Let’s Go Lions
By Gabrielle Phillips
It was 2006, and I sat in Ford Field, surrounded by a sea of Honolulu Blue and jerseys printed with the names of players who no longer stood on the field. There were names of greats like Sanders and Johnson. I listened to a packed house of fans cheering on the Lions in their 2-7 season as if they were 9-0.
Outside the walls of Ford Field lay a blue-collar city fighting for a comeback. A city that would face corruption, bankruptcy, and danger for years to come. Inside the walls of Ford Field, for a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon (because it wasn’t until this year that the Lions started making regular prime-time game slots again), you would the resilient, gritty locals celebrating their team.
That year, 2006, the Lions went 3-13. Two years later, the Lions went 0-16 and became the fourth team in history to have a non-winning season. They joined the 1960 0-11-1 Dallas Cowboys, the 1976 0-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the 1982 0-8-1 Baltimore Colts.
The woes of Lions fans were ongoing as they watched Detroit’s NFL squad crumble. These losses were despite having greats on their team, despite having the first-round draft pick QB in Matthew Stafford, and despite being told season after season, “This will be our comeback year.” The pattern eventually coined their saying, “Same Old Lions.”
Many years later on January 8th, 2023, the Lions went to Lambeau Field to take on Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers in Rodgers’ last game leading the franchise. And they won. They went into the game as underdogs on a five-game losing streak. Detroit snapped that streak, and this game became known as the one that set off the “Brand New Lions” era of football.
If you tune in to the current NFL season, you’ll hear the story of a very different team. You will listen to the story of Benjamin Capp, the 89-year-old Lions season ticket holder for the past 66 years. The die-hard veteran fan held onto his seats so that his children and grandchildren could someday experience the excitement of the winning season he witnessed in 1957 when the Lions won the NFL Championship game. You may hear the story of Aaron Wikaryasz, who was shown crying after the Lions won their first playoff game at Ford Field. Behind Wikaryasz’s tears was the story of the son of a man who helped build Ford Field and buried his dad in a Detroit Lions jacket.
For all the stories that have now been coming to light, there are thousands more just like it all over Detroit and all over Michigan. Lions fans were built on the same four-letter word that has become the theme of Detroit Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell: GRIT.
Detroit Lions Principal Owner and Chairwoman Sheila Ford Hamp shocked the football world in January 2021 by signing Dan Campbell as the new Lions Head Coach. Campbell cemented himself in NFL Head Football Coach history for having the most head-turning introductory press conference where he said:
“Here’s what I do know, is that this team is going to take on the identity of this city,” Campbell said. “And, this city's been down, and it found a way to get up. It's found a way to overcome adversity. So, this team’s going to be built on: we're going to kick you in the teeth, all right, and when you punch us back, we're going to smile at you and when you knock us down, we’re going to get up. And, on the way up, we're going to bite a kneecap off.”
'“And, we’re going to stand up, and then it’s going to take two more shots to knock us down,” Campbell added, “And, on the way up, we’re going to take your other kneecap, and we’re going to get up, and then it’s going to take three shots to get us down. And, when we do, we’re going to take another hunk out of you. Before long, we’re going to be the last one standing. That's going to be the mentality.”
While the national media may have laughed then, they praise him now for leading a team with this mentality of resilience and resurgence.
But as Campbell knows, this mantra has been here, in this city, all along. This team is different because they have been able to harness it. While each fan has their unique story of personal grit, so do the players on the field, the coaching staff, and the front office.
Frank Ragnow, Lions Pro Bowl Offensive Lineman, experienced two sprains in last week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, in addition to other injuries he has been grappling with all season, including an inoperable toe injury. He did not miss a single snap. Frank Ragnow is one of the few players on the Lion's roster that is a part of the “Old Guard.” Ragnow was drafted by the Lions in 2018 and has stuck by this team since.
Kalif Raymond faced challenges during childhood. He recounted only receiving one pair of shoes for Christmas, needing to boil water to have warm water to clean himself, and lighting candles when the electricity bill was getting too high. Raymond went undrafted in the 2017 NFL draft. He joined the Denver Broncos practice squad, where he was waived shortly after and then waived again and again. Nine teams had waived him in total.
Speaking on this experience, Raymond said, “I learned to be a football player… it started my growth process in being a man by switching teams”. In 2022, he received the honor of AP Second-Team All-Pro as the Punt Returner after appearing in 17 games for the Lions 2022 season, recording 27 receptions for a career-high 616 yards.
Amon-Ra St. Brown joined the Lions during the 2021 draft, where he was expected to be taken very high but dropped to be the 16th wide receiver selected. St. Brown can list the names of every player drafted before him. From that day forward, he moved with a chip on his shoulder. He has broken countless records in his three years in the NFL. At 23 years old in 2022, St. Brown becoming the youngest player in franchise history to record 100 receptions and 1,000 receiving yards in a single season. He became the first player in Lions history to produce 900+ receiving yards in their first two NFL seasons (2021-22). And still, he is almost always the last player to leave the practice field at the end of the day.
Each player on this Lions roster has a unique story that makes up their whole. And they go out there on the field and continue that fight for each other each week. The Detroit Lions will now travel to take on the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. The Detroit Lions are now one win away from a Super Bowl appearance. It’s something that has never been done in modern NFL history.
So, when you ask a Detroit Lions fan, “Will they win it?”
Remember, you are asking the 7 year old who sat in the stands of her first NFL game and saw hope. You are asking the ticket holder since 1957 who witnessed the last championship and saw hope. You are asking a head coach who played for the 0-16 Detroit Lions and walked into a broken organization and saw hope. If you ask the city of Detroit? You are asking a town that has been down and found a way to get back up alongside its NFL franchise and saw hope.
So, the answer? I think you can figure that out if you have the Detroit GRIT.
Go Lions.
Gabrielle Dee Phillips covers the Detroit Lions NFL Team for Woodward Sports Network. She is the host of Woodward and Mane St: A Lions Insider Show LIVE Tuesday at 7am and Gamedays at 8am on woodwardsports.com. Gabrielle can be found on social media @gabphillips.
