A Sense of Doubt blog post #3266 - The Detroit Lions Unify Detroit Motown Rock City
I interrupt my BOWIE MONTH stream of BOWIE ONLY posts for this important post about the Detroit Lions and tomorrow's COMIC BOOK SUNDAY.
Feel the ROAR!!
I can hardly believe this is happening.
Tomorrow, the Detroit Lions face the SF 49ers in the NFC Championship game!!
One win from the Super Bowl!
Here's some shared content.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2024/01/21/detroit-lions-fans/
“Sometimes you have to die to rise again,” he says. “I keep repeating that: After the ashes, my dear, a great country will be born.”
Fifty-five years old. Born in Brazil. Educated in Rome. The Vatican assigned him in 1999 to this church, built with brick and gold, in one of Detroit’s many insular enclaves. Michigan’s largest city, at once a symbol of vitality and failure, is vast and highly diverse; residents speak more than 120 languages and practice at least five major religions.
“A little America,” Schaicoski says. He was determined to fit in when he arrived, so he shrouded himself in the city’s customs, in particular its loyalty to its hapless NFL team, the Lions. He watched his team lose so often, so reliably, that parishioners gave him a T-shirt: “The Lions Make Me Drink.”
Nevertheless, Schaicoski is a man of deep faith, and this frigid Sunday will see the franchise’s first home playoff game since the 1993 season and the first played within the Detroit city limits since 1957.
In this church some five miles from Ford Field, the Lions’ home stadium since 2002, the pews are filled with so many refugees that Schaicoski delivers his mass in Ukrainian. He wants to distract them, offer a momentary break from their fear. So he tells the biblical story of Zacchaeus, a sinner who goes to see Jesus in the present-day West Bank.
In scripture, Zacchaeus climbs a tree for a better view. Jesus notices, orders him down, ends up at the man’s home. Zacchaeus begs for forgiveness. No matter the past, Jesus assures him, God’s blessings lay upon his house.
“Nashi Levy s’ohodni hrayut,” the priest says then, and this draws laughter.
Our Lions are playing today.
Schaicoski asks God to bestow His grace upon them.
TWENTY-NINE MILES FROM FORD FIELD, on the same swath of Earth where the Lions last won a playoff game, there’s a massive Amazon fulfillment center where most of the workforce is robots. An army of delivery trucks awaits dispatch. The Silverdome — where quarterback Erik Kramer stunned the Dallas Cowboys in January 1992, wide receiver Herman Moore torched Pittsburgh on Thanksgiving 1998, Barry Sanders surpassed 2,000 rushing yards in 1997 — is just another memory.
Decades have come and gone, a new year has begun, and is any city more America-in-2024 than Detroit?
In a presidential election year, Michigan is a swing state that went red in 2016, flipped blue in 2020, could go either way in 10 months. President Biden is scheduled to visit this month, an attempt at shoring up support amid the Israel-Gaza war. Along with Detroit’s 50,000 Ukrainians, the metropolitan area is home to the nation’s largest concentration of Arab Americans. Not far away live the city’s 70,000 Jewish residents, and though the war is being fought thousands of miles away, the ripples of tension have reached Michigan.
This is the birthplace of American industrialism, which helps explain such cultural diversity. Ford, General Motors and Chrysler built their cars here. But then U.S. manufacturing cratered and a million residents departed, leaving churches, factories and the old train station to decay.
The rest hunkered down, establishing metaphorical walls around many neighborhoods to protect residents and their customs. There’s a literal wall that still stands in the Eight Mile-Wyoming neighborhood, decades after redlining wasn’t enough to physically separate White residents from Blacks. Detroit is one of the most segregated cities in the country, with a vast wage disparity maintaining the divide.
Sports are supposed to help with that, but the football team hasn’t exactly done its part. With so many households experiencing struggle, whether global or more personal, the Lions haven’t been a reason for hope. They’re one more source of torment, a cruel birthright passed through the generations.
Rodney Wilson was born and raised here, not long after race riots of the 1960s — residents against police, neighbor against neighbor. His father, a Black Detroiter who lived on the southwest side, used to take his sons to watch the Lions on Sundays. Back then, the Silverdome felt like the one place everyone could gather, wear the silver and blue, feel united as they cheered on Eddie Murray, Billy Sims and Sanders.
