. It isn't for everyone but those of us that have been lucky enough to be one got to experience a lot of firsts together this and hopefully more to come. So when every NFL analyst is on TV telling us we won't win Sunday against San Francisco, that's great. But we're here believing in our team. Let's go Lions. One Pride.