Do Detroit Lions fans have the patience to stay the course?
By Robert Jones
Detroit Lions have charted a course they believe will be successful, but do the fans have the patience to see it through?
The Detroit Lions are attempting what would seem to be the most difficult feat in the NFL today: they are trying to become a championship team.
NFL teams rise and fall like the change of seasons. Outside of Bill Belichick’s ability to keep the Patriots competitive no matter what, the rest of the league has peaks and valleys. In 2019, the reigning AFC champion Cincinnati Bengals had the worst record in the league.
Head coach Dan Campbell, however optimistically, thinks the Lions can have a quick turnaround like the Bengals. Looking at the history of each franchise, the Bengals have been to a few Super Bowls while the Lions have won one playoff game since the 1957 NFL Championship year.
The Lions have been a losing culture for most of the last few decades. However, principal owner Sheila Ford Hamp, in an interview with the team website, stated the need to resist the temptation of looking for the quick fix.
Will Detroit Lions fans be patient and stay the course this time around?
"Sticking to the plan is often hard,” the owner said. “You have the temptation to go, ‘Oh, let’s go out and get this player’ or ‘Let’s do that.’ Well, that’s just not the way we want to build things. We want to build things with a solid foundation for the future so that we are consistently a terrific team.”"
What needs to be recognized is the role Hamp is playing in this building process. She took the advice of those around her and made the decision to hire Brad Holmes as the general manager, and Campbell as head coach. She clearly knows her role, which is a refreshing idea for long-suffering Lions’ fans.
"I see my role evolving and changing in that I think we’ve got a great coach,” Hamp stated. “I think we’ve got a terrific general manager. I want to know and be involved with them and their thinking and seeing how they work, and then you let them do their work. But I have every confidence in them, and I would never meddle."
Ultimately, the payoff of the current plan will have to come in wins and losses. Only time will tell if Holmes and Campbell can get the job done. But as long as they stay the course and continue to improve, then the fans will have a tangible reason to be patient. At least for now.
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