Then, like everything else, the bottom dropped out. “Eddie Money” shanked a field goal in the playoffs in January 1984, Sims shredded his knee a few months later, Sanders retired in 1999 at 31. “So much agony,” says Wilson, who also followed his dad into a career at Ford and union leadership. He works at the F-150 plant and is the elected representative for United Auto Workers.
Since that last home playoff game in January 1994, Wilson has married and divorced twice and buried his dad. His 30th, 40th and 50th birthdays came and went, and so did the terrible football. The Lions had 19 losing seasons in that span, 16 with double-digit losses, 12 in which they finished last in the division. Wilson’s doctor told him he should stop watching the Lions on account of his blood pressure, but that wasn’t happening. Most of Wilson’s friends adopted a backup team, the Cowboys or Steelers or Patriots, but he couldn’t do that, either. Each of those franchises won the Super Bowl. Most other NFL teams at least got to one.
The Lions’ primary claim to fame was becoming the first team to go 0-16. That was in 2008, the same year the U.S. economy fell apart. In the years since, the Lions kept losing, rebuilding, blowing it up (including the Silverdome itself in 2017) and starting over.
In 2021, they did it again. Their ninth full-time head coach since 1991 is an ex-Lions player who looks and sounds like a guy who used to build carburetors, not somebody who could alter the direction of a locker room, franchise and city.
Not when they’re this busted.
“This place has been kicked. It’s been battered. It’s been bruised,” Dan Campbell said when the team hired him. “. . . I can give you, ‘Hey, we’re going to win this many games.’ None of that matters, and you guys don’t want to hear it anyway.
“You’ve had enough of that s---.”
TWENTY-SIX MILES FROM FORD FIELD, Phyllis Jackson and Martin Murray just arrived after driving from Cincinnati. They’re more than Gary and Stacey Shuman’s friends, though not exactly family.
“Machatunim,” Gary says, the Yiddish word for the people whose kid is married to yours. They try to meet up every few months, and the Bengals didn’t make the playoffs this year and the Lions did, so … here they are.
“A wonderful distraction,” Gary says. And a respite from the dominant topic in West Bloomfield, Detroit’s largest predominantly Jewish suburb, since Oct. 7. That’s the day Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, initiated a surprise attack on Israel. Twelve hundred dead, at least 240 more taken hostages. Less than half have been released, and unease has spread far beyond the Middle East.
“What bothers me more …” Phyllis starts to say.
“That people just don’t care,” Gary continues.
“ ‘It’s just not our problem,’ ” Phyllis says.
Two weeks after the initial attack, a 40-year-old Detroit woman was found stabbed to death outside her home. She had been president of a local synagogue. Early media reports suggested the killing may have been a hate crime; police have since ruled that out. Still, it sent alarm through the community.
Some tucked in their Star of David necklaces in crowds or left their kippot at home. Gary, the incoming president of his own synagogue, called his rabbi at Temple Shir Shalom.
“Getting killed over this,” he recalls saying, “is a little much.”
“We’re all worried,” Phyllis says.
“The hatred that was beneath the surface,” Gary says, “you can feel it pouring out.”
“And becoming normalized,” Martin says.
A quiet moment, and Gary changes the subject. Sixteen years ago, he never watched the Lions. His son liked football and wanted to hold his bar mitzvah at Ford Field. The facility didn’t host such events, but coming off that 0-16 season, the Lions were offering partial season tickets for less than $300 each. Gary jumped at them.
They soon drafted Matt Stafford with the No. 1 pick and paired him with star wideout Calvin Johnson and fierce defender Ndamukong Suh. It seemed dawn had finally made its way to Detroit.
But the Lions lost 14 games in 2009 and 10 a season later. Suh, who starred in Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” commercial two years after the brand filed for bankruptcy, signed with Miami in 2015.
Johnson retired at 30. Detroit traded Stafford to the Rams in 2021, the same year Gary and Stacey’s daughter married Martin and Phyllis’s son. Gary paid extra for his wedding tux to be lined with Lions logos.
Last week, three friends called Gary to ask for one of his two playoff tickets. That’s Stacey’s, he reminded them. Martin and Phyllis bought their own.
“Can’t you tell your wife not to go?” Gary says the freeloaders asked.
“Can’t you just get divorced?” Stacey says as everyone laughs.
A DOZEN MILES FROM FORD FIELD, locals gather at the Islamic Center of America, North America’s largest mosque, for dhuhr, the second of Islam’s five daily prayers.
