Some might say the Detroit Lions are a cursed franchise regardless of any specifics, but head coach Dan Campbell rejects the “Curse of Bobby Layne.”
The stats are well-known. The Detroit Lions have not won a championship since 1957, with just one playoff win since then. The quarterback for the second-to-last Lions’ championship in 1953, and the one before it in 1952, was Hall of Famer Bobby Layne.
Layne suffered a broken leg in 1957, and Tobin Rote finished out that championship campaign as the starting quarterback. Early in the following season, Layne was shockingly traded by Lions coach George Wilson to the Pittsburgh Steelers for Earl Morrall and two draft picks.
Upon his departure, Layne was bitter and supposedly said the Lions would not win a championship for another 50 years. That stretch is now at 64 years, of course. As noted by Justin Rogers of The Detroit News, the Lions have a 402-555-19 record since trading Layne. They’ve made the playoffs 12 times since the trade.
On the season premiere of “Peyton’s Places” last weekend, Peyton Manning dove into the “The Curse of Bobby Layne” with noted celebrity Lions fans Keegan-Michael Key and Jeff Daniels as guests.
The episode ends with Daniels and Manning at Ford Field, performing a ritual involving Layne’s helmet and a bathtub of whisky as an attempt to reverse the curse.
Dan Campbell doesn’t believe in ‘The Curse of Bobby Layne’
It’s no surprise Lions head coach Dan Campbell hasn’t seen the “Peyton’s Places” episode. He is well aware of team history, but that doesn’t mean he gives any creed to the Layne curse.
"No, I don’t. I do not. I can’t go there. I’m not going to allow myself to go there because I just feel like for me, as a coach or for us as players, that’s an excuse,” “And I think you create your own vibe, your own mojo. You create your own energy and I think the more you buy into that and believe that, that’s what you become so no, I’m not buying that.”"
Lions rookie Aidan Hutchinson wasn’t aware of the curse until recently.
"It’s a great opportunity. I mean, hopefully Peyton exorcised it,” Hutchinson told ESPN. “Hopefully we can move on now. It’ll be cool if we can start winning ballgames now that Peyton came down here and got rid of it.”"
On the episode, Daniels expressed the sentiment of many long-suffering Lions’ fans.
"It has to be it. There is a curse,” Daniels told Manning on the ESPN+ show. “If you take the curse out of there, we have to accept the fact that we’re this bad. It’s easier for us, who are die-hard Lions fans to go, ‘yes, there is a curse.’ We hit bottom and then we hit bottom again and then we got a hammer out and hit ourselves in the head a few more times and then we hit bottom again.Down in the deep darkness of my Lions fan’s soul, there is hope.”"