What to say to the Detroit Lions fan in your life

The heartbreak is real

Photo by Ben Hershey on Unsplash

Success has been a strange pill to swallow.

They say winning cures all ills, but generational dysfunction is not so easily healed. Prior to the last 2 years, we’ve had great players and a handful of good teams, but never good enough to outplay the malaise of misfortune that’s as much our identity as the Honolulu Blue. Historically, the Detroit Lions evoked the fatalistic certainty of watching a house of cards take shape. And when the cards inevitably came down, fans shook their heads with the quiet conviction of the damned—we knew it all along. Same old Lions.

The surprise was never the collapse but that we believed in the first place. To be a Detroit Lions fan is to be an eternal optimist. It’s Charlie Brown forever lining up to kick the ball, believing this time Lucy won’t pull it away, but not being surprised when she does.

That’s been the Detroit Lions experience my entire life.

I’m in my 40s.

Prior to last year, there has been one brush with true greatness—the 1991 team, which lost 41-10 in the NFC Championship to the Washington Redskins—and a handful of good teams hamstrung by inconsistent quarterbacks, suspect defenses, impotent coaching, or ineffective management. Some of our best teams were inflicted with all those ills simultaneously but still hovered around respectability thanks to a generational talent—Barry Sanders—or a truly dynamic duo—Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson. But even at our “best,” I never shook the conviction that we were only one play from disaster. We always snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

The last two years broke with that most hallowed of Lions’ traditions.

We won, repeatedly, in ways that demonstrated an amazing resiliency, a trait no previous Lions team possessed. The team likes to talk about how they’re built different, and from all evidence they’re right. We went into every game expecting to win. It was a strange and wonderful new experience. Even the most skeptical fans bought in.

My Uncle Joe has been a naysayer as long as I’ve known him. He’s in his 60s and has seen this play out, over and over. Every previous time the Lions hinted at being good, for real, he remained cynical. I scoffed at his disbelief, but he was always proven right. He had the high ground and I was forever Anakin Skywalker: Cocky, assured in my youth, fated to end up limbless and screaming.

He bought in too.

In the wake of Saturday’s devastating loss, I found myself unconscionably angry. Like ‘pacing around my living room, stewing’ angry. It took me a while to sort out why I was so pissed. It was just a game, involving wealthy athletes who don’t know I even exist. A silly thing to get worked up over. Tell it to the moon.

It boiled down to two things:

1. It felt like something had been stolen from me. This team felt destined for something greater. As though the universe was going to payback a lifetime of ill fortune all in one go. Like the Goonies, it was our time. Finally.

2. I was secretly afraid that for all the team’s flashy success, in the end they fooled us yet again. They were the same old Lions after all.

It feels almost blasphemous to brand the most successful Lions team in history with the ‘same old’ moniker. They set records, despite losing so many talented players to season-ending injuries. Imagine what they could’ve done with Hutch and everyone else. Ah, young grasshopper—but that, too, is part of the Lions experience. There’s always valid reasons to explain away the latest failing. It’s these excuses that keep us coming back, year after year, for a fresh serving of heartbreak.

To be clear: I’m fully confident in Motor City Dan Campbell and General Manager Brad Holmes. I still trust Jared Goff. We’ll be back in the mix next season, and should go deeper into the playoffs with anything approaching a healthy roster. But we’re going to lose both our offensive and defensive coordinators to head coaching jobs. This is not addition by subtraction. We’re not going to lead the league in offense next year. We had this window, with these people, and now it’s slammed closed.

I find myself thinking of the 2012 Detroit Tigers, a talented team that included 3 no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Famers in their primes (Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Miguel Cabrera). They were swept by the Giants in the World Series and haven’t been back. I’m afraid that will become the legacy of these Lions: perennial contenders until the core ages out and key pieces chase higher salaries over the rainbow. Because in the end, you have to show up. You have to win when the lights are on. Everything else is just exhibition.

Going into Saturday, we were the better team. And we looked like it for brief snatches. But we gave the game away in a manner that’s uncomfortably familiar. The sad thing is it wasn’t even that close. We got our asses kicked.

If you know a Lions fan, you may be tempted to offer platitudes. “The team is young.” “You’ll be better next year with everyone back on defense.” “Dan Campbell is an amazing coach.” “Learning to win means having to lose.” etc etc etc

Here’s what you should say: Nothing.

Leave us alone. Let us dream dreams where Goff doesn’t fumble in the red zone, or doesn’t overlook a wide-open Sam Laporta in favor of a pick-6. Or where we don’t take an unforgivable ‘12 men on the field’ penalty on 4th down with the end zone at our back. Or or or.

It’s an old refrain.

In the NFC Championship game last year, the Lions came out and punched the 49ers in the mouth. We seemed Super Bowl bound for the first time. But then the collapse came, sure as the tide, ushered in in that most Lions of ways—a 60-yard touchdown off a defender’s face mask. Tale as old as time.

I mostly put the end of the 2024 season out of my mind. It was a fluke. The Lions were on the ascent. This season would end differently. And for 17 games, that held true. And then Saturday the dream became a nightmare.

I don’t know if I actually believe they’re still the same old Lions, despite all the good vibes the team engenders. But the fact that I can’t be sure says everything.

Every time I open YouTube—which it turns out is a lot—Rich Eisen is sitting there waiting to explain to me how I should feel about Saturday’s loss. I haven’t watched it. I won’t watch it. No offense, Rich—I’m a fan but I don’t care what you think about this one. You don’t get to have a say. Not this time. You can’t possibly understand.

Tell it to the moon.