Volunteer Mirvat Kadouh is here. A casual Lions fan, she made it to one game this season. But she generally tries to avoid crowds, feeling anxious and trapped amid the stares. And that was long before Oct. 7.
In the time since, Kadouh has helped with the mosque’s public relations apparatus, answering an avalanche of calls that often demand condemnation of Middle Eastern violence. There are Palestinians in greater Detroit, but most of Dearborn’s Arab Americans trace their heritage to Lebanon. That didn’t stop a Pennsylvania woman from calling Kadouh to demand a meeting with Hamas, Kadouh says, before scolding her for saying “God bless” at the end of her voice mail greeting.
This is two decades after this community, in the aftermath of 9/11, became the nerve center of American xenophobia. Activists came here to burn the Quran, shout slurs, intimidate locals. In October, shortly after Israel declared war, a Chicago woman and her son were attacked in an alleged hate crime. The 6-year-old boy died after being stabbed 26 times.
The instinct here, Kadouh says, is to draw inward. Neighbors watch out for neighbors. But venturing outside the Dearborn bubble? “Putting your life in the hands of God,” she says.
“Whenever anything happens, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, we’re scared; we’re not safe anywhere,’ ” she says over a lunch of tabbouleh and stuffed grape leaves at Country Chicken, a family-owned Lebanese restaurant in Dearborn. “It doesn’t matter. Anywhere.”
Immediately after the Hamas attacks, the Islamic Center went into lockdown and hired two full-time security guards. There was an interfaith program scheduled with Detroit-area Jewish and Christian schools, and at first Kadouh wanted to cancel it.
But that could have led to more division, speculation, fear.
“We need to portray the right way,” she says.
So volunteers made falafel sandwiches and hired a calligrapher to demonstrate Arabic symbols. They discussed the five pillars of Islam and taught kids about the hijab. Students seemed genuinely curious, she says, and open-minded.
She’s glad she faced this fear, though others remain. She would love to go downtown in a few hours, watch the Lions, celebrate a team that, Kadouh says, is soothing Detroit’s soul.
But …
“With all that? No. No, I wouldn’t,” she says, imagining it. “There are too many people. That stadium is huge. Nobody is safe; I don’t care how much security you have. How safe could it possibly be?”
She will be watching, though.
“We’re jumping on that wagon,” she says. “If the Lions can get to the Super Bowl, maybe even the Middle East has a chance.”
THE SILVERDOME WAS almost 40 miles from Allen Park, and after a loss, the drive home seemed to take hours. Ellen Trudell’s dad, Norman, took her to their first Lions game when she was a baby, and attending the team’s Thanksgiving Day game became a family tradition. Norman drove there and back in the family’s GMC Jimmy, built just a few miles away by the company that hired him in 1972.
“Why?” he asked the men on the radio, their analysis of the latest humiliation and the soundtrack of so many drives.
Norman could be a hard man, callused by years of hoisting 80-pound bumpers at the Cadillac plant. Football was his weekly reward — an escape from the assembly line and, later, economic anxiety. He got laid off a few times, and some friends lost their homes. GM went bankrupt in 2009, the second of the so-called “Big Three” plants to do so.
Regardless of what was going on at work, he could always watch the Lions. But if they were losing, he would change the channel, leave the room, grieve in silence.
Now it was Ellen who asked: Why? Why couldn’t they watch the fourth quarter? Why did he care so much? Why wasn’t the team better?
Because they’re not blitzing! he would finally say. The defense is crap! So is the blocking! Too many turnovers!
Ellen wouldn’t realize this until later, but these were therapy sessions in disguise. She was showing empathy, asking her dad to vent his thoughts and be vulnerable, and a rotten team became the backbone of their father-daughter connection.
Years passed. Losses accumulated, including nine straight on Thanksgiving. They shared it, talked about it, shrugged their shoulders season after season. Then they talked about other things. Ellen’s competitive cheerleading. Her college aspirations. Her future.
“A front-row seat to the emotion,” she says now. “I was able to understand what this means to people: The Lions get right up under your skin.”
She was 7 when her father was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. He was in his early 50s, but his cardiologist said he had the had the heart of an 88-year-old. Ellen was a teenager when it stopped, causing him to fall at work and hit his head. She visited him at the hospital, they watched the Lions, and afterward they could talk about how he was really feeling.
