The Detroit Lions began playing in 1929 in Portsmouth, Ohio as the Portsmouth Spartans. Then they were one of many independent football clubs playing a haphazard schedule without any league or formal championship system. The year after their inaugural season, they joined the NFL. The move saved the Spartans from the plague of folding that besieged the independent teams in the area.
Still, the Spartans played in the smallest city in the NFL. That small city was simply too tiny to support an NFL franchise, especially during the Great Depression in a fledgling league. George Richards, who owned a Detroit radio station, purchased the Spartans and renamed them the Detroit Lions. The Lions continued the impressive play that spurred the sale and won the NFL championship in 1935 with quarterback Dutch Clark.
Those great seasons in the 1930s gave way to a difficult start in the 1940s, though the team began playing competitively once again by the middle of the decade.
Detroit Lions fans may not realize it now, but this team once was a powerful franchise. In the 1950s quarterback Bobby Lane led the Lions to the NFL championship in 1952, 9153, and 1957. The team's front office traded their future Hall of Fame quarterback after the 1957 championship because of an injury he sustained during the game. The trade has gone down in the local sports lore as the Curse of Bobby Lane, since after that year Detroit football has been seemingly mired in futility for most of the seasons.
This sense of desperation is overstated of course. The Detroit Lions play in the middle of the pack in the 1970s and showed promise in the early 1980s before Billy Simms, the first overall pick in the 1980 NFL draft, blew out his knee and ended his career.
Detroit's pigskin savior came in the form of another running back nearly a decade after drafting Simms. Barry Sanders joined the team for his rookie season in 1989. The diminutive running back bounced around, utilizing his incredible quickness and elusiveness to put together a