Detroit Lions history of the dreaded phrase: ‘Same Old Lions’

The phrase as we know it

By the end of the 1960s, the Lions were starting to become conspicuous for their absence among the NFL’s elite. Despite an 11-3 record in 1962, ten years had suddenly passed without a single playoff appearance. Now the executive sports editor of the Free Press, Puscas had a pulse for the growing cynicism of the fan base, and ‘Same Old Lions’ increasingly became the umbrella term to vent any Lions-related frustration.

Puscas certainly wasn’t the only writer to use it, but as a mainstay with the city’s largest paper  all the way until 2006, his regular usage of the phrase over the decades plays a key part in it sticking. Within Puscas’s long and prolific period covering the team, ‘Same Old Lions’ turned from a compliment to a complaint and was popularized to the point of becoming a part of the club’s DNA.

Of course, the team didn’t help themselves out any during this time. By the 1990s, Mitch Albom began to establish himself as a leading voice among Detroit sportswriters. While Puscas was no longer writing full time, Albom picked up right where he left off. While he tried to convince us over and over again that each new iteration of the team was NOT the Same Old Lions, every promising Lions squad (except 1991) continued to disappoint in an increasingly predictable fashion.

Perhaps the most blatantly over-optimistic example came after a 42-24 triumph in the 2003 season opener. Just one game under Steve Mariucci was already enough to convince Albom (and possibly countless scores of Lions fans) that the dark days were over. After one game, Albom gushed, one could already tell that the days of the ‘Same Old Lions’ were past.

"“Before we speak of what was won on Sunday, let us mention what was lost. A sentence. ‘Same old Lions’. That’s what was lost.” –Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press, September 8, 2003"

Alas, the sentence wasn’t lost after all. The 2003 Lions went 5-11, Joey Harrington was not the answer, Steve Mariucci was not the answer, and besides those horrid black uniforms, nothing had changed. It was business as usual from there for the next decade, when the phrase was shortened into something even more concise and digestible for the Twitter age.

Fun Fact: A newspaper archive search of the phrase “Same Old Lions” reveals that the year 2007 was the peak for usage of the term.