One day she called to say the Lions had offered her an internship. Then a job in their communications department. She didn’t wait to share these accomplishments, because when a parent is aging or ill, it tends to fast-track their kids’ ambitions — the experiences they want to share before the hourglass empties.
“When you’re an only child,” she says, “it’s hard not to think about the things you haven’t done.”
She kept waiting for the Lions to do their part, but in case they never did, Ellen established a new tradition: walking to Section 317 before home games to greet her parents and snap a picture.
In 2022, Norman again went into heart failure. She visited, and on Sundays she turned on the game. He changed the channel. When she tried talking about the team, always their icebreaker, he changed the subject.
That had never happened. That’s how Ellen knew it was bad.
AT FORD FIELD, with kickoff against the Rams less than an hour away, fans push in from the cold. Some are here to boo Stafford, traded three years ago before winning a Super Bowl with the Rams. Others plan to cheer him because he spent 12 seasons with the Lions and the poor guy did all he could.
Thirty miles from here, Rodney Wilson has wings and pizza and pop for his work buddies at Ford. Daniel Schaicoski, the priest at Immaculate Conception, is visiting parishioners at home in Shelby Township, ready to follow the score on his phone. In the shadow of the Ford plant on the Rouge River, Mirvat Kadouh is blanketed in safety, surrounded by family and food.
The Shumans and their machatunim are hurrying toward the stadium, maybe having ordered one too many martinis on Campus Martius Park. They’re on foot with a few hundred others. Some walk down Griswold or Clifford streets, past Isaac Agree Downtown Synagogue, where Samantha Woll worked.
“We come from all different parts of the city,” Gary says, wearing the jersey of the player traded for Stafford, quarterback Jared Goff. “And no one cares.”
Twenty minutes before kickoff, a woman in a bright blue dress leaves the press box and enters an elevator. It may be the busiest night ever at Ford Field, but tradition is tradition. So Ellen Trudell, who now oversees the franchise’s corporate communications, takes an escalator to the stadium’s northeast side. There they are, Norman and Karin, sitting in the same aisle seats they have occupied since 2002.
“This is a big night,” Norman says. He spent most of 2022 in the hospital, but after his medication changed a year ago, he did something that told his daughter he would be okay. He asked about the Lions. They started 1-6 last season before players bought into Campbell’s gruff-but-emotional message, winning eight of their final 10 games and narrowly missing the playoffs. This season they went 12-5, won their division and earned this home playoff game.
Ellen removes her phone. The family smiles as she snaps a photo of a scene they had long imagined.
“Love you!” Norman says.
“Love you, too,” Ellen says, starting her walk back to the press box.
“Go Lions!” Norman says.
Five minutes to kickoff, a marching band performs as the lights dim. A moment such as this is a promise every fan base makes, though it’s an impossible one to keep. The roster, message and time must be right, and if it happens once, it may not happen again.
So a man from Detroit’s east side lifts his phone, his cousin’s face on the screen, so they can watch together. A dad holds his daughter, a toddler, and points to the field from Section 122 for the first of a zillion memories, for better or worse. A 44-year-old from Barton records a video from a standing-room-only platform, saying if the Lions wait as long between home playoff games as they did last time, he will be almost 80 for the next one.
Detroit gets the ball first, and running back David Montgomery proceeds to slice through the Rams’ defense. Goff finds Josh Reynolds on a pass near the end zone, and a wave of high-fives sweeps across the stadium, jumping across rows and sections, race and class.
Montgomery charges toward the goal line, drawing cheers as loud as a military jet engine, but the Rams stop him. Fans remain on their feet. They can feel it coming: an early touchdown, a home playoff win, a chance — an actual chance! — at a playoff win, a path to the NFC championship game, maybe more. “God has heard our prayer,” Schaicoski will send in a text message that night.
For now, all eyes are on Montgomery as he takes the ball and lunges toward the goal line, 66,000 people here and throughout the city waiting just a little longer, together, to explode.
Oral history of Detroit Lions' last division title, 30 years ago
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39224503/oral-history-detroit-lions-last-division-title-30-years-ago
DETROIT -- Christmas arrived a day early as Detroit Lions players celebrated clinching their first division title in 30 years after a 30-24 win at the Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 24.
Inside the visitors locker room, players slipped on their NFC North Division championship gear while jamming to Lil Yachty's "Minnesota."
