Reflecting on the Lions Super Bowls
Dateline 2032: Well folks, it’s been a great ride covering the team of the last two decades, but this old geezer is writing his last story about The Detroit Lions. With Team President Martin Mayhew retiring from football to form his own political party and run for President of the United States, I feel it’s time to reflect on one of the greatest runs in NFL history.
Ryan Van Bibber of SBNation was the first National writer to declare that the Lions would be the next dynasty in his June 11 2012 article, “NFL Dynasties: Which teams will enter the Elite?” After the Lions won their first Super Bowl in 2013, talk of a Lions dynasty started to pop up everywhere. It’s been a long time since the Lions started this Empire, and nowadays, with the memory of the modern person being the length of a TV series, plus the fact that they don’t read anymore, people want to re-learn how this all came about.
Back in the day, before we had chips installed in us, we used to have to watch the images in a box on the other side of the room. In those days, the Lions were so bad that they became the only team in history to lose EVERY game in a season. The Lions were run by a well-meaning but hapless owner who relied on THE WORST GENERAL MANAGER IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS to run his team, a man so bad at his job that his name has been banned from the records forever.
The owner, William Clay Ford, then basically hired whoever was standing next to him. That turned out to be Martin Mayhew, who worked directly under “THAT GUY”. The fans howled, but not for long. He immediately fleeced the-then DALLAS Cowboys, now known as the TOKYO Cowboys, by trading them a lame dog for 3 draft picks. He then hired Jim Schwartz (yes, Governor Schwartz) to run the football team.
That first pick in 2009 was the best and most important one they ever made, Mount Stafford (his nickname “Mount” coming from the fact that he was so good that he deserved his own mountain for a bust). Stafford and the BEST RECEIVER EVER, Calvin Johnson, led the Lions to three Super Bowls in the decade of the twenty-teens. In fact, Johnson was so good that the rules had to be changed because of him. Before Megatron, Defensive backs weren’t allowed to use Super shoes, you know, the ones with blasters in them so you jump like an NBA player.
What came to be known as the BEST OFFENSE EVER was complemented by a dominant defensive line. I know it’s hard to imagine, now that he’s been retired for awhile, but before Dr. Suh (of the hit TV show “Dr. Suh Relaxes You”) was an absolute beast of a man who stomped on opponents while they lay on the ground. Sometimes they needed three guys to control him. He joined with Nick Fairley to form the best defensive set of tackles the game has ever seen.
What made the Lions special was that they were able to do it in consecutive decades. Stafford was the only player to span both decades, being one of the first players to have a 25-year career. To rebuild the team after they bottomed out in 2021, Mayhew and Schwartz used the Draft in ways that the original master, Bill Belichick, could only dream about. Seriously, how were they able to get 4 number one picks in the 2022 draft is beyond me. Thank god Jerry Jones’s brain is still running the Cowboys.
The last decade saw Stafford and the Lions win three more Super Bowls. That’s why I’m giving this stuff up. It just got boring winning all of the time. I can barely distinguish the fifth title from the sixth. Oh well, It’s been a great run and fun to remember when I was one of the first ones to tell people in the early teens “I waited my whole life to for this team and they’re gonna win Super Bowls!” Easy to say now.