Boys,
This is kind of a stand alone post, but also part of an emergency bang-bang post. What’s a bang-bang post? Well..
Hence, if a bang-bang is when you eat a full meal, then go somewhere else and eat another full meal, a bang-bang post is when I write one post, then have to write an entirely different post to explain the thing I referenced in the first post. Haven’t gotten all the kinks worked out of that yet, but back to the show…
Why do I love the Detroit Lions? I didn’t grow up in Detroit. I don’t have any family there or any family that ever rooted for the Lions for that matter. I don’t remember a lot from when I was your age, but one thing I do remember is my dad giving me a piece of paper with 30-some football helmets drawn on it, one for each team. My favorite helmet was the Lions’ helmet. Couple that with the most exciting player I’d ever seen, Barry Sanders, coming into his own and starting to be one the the premier superstars in the league. I loved watching him play and anytime the Lions played on TV, I wanted to watch and be a part of it.
I wanted all the Detroit Lions hats, sweatshirts, my own Lions Starter Jacket (which was the staple thing to have if you were a fan)… I loved playing baseball, but never had a team to really root for. With football and with the Lions, it was MY team. Not because someone told me I had to root for them (like I’ll be doing with you two your whole lives… sorry not sorry), but because I “discovered” them and loved them and I believed (and still do, to an extent) that those around me would love them when they see how much I loved them.
When I was young, the Lions were exciting. They won their division and a playoff game in 1991, then won their division again two years later in 1993. Barry was one of the best players in the NFL, but it seemed like the team couldn’t find the right coach to get them any further in the playoffs. Throughout the 1990s, the Lions cycled through quarterbacks and just seemed like they couldn’t figure out how to crack the code. Then, Barry Sanders retired in 1999 and the team was just one of the worst teams in football and, truthfully, one of the worst professional teams in all of sports.
Since I became a fan, there were two dark eras. The first is when Barry retired and within a year or two, we hired Matt Millen to be our GM, which means he decided which players we draft and trade for, but also who the coaches are and how the organization is run. Matt Millen was so bad at his job that he was eventually fired. That part isn’t surprising, but when you’d see him on TV as an analyst after he was fired, I just said, “how does this man who knows nothing about how to run a football team have any opinion on what is good or bad for whatever team or game he’s talking about?” It’s like talking to a vegan about what the best steak in the city is — like, you’re entitled to your opinion and all, but, you know….
Anyway, every year, I had hope and I never stopped watching them, cheering for them, sometimes cheering for them to lose when it meant they would get a better draft pick that next year, but always rooting for what I thought would be best for the team. Millen drug the franchise lower and lower, eventually leading to a winless season which had never happened to that point in the NFL. 16 games played. 0 wins and 0 ties. Never before. Midway through that season, Millen was fired and it was probably the best thing that happened in that decade.
But with that winless season came the first pick in that next year’s draft, and with that came a shaggy-haired kid from the University of Georgia named Matt Stafford. The year before, with the only nice thing Millen ever did for the Lions, we drafted future Hall of Fame WR Calvin Johnson. Calvin and Matt Stafford became the nucleus that would give the Lions and their fans (ie – me) hope for the next decade.
OK, starting to drift off into “history of the Lions” which wasn’t my intention. The point is, most Lions fans my age have been through a lot as far as fandome goes. The highs are pretty mid, and the lows are really, really, really low. But things are changing, especially after last night. Back to the other half of the bang-bang -> CLICK HERE TO GET BACK
From Ryan to Reagan and Koen 
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