Coach Dan Campbell addressed the team with an emotional speech, calling the "old guard" of veterans -- Taylor Decker, Frank Ragnow, Jalen Reeves-Maybin and Tracy Walker -- to the front to be celebrated for sticking around through some tough times for the franchise to reach this moment.
"Whenever you do something like we just did, it's special," Campbell told the team. "It don't matter, man. And it don't matter how many you win in a row. They're special. But I can tell you this, when you're part of an organization and it's been thirty years since we won a championship, it's special, man. And these guys have been dying for it."
Before that Dec. 24 party at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Lions had gone 29 seasons between division titles -- the third-longest drought since the 1970 merger. The last team to do it, the 1993 Lions, finished 10-6 and clinched the now defunct NFC Central division in the final week of the regular season with a win over the Green Bay Packers on Jan. 2, 1994.
Though many years have passed since then, the memories remain fresh to those who lived them. Here is the story of that season.
During the 1991 season, the Lions rallied behind offensive lineman Mike Utley, who was paralyzed by a spinal cord injury suffered in a Week 12 game against the Los Angeles Rams. The Lions won their division with a 12-4 record but lost to Washington in the NFC Championship Game. The following training camp, offensive guard Eric Andolsek was killed when he was struck by a semitruck that ran off the road into the front yard of his Louisiana home. Detroit finished the 1992 season 5-11, so 1993 was supposed to be a "rebuilding" year, according to Lions center Kevin Glover.
Lomas Brown, Lions offensive lineman: [The 1993 season] was almost kind of a relief. As you remember in 1991, they said it was us and Dallas [picked to top the NFC]. And of course, Utley's injury and Eric Andolsek getting killed that offseason that just kind of changed everything and for us to take the big dip that we took in 1992, but to kind of rebound in 1993, I think it showed resilience from the guys that we had, and it also showed character, too.
Barry Sanders, Lions running back: We were fortunate to be able to have a group of guys who wanted to establish a winner in Detroit, and we were able to do it that season. It's hard to believe it's actually been that long.
Chris Spielman, Lions linebacker: We had really good players. I mean really good players, and it's unfortunate because I actually think that that 1993 was better than that 1991 team that went to the NFC Championship Game, but that 1991 team had that bond that carried us almost to the top, but that 1993 team was pretty good, man. Maybe one of the better teams that I've ever played on to be honest with you.
The defending Super Bowl champion Cowboys and the Lions played a preseason exhibition in London's Wembley Stadium in what was billed as the eighth American Bowl game. The game finished 13-13, but the Lions said matching up against the league's best team helped set the tone for the season.
Bill Keenist, former Lions public relations director: We had a preseason game in London that August against the Cowboys, and I will contend that it was a great bonding experience for the team because we were over there for basically an entire week.
Kevin Glover, Lions center: That trip was very telling for us also. Dallas had done really well. We had beat them the year before, they had won the Super Bowl, and here we are heading into the year after and we actually practiced against them for a week in London and it was a good telling tale for us of what type of program they were and how special they were and the championship personnel they had built. But we really felt like we could compete with them and we laid it all on the line that year.
Already respected as one of the top running backs of his generation, Sanders' humility was one of his defining traits. By 1993, the 25-year-old running back had been selected to four Pro Bowls and named first-team AP All-Pro three times. But he often shied away from the national spotlight, preferring to keep a low profile -- which often worked considering he was just 5-foot-8.
Mike O'Hara, former Lions beat writer for The Detroit News: We all had these pins, and you wear them up on your shirt. These would allow you to go to the head of the line [at the Hard Rock Cafe] ... but Curt Sylvester, who worked for the Detroit Free Press at time, and I, with a couple of other guys, were in line, and I looked back there and there's Barry just standing. He had his pin and he's just standing in line. ... But that was Barry, he was and is different. He doesn't have to prove he's a star, because he is a star.
Keenist: That was Barry. And I think the anonymity in some respects that he had. He was not a small person; he was just short. He was 5-8, 5-9 and he could blend in perhaps, and he enjoyed that. And then you want to go full circle, however many years later, where did he go when he retired? London.
Glover: Here he is the most talented guy in the city or in the country, and this guy is standing in line. That's Barry. He wanted to be treated like everybody else.
