The Detroit Lions have their bye week today, but they have started the season better than expected. Who is the unsung hero behind this success?
The Detroit Lions fan base entered the season with guarded optimism. With the early season schedule seeming rather difficult, most fans were ready to be happy if the Lions could weather that early storm with a 500 record.
Now as the nicked up Lions get a much-needed bye week to lick their wounds and try to get healthy for the Green Bay Packers, the expectation level has started to rise.
For 60 years the fans of the Honolulu Blue and Silver have understood very well that the NFL isn’t a league that rewards participation. Just because the Lions have issued their players uniforms and they have shown up for their scheduled games throughout the years hasn’t garnered them any honors.
As a matter of fact, it has demonstrated over and over again how much the law of the jungle actually applies to the NFL. Only the strong survive and the weak are ritualistically preyed upon by the contenders, while the inept are embarrassed on a regular basis.
If I have to tell you what category the Lions always seem to fit into, then you’ve never been a Detroit Lions fans.
So for everyone who has endured the embarrassment called Detroit Lions football for a decade or two or more, it was understandable that there may be hesitation to buy-in this year. After all the hoopla that surrounded the hiring of Matt Patricia before last season only for it to turn into another typical year of Lions football that was mostly non-competitive, it’s was understandable if you were skittish at the thought of trusting this team.
But now here we are five weeks into the season and the Lions have steadily improved each game. They were undefeated going into last Sunday’s battle against the heavily favored Chiefs and not only came oh so very close to upsetting Kansas City, but looked generally good doing it. As a matter of fact, they actually looked like they belonged on the same field as the Chiefs.
Let me say that again, these Detroit Lions looked like contenders, even in defeat.