The Now-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players
The Lions don't let national TV games get the best of them anymore.
Alex Karras was on the other end of the line.
“We were so ready to play that day,” Alex told me via phone from Southern California in 2006. “Of course, back then, you only had one chance to be on national television.”
The conversation was one of those “Where Are They Now?” pieces for a Detroit-based sports magazine for which I was the editor-in-chief. The topic was the 1962 Thanksgiving Day game featuring Karras’s Lions and the Packers.
Earlier that season, in Green Bay, the Lions kicked one away when they inexplicably threw a third down pass late in the 4th quarter in a game in which they led, 7-6. Receiver Terry Barr slipped and the Pack’s Herb Adderley intercepted. Moments later, Paul Hornung kicked the game-winning field goal in the mud.
After the game in the Lions locker room, an enraged Karras threw his helmet at QB Milt Plum’s head, missing it by inches. Karras had asked Plum who called the pass play.
“None of your business,” Plum said.
THWACK!
So in 2006 I asked Karras about the rematch in Detroit. The Lions were 8-2, the Packers were 10-0. Of course, the Lions felt that both teams should have been 9-1.
“You wanted to put on a good show because you knew the whole country was watching,” Alex said. Chuckling, he added, “We sacked Bart (Starr) a few times, eh?”
Yeah. Just a few—unofficially, 10 times to be exact. The Lions raced to a 26-0 lead and won, 26-14.
Karras enjoyed what he called “the ballet” of football. That was his term—I’ll never forget it—for the battle of the trenches that he took part in for 55-60 snaps per game.
The ‘62 Lions finished 11-3. The Packers, 13-1. Had the Lions not blown the game in Green Bay in October, both teams would have finished 12-2 and would have played a playoff game to see who won the Western Division.
If you want to trace the ancestry of “Same Old Lions,” you’d do worse than to start with that game in Green Bay in 1962.
For decades, the Lions could pretty much only circle the Turkey Day game as their chance to be on national TV. That was their time. At 12:30 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of November, the Lions would be beamed into the nation’s living rooms. For better or worse.
In 2024, the Lions will play more than half (9 of 17) of their games on some semblance of national television: Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night, a handful of 4:25 p.m. Sunday starts and of course, Thanksgiving Day.
And you know what? They belong in those time slots.
The prime time stage isn’t too big for them. Not anymore.
In recent years, if the Lions found themselves on TV in prime time, their fans held their collective breath. They hoped for the best, expected the worst.
Now, the Lions seem to not only perform well under the bright lights, they thrive on it.
It’s clear now that whatever demons have followed the Lions have been cast aside.
This is a bona fide elite football team and they’ve ripped the shackles off the narrative of “Same Old Lions.”
Whoa! They haven’t gotten to the Super Bowl yet.
It’s true. The Lions remain the only pre-NFL/AFL merger team in the NFC to never have appeared in The Big Game.
And yes, they totally blew the NFC Championship game last January.
But look no further than Sunday night’s 26-20 overtime thriller over the Rams at Ford Field.
That had “Same Old Lions” written all over it, no?
Big hype. Big expectations. Home opener. Race to a lead. Lose lead. Fall behind.
In SOL days, the Lions would have thrown a late interception or fumbled the ball away or come up with some other cockamamie way to lose the football game.
An ill-timed personal foul. A strange rule interpretation (OK, that happened in Dallas last year but you know what I mean). You name it.
The Bobby Layne Curse strikes again!
On Sunday night, the Lions played far from their crispest game, especially on offense. They were getting smoked in time of possession. They couldn’t quite get to Rams QB Matt Stafford. Star receivers Amon-Ra St. Brown and Sam LaPorta belonged on the sides of milk cartons. QB Jared Goff was just a smidgen off most of the night. Even the SNF announcing team of Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth were piling on by praising the Rams’ performance at the Lions’ expense.
But the Lions are 1-0 and the Rams are 0-1.
The Lions have an offensive line that appears to be able to exert its will whenever it so desires. I know that’s not really the case, but it sure seemed like it in overtime.
I don’t know what the Lions’ game plan was if they lost the coin toss and had to play defense first, but it sure was evident what the game plan was if they got the ball to start OT.
Run. And run. And run some more—with a steady diet of David Montgomery.
Goff turned himself into no more than a hander-offer in OT and watched gleefully as the O-line and Monty ripped through the Rams—and theirs was the defense that had rested most of the night. Yet they were no more than butter to Montgomery’s hot knife.
The Rams never got the football in OT, unless you count it being stuffed down their throats.
The NFL marketing machine knows that the Lions are ratings gold. They’re a likable team with a likable coach and the fact that they’ve gone 67 years since their last championship gives them a 2016 Chicago Cubs-type vibe.
America’s Team II.
So it’s no wonder that you can hardly flip on your TV this NFL season without the Lions being prominently featured.
The 1:00 Sunday game is becoming extinct.
These night games are tough on the fans in the sense that they have to wait all day to get their Lions fix, then they have to toss and turn in bed trying to calm down after the final gun.
The Lions are no longer overwhelmed by national TV games. They feed off it and the more of them they play, the more used to it they will become.
It’s not 1962 anymore.
For one, you can’t play .786 ball and not make the playoffs.