Sanders: When I stepped on the field. I was about competing on the highest level. I took great pride in that and because of that, I tried to be careful what I did off the field, and I think the two go hand in hand. At least, that was my philosophy and the way I approached it. I was really just humbled by the reception and the support of Lions fans and just their excitement about the game. One thing I learned just being here is this is a football town. And they are Lions fanatics, and they just want to see guys get on the field and give their all and bring a winner.
Detroit used that momentum from the preseason to start 7-2 before losing three in a row. After a 13-0 Week 14 loss to the Vikings, coach Wayne Fontes fired offensive coordinator Dan Henning, replaced him with assistant coach Dave Levy and elevated third-string QB Erik Kramer to start in place of Rodney Peete, who was sacked seven times and threw four interceptions against Minnesota.
However, Sanders injured his left knee in the Thanksgiving loss to the Chicago Bears and missed the final five games of the regular season.
Erik Kramer, Lions quarterback: As a team, we had grown to learn that things happen, and decisions get made that might not be in the best interest of the team. Personally, I didn't think that releasing Dan Henning was the issue, but in any event that is what happened and so, I think as a group of players, we just rallied around each other.
Herman Moore, Lions wide receiver: A lot of us had mixed reactions on coach Henning getting fired because he was a good guy. I liked coach Henning personally, and he was actually a really good mentor for me during that time because he had worked with other players before in some top systems [and] he brought a wealth of knowledge ... but sometimes you have to make changes.
Kramer: I remember when I got the opportunity to play that nothing really changed, but I definitely made sure that I was prepared a lot. We didn't have laptops to take home and watch video, so I basically stayed at the practice facility around the clock. Like anything, preparation is the key to anybody's success. ... One of the games we lost bad was against the 49ers, and they rolled in and got off the bus and scored five touchdowns. ... So, I ended up putting a few of their pass plays in, which I then came to run in Chicago.
Fontes, Lions head coach: Erik Kramer was great. We had a good team. Erik was a superstar; we couldn't ask for a better guy under the center. We still had our good offensive line with Lomas Brown and the guys and Kevin Glover. We were still a pretty good football team, but we just didn't have enough firepower to win it all, but I enjoyed it.
Three different quarterbacks started for the team (Peete, Kramer and Andre Ware), combining for 15 passing touchdowns and 19 interceptions.
Sanders rushed for 1,115 yards in 11 games and had three rushing touchdowns. He was injured/inactive for the final five games of the regular season but returned for the playoff game and rushed for 169 yards in the loss.
Moore led the team with 61 receptions, 935 yards and 6 receiving touchdowns.
Keenist: That final game of the season, we still did not have Barry and it was essentially a playoff game because whoever would win that game would host the playoffs the following week, and we beat the Packers.
Eric Lynch, running back from Grand Valley State, had a big day, had [almost] 100 yards and we won that like 30-20 and the Silverdome was rocking. ... Then we played the Packers the next weekend [in the playoffs] and unfortunately, that's always referred to as 'The Sterling Sharpe Game.' Barry did come back for that game and had a monster game of [169] yards rushing.
Detroit lost to the Packers in the NFC wild-card game at the Pontiac Silverdome after a game-sealing touchdown pass from Brett Favre to Sterling Sharpe. With about a minute left, Favre rolled to his left and threw the ball across the field to a wide-open Sharpe streaking down the right sideline as the Packers won 28-24.
George Koonce, Green Bay Packers linebacker: It was a grueling divisional season because over half the division made the playoffs: Lions, Packers and Vikings, and Detroit earned the division title. We played them in Week 12 and Week 18 and the first round of the playoffs. Three times in six weeks.
LeRoy Butler, Packers safety: Erik Kramer is not a quarterback that people are going to bring up in the barbershop. [He] was very efficient. But in our locker room, we talked about being able to -- in this '90s era -- we're going to have to contend with Barry Sanders. I said we've got to pay attention to this team and not believe all of this negative losing stuff that people were saying, but it was a team that we very well respected.
Glover: Unfortunately we got caught by two of the greatest in the business, so it's no shame in it when you put in Favre and Sharpe. I mean, they made a great play, it was a great throw. That ball looked like it hung in the air for about 30 seconds, man. We were kind of watching it like 'C'mon, man, where's gravity?' But we couldn't be mad.
Kramer: I remember going back in the locker room in the equipment area and sitting up on one of those big cases and just crying, thinking that 'I can't believe we just lost this game.' No, I did not think that it would be the last time [that Detroit would win a division title]. So, I'm very happy [about] this year's Lions and the direction they're headed.
