The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team, founded in 1930 and moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1934. The Lions play in the NFL's NFC North division with the Chicago Bears, Minnesota Vikings, and Green Bay Packers as their division rivals.

As a preface, it should be warned that the Detroit Lions are a tough team to love since they have a history of being mediocre or unlucky. If you do decide to sink your time into the team, all the adversity will make the payoff much more glorious, assuming that we ever get to that point.

In 1928, the city of Portsmouth, Ohio built Universal Stadium and created the Portsmouth Spartans who joined the NFL on July 12, 1930. After their mediocre debut, the team saw success with head coach Potsy Clark, so a Detroit-area businessman George A. Richards bought the team and moved it over to Detroit, Michigan in 1934 since their past teams had no success.

As a nod to the Detroit Tigers, the team became the Detroit Lions and won its first championship in 1935 with Dutch Clark and Ernie Caddel. Both players retired after the 1938 season, which set up a long struggle in the 1940s with Fred L. Mandel Jr. as their new owner, then it was sold to a syndicate known as the Detroit Football Company in 1948 who would own the Detroit Lions until 1964.

By the 1950s, the team mustered up a competitive roster and traded for QB Bobby Layne who would win three championships with HB Doak Walker and LB Joe Schmidt in 1952, 1953, and 1957. For 1958, Lane was traded which began the alleged curse. That aside, the Lions picked up CB Night Train Lane, and assembled their Fearsome Foursome before ownership changed.

On November 22, 1963, the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the Lions had been bought out by William Clay Ford Sr. and concluded the deal on January 10, 1964. Heading into the Super Bowl era, they'd lose their first playoff appearance in 1970, their WR Chuck Hughes would be the first to die on the field in 1971, then their head coach Don McCafferty died before the 1974 season.

In 1975, the team moved out of Downtown Detroit's Tiger Stadium to the Pontiac Silverdome. Then in 1980, the Lions saw an explosive 4-0 start with RB Billy Sims and QB Eric Hipple, which inspired the renowned parody of Another One Bites the Dust, then the team lost both playoff appearances in 1982 and 1983, before Sims suffered a career-ending injury in 1984.

With former DB Wayne Fontes becoming interim head coach in 1988, the Lions snagged iconic players: RB Barry Sanders, LB Chris Spielman, OT Lomas Brown, K Jason Hanson, WR Herman Moore, etc. For 1991, G Mike Utley had a career-ending injury, then the Lions won their first playoff game. While the team remained in playoff contention throughout the 1990s, they couldn't win another.

Unfortunately, Sanders quietly left the Lions in 1999. For the new millennium, the Lions had hired former LB Matt Millen as general manager, return to Downtown Detroit's newly-established Ford Field in 2002, then their head coach "took the wind", and the Lions would be the first team to violate the new Rooney Rule in 2003. Despite the massive gaffes, Millen got a five-year extension in 2005.

After "0-16" forced Millen's termination and DE Corey Smith died in a boating incident, the Lions had WR Calvin Johnson and drafted QB Matthew Stafford in 2009. They returned to playoff in 2011 and lost. In 2014, the Lions hired Jim Caldwell, longtime owner William Clay Ford Sr. died and had transferred ownership to Martha Firestone Ford, then they made the 2014 playoffs and failed once more.

The team made the 2016 playoffs and lost, then Caldwell was fired as he missed the 2017 playoffs, despite posting an above-average record. It was followed up with the miserable “Quinntricia” era where their toxic head coach tried imitating the New England Patriots, but nobody respected him and the team regressed hard. During this, Sheila Ford Hamp assumes ownership in 2020 and waits it out.

Eventually, the duo was fired after Thanksgiving, then Stafford was traded to the Rams where he'd ironically win Super Bowl LVI. Back in Detroit, the Lions consulted former LB Chris Spielman on their search, hiring general manager Brad Holmes with former TE Dan Campbell as their head coach, and the Lions were now led by the former first overall pick and Super Bowl contending QB Jared Goff.

Despite growing pains from being forced to “retool” from the ground up, this was an energetic revival as the Lions became surprisingly competent and kept on making the correct moves, so much that they've even weaponized the “SOL” (Same Old Lions) pessimism as motivation. Will this all eventually pay off, or will I have to write about the gambling suspensions? Tune in next time!

^{Key: The color scale is based on percentages: #FF0000 (.000 - .111), #FF3F00 (.112 - .222), #FF7F00 (.223 - .333), #FFBF00 (.334 - .444), #FEFF00 (.445 - .556), #BFFF00 (.557 - .667), #7FFF00 (.668 - .778), #3FFF00 (.779 - .889), #00FF00 (.890 - 1.00).}

• Detroit Lions on Wikipedia
• Detroit Lions Franchise Encyclopedia on Pro-Football-Reference.com