America's Team II

The Lions are national darlings. The NFL Draft in Detroit did nothing to disprove that.

More than 700,000 people made their way downtown over the weekend to attend the NFL Draft and cheer on their Lions at every opportunity. Not one of them wore a paper bag over their head.

Not one of them chanted “SELL THE TEAM!”

Not one of them declared “Same old Lions!”

Instead, it was a sea of Honolulu Blue, with many sporting the newly-released jerseys that the team will formerly unveil on the gridiron this fall.

There were no paper bags, but no doubt there were some IN BRAD WE TRUST signs. Others wore t-shirts with head coach Dan Campbell and GM Brad Holmes depicted on them.

Is this an alternate reality? Have we been plunged into a video game?

The Lions draft war room saw everyone donning the new black alternate jersey with Campbell’s #89, from when he played for the team in the 2000s.

This is the story of a football franchise that turned from being mocked nationally and even more so at home, to arguably America’s Team II.

It’s not hyperbole.

The city of Detroit put on the best public face it ever has, with the folks at ESPN broadcasting shots of the mass of humanity at Campus Martius that made New Year’s Eve at Times Square look like a Sunday picnic.

No reports of violence. No fan from another NFL team got beaten to a pulp, which happens in other league cities.

I have no idea where all those attendees parked their cars, but I do know that 99.9% percent of them didn’t use public transportation, so they somehow found a way to wedge their vehicle somewhere.

That’s not to say that parking tickets weren’t written.

But better for the police to issue parking citations than make arrests.

The Lions’ ascent to being the darlings of the NFL—and that’s exactly what they are—has been three years in the making. The incline has been steady and gradual. Now it’s shifted into hyperspeed.

It started, ironically, with more mocking.

When Campbell held his intro presser as Lions HC in January 2021 and made the now famous “biting kneecaps” speech, NFL observers across the country chortled.

The Lions had hired a clown to go with their big top.

But despite the awkwardness, Campbell gave the Lions some degree of national chatter—even if it was the wrong kind.

Some locals loved the speech. Most rolled their eyes.

In 2022, after a 3-13-1 season, ESPN put the Lions on “Hard Knocks,” their training camp/preseason reality show. That turned some people from mockers to those who became endeared with Campbell and his staff of former NFL players.

The 2022 Lions got off the mat from a 1-6 start to nearly make the playoffs. They beat the Packers in Green Bay on the season’s final weekend in Aaron Rodgers’s last game in GB—knocking the Pack out of the playoffs.

“We don’t want [the Packers] to go,” Campbell firmly stated at halftime about his team’s incentive to win even though the Lions were eliminated from the playoffs just hours earlier. No coach speak. No taking the high road.

We don’t want them to go.

Campbell was speaking for Lions fans everywhere with those six words.

The Lions won, finishing 9-8—and the Packers didn’t go to the playoffs. Maybe more importantly to Lions fans, Rodgers didn’t go.

The momentum for Lions love nationally was an unstoppable force as training camp began last summer.

And the team did nothing to disprove the optimism from the prognosticators that had the Lions winning the NFC North.

The Lions finished 12-5, won two playoff games and despite a meltdown in the NFC Championship game, in which Campbell himself was brutally second-guessed about some fourth down decisions, the hype train is still bursting with passengers.

Super Bowl or bust.

QB Jared Goff’s name was being chanted everywhere from at Red Wings games to (fill in the blank).

Holmes’s weekend draft choices have only affirmed the fans’—and media’s—resolve.

Two top CBs were selected with the team’s first two picks. Offensive line depth was added. There was someone from Canada’s British Columbia drafted. Heck, the fans even got excited about Holmes drafting who might be nothing more than a good special teams guy.

Brad Holmes could draft that guy at your work from accounting and you’d say, “Really? Wow. OK! I guess Brad knows what he’s doing.”

In Brad They Trust.

The transformation from outhouse to penthouse has been swift and stunning.

Yours truly has been proven to be a fool—again.

I’ve derisively been calling Campbell “Meathead” since 2021 but now I use that term lovingly. Now, I use it the same way as when you call a child “a little stinker.”

In 2022, the Lions recovered from that 1-6 start and many (including I) said, “Fine. Let’s see what they do when they’re not sneaking up on anyone.”

The Lions read the hype yet punched the KC Chiefs in the mouth in their own building on opening night last year.

They then proceeded to not lose two consecutive games in going 12-5.

OK fine. They still haven’t won a playoff game since 1991-92.

The Lions won two of them—including one over old friend Matthew Stafford, which in Lions lore of the past would have meant #9 walking into Ford Field and stealing the Lions’ lunch. Because SOL.

There still is one monkey on the Lions’ back.

They still haven’t won a playoff game on the road since 1957—the same year as their last championship.

If you want to look at the Lions choking away a 24-7 halftime lead over the 49ers in the NFC title game as SOL, fine. You’re wrong, but fine. They weren’t the first team to come from ahead and lose a playoff game on the road, and they won’t be the last.

Here’s the difference. Though the fans are heartbroken about what happened in Santa Clara on Jan. 28, I don’t feel like they’re despondent about the future. Far from it.

Even better, I don’t think the Lions themselves are having a pity party about how their season ended.

I think they’re pissed.

The 2023 Lions season doesn’t feel like a one-hit wonder, like the 1991 team’s emotional, Mike Utley-driven run to the NFC Championship game. This roster is much more sustainable for long-term success.

Holmes damn near overshadowed the NFL Draft when he locked up WR Amon-Ra St. Brown and OT Penei Sewell to long-term extensions earlier in the week.

Well, we’re only talking about the best receiver the Lions have had since Calvin Johnson and—mark my words—the best offensive tackle the team will ever have, when all is said and done.

Book it. Penei Sewell is the Lions’ Anthony Munoz. And I know where Munoz’s bust is, so I understand what I’m saying.

New uniforms. New players. New contract extensions. And no doubt one more extension, when Holmes gets Goff’s name on the dotted line.

There really is only one more thing for this Lions team to do. You know what it is.

What world are we living in?

Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell’s, that’s what.

In Detroit, paper bags are just for groceries once again.