Butler: That game changed our life. It really did. The Brett Favre throw to Sterling Sharpe. I can't even tell you the immense just respect that we had for Detroit, but we were shocked that Sterling was so wide open, and Brett was the only QB in NFL history that would even think about making that throw. ... It just kind of catapulted us into the national conversation as a team to contend with. So, Detroit was a big part of that.
Since the inception of the Lions' ring of honor in 2009, the organization has inducted 20 players. But some of the former players would like to see more of the franchise's history preserved. Moore is chief among them and said the 1993 team should be recognized somewhere at Ford Field.
Moore: We think that celebrating the players and the history of what has happened is a way of bringing up bad or you need to move on past it. But, when I go to visit the New York Giants or I go visit Pittsburgh and I go there all the time, they make sure you remember their history of the legends that have come there, and that builds culture in remembrance of what it means to be great and what greatness looks like.
We don't understand that that's what you really need to have, otherwise it looks like you've just been very dismal and just broken, but I go, "No, that hasn't been the case.'
Glover: As an alumni, we're all extremely excited about where the Lions are now and how management has built this program and they're exciting to watch. It's been a long time. ...This is a whole new era and they're doing their thing and it's exciting. It's so much buzz around the city that it's going to be almost impossible for some of us to get tickets to go back, but just to see them play would be exciting.
(3) Lions at (1) 49ers
6:30 p.m. ET | Fox | Spread: SF -7 (50.5)
What to watch for: This is a matchup of the established playoff favorite (the 49ers) against the upstart postseason underdog (the Lions). San Francisco will be making its NFL-record 19th conference championship game appearance. Detroit is in just its second conference title game of the Super Bowl era and first since the 1991 season.
But this game also has all the makings of a heavyweight fight between two of the league's most physical teams. How the Niners' run defense -- which ranks 25th in rushing yards allowed (128.6) and 28th in yards per carry allowed (4.8) since Week 15 -- holds up against the Lions' two-headed rushing attack of Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery will go a long way in determining whether Detroit can spring the upset. -- Nick Wagoner
Bold prediction: Gibbs will rush for a touchdown in his third consecutive playoff game. Sony Michel, Tim Hightower, Jamal Lewis, William Floyd and Tony Dorsett are the only NFL rookies with touchdowns in three playoff games, but Gibbs will become the sixth to accomplish the rare feat. -- Eric Woodyard
Stat to know: The 49ers have been the toughest team to tackle in the NFL this season, leading the league in yards after contact (95.3 per game). In the NFC Championship Game, the Lions' defense will look to put a stop to that, as it leads the league in yards after contact allowed per game (63.5).
Matchup X factor: Lions edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson. The Lions' pass defense is the weakest unit left in the playoffs, ranking 30th in EPA per dropback over the course of the season. Hutchinson is one person who can change that in a flash, and he has been a different player in the postseason with a 29% pass rush win rate -- more than double his regular-season number. He also has 8.0 sacks in his past four games. Detroit, the underdog, needs something special -- a strip sack, perhaps? -- from Hutchinson to put this game back on level terms. -- Walder
Game-plan key: Detroit has to get Purdy off-schedule with pressure. Including the playoffs, Detroit has registered a blitz rate of 28.3% on first and second down, which ranks in the top 10. The Lions simply can't let Purdy throw in rhythm or allow coach Kyle Shanahan to control the tempo. Read more at ESPN+. -- Bowen
Officiating note: Referee Clete Blakeman's regular-season crew took to heart the NFL's midseason emphasis on offensive offside penalties, throwing a league-high five such flags. It was ranked second in the NFL in flags (53) related to defensive pass coverage: illegal contact, defensive pass interference and defensive holding. -- Seifert
Betting nugget: The Lions are 13-6 against the spread, the second-best mark behind the Raiders (12-5). Overs are 12-7 in Lions games. The 49ers are 9-9 against the spread with overs going 10-8.
Moody's pick: Lions 31, 49ers 28
Walder's pick: 49ers 34, Lions 24
FPI prediction: SF, 74.1% (by an average of 8.5 points)
Matchup must-reads: Lions turn attention to 49ers after ousting Bucs in playoffs ... Purdy on playoff struggles: 'It's a new game' ... Campbell links winless 2008 Lions to success of 2023 team ... Samuel, Williams provide 49ers with leadership
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2401.27 - 10:10
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