Would the Detroit Lions lose fans to a successful local XFL team?
By Robert Jones
The real king of the jungle
In 1983 the USFL opened play to compete with the NFL. They were a spring football league just like the new XFL is. One of the charter members of the USFL was the Michigan Panthers. A team that started that first season slowly, but gained momentum led by quarterback Bobby Hebert, linebacker John Corker, and former University of Michigan receiver Anthony Carter who would later star with the Minnesota Vikings after the USFL folded in 1985.
By the season’s end, the Panthers were 12-6 and champions of the USFL’s Central Division. They then hosted the Oakland Invaders in the playoffs with a chance to advance to the USFL’s first championship game.
The Panther’s victory over the Invaders wasn’t even as close as the final score of 37-21 might indicate. The Panthers then headed to Mile High Stadium in Denver to face the Philadelphia Stars for the right to be crowned the league’s first champion.
In Denver, a talented Stars team fought hard, but the Michigan Panthers were better that day. As a matter of fact, the best team in the USFL. And they proved that with a 24-22 victory making them the inaugural league champions.
As I said before, the Panthers gained momentum as the season wore on and they also gained fans. The Motor City faithful were seeing something different when they attended a Panthers game. Fans saw a talented well-organized club that found ways to win instead of imploding.
Instead of asking the fans to be patient while their team takes over half a century and counting, to build a winner, the Motor City was buzzing about their ready-made first-year champions.
The Michigan Panthers were everything the Detroit Lions weren’t and fans started to wonder why their long time team in Honolulu Blue and Silver couldn’t get it right and find a way to win.
Both teams played in the now-defunct Pontiac Silverdome, which had been built for the Lions and opened in 1975. It was considered a state of the art stadium for champions. All that was left was for the Lions to play like champions.
Instead, the Panthers moved in and not only played like champions but were champions. And the Lions became second class citizens in their own home, despite having qualified for the playoffs in the strike-shortened 1982 season and then being dismantled by the Redskins 31-7 in the postseason.
After the Panthers championship run the Lions returned for the 1983 season and went 9-7, won the Central Division then lost to the San Francisco 49ers 24-23 in the playoffs when All-Pro kicker Eddie Murray missed a 44-yard field with five seconds left in the game. Same old Lions.