Are the Detroit Lions really cursed?

Let’s start by assessing the play at quarterback. Since Layne left town, the Lions have had precious few quarterbacks that were capable of leading them to a championship.

Matthew Stafford played in the Pro Bowl following the 2014 season. Now here’s the question; who was the previous Lions quarterback to play in the Pro Bowl?

Times up.  It was way back in 1971 when Greg Landry represented Detroit as an all-star passer.

It may not have been 50 or 60 years, but it was still a long drought. Easily the longest in the NFL. As a matter of fact, it’s easier to sum up the Lions quarterback competency by siting the play of guys like Eric Hipple, Gary Danielson, Chuck Long, Andre Ware, Erik Kramer, Scott Mitchell and Joey Harrington.

None of them were championship caliber signal-callers and as a result, none of them were capable of carrying this team to a title.

There are many that are calling Matthew Stafford that franchise quarterback who can carry the Lions to the Super Bowl and help end this curse. However, Stafford is 0-3 in the playoffs and has had difficulty carrying the team on his own. In other words a ground game would be nice, but he also needs the other two keys to the equation solved as well.

The part of the puzzle that the Lions have actually been pretty good at has been defense. At least in general. In the mid to late 60’s and very early 70’s, Detroit had some pretty good defenses. Unfortunately they didn’t have the other pieces needed to overthrow the great Green Bay Packer teams of Vince Lombardi.

The 1970 defense was really good and helped the Lions secure a ticket to Dallas to face the Cowboys in the NFC wildcard game. Unfortunately the Detroit offense withered away and Dallas defeated the Lions 5-0 on their way to the Super Bowl.

Think about it, if the Lions could have mustered just two field goals, they might have made a run to the Super Bowl themselves.

The Lions also assembled the ‘Silver Rush’ defense of the early 1980’s featuring an unstoppable defensive line that was led by Al ‘Bubba’ Baker. Yet even with the addition of former Heisman trophy winning running back Billy Sims on offense, they couldn’t muster enough scoring to be title contenders.

The Lions of the early 90’s were pretty good on defense and with the explosiveness of Barry Sanders, they won their only playoff game in the Super Bowl era and advanced to the NFC title game. However, the whole team collapsed as the Washington Redskins routed Detroit and sent them back into a tailspin.

In 2014 the Lions featured one of their best defenses ever. They were second in total defense and third in scoring defense allowing only 17.6 points a game. Then came Detroit Lions deja vu as they went to Dallas for their wildcard game and lost 24-20 after the infamous ‘picked up flag’. One of the issues that team had all season was inconsistent offense as Stafford and the rest of the unit had trouble with running Joe Lombardi’s system.

Currently the Lions are hoping to find the pieces needed to re-build their defensive front seven and make themselves contenders again.