Detroit Lions: The painful offseason moves may not be over
By Robert Jones
The Detroit Lions are turning the page. The Matthew Stafford era is over, but there is plenty more change yet to come.
On Super Bowl Sunday the world tunes in to see who will hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy. It’s not just a game, but an event. A spectacle. For fans who get to see their team in the Super Bowl, it is a different type of exhilaration. Those fans will either end the night in complete ecstasy or agony.
No Lions fans have ever known a Super Bowl reaction. Sure there are some fans who are still around from Detroit’s last championship in 1957, but they’re few and far between and that was before the Super Bowl existed and the media access and buzz that follows it today.
As a matter of fact, the Lions are not even the last pro football team to win a world championship in Detroit. That honor would go to the USFL’s Michigan Panthers back in 1983.
From 1983 to 1985 the USFL captured the imagination of many fans. In Detroit where the Lions had been nothing more than losers, the USFL’s Michigan Panthers were a breath of fresh air. The Panthers quickly became one of the league powers and on July 17th, 1983 in Denver, Colorado, the Panthers led by receiver Anthony Carter, quarterback Bobby Herbert, and linebacker John Corker beat the Philadelphia Stars 24-22 for the USFL’s inaugural championship.
The Panthers would only last the first two seasons of the USFL’s three-year run before it folded/merged with the Oakland Invaders for the league’s final season. The Panthers were a playoff team both of their seasons in Michigan and the Invaders, with a very heavy Panther influence, played in the final title game before the USFL suspended operations.
For fans who were around at that time, how the Panthers and Lions were run was drastically different. While the Lions cut corners and ‘retooled’ the Panthers built one of the league’s best organizations from the front office to coaching to players and watching them was a completely different experience than watching the Lions.
Now all these years later, Sheila Ford Hamp is trying to do what her Father should have done decades ago; put in the time, effort, and money to build a championship contender the right way. It started last weekend with the consummation of the difficult decision to let Matthew Stafford move on to greener pastures and will most likely continue with more talent leaving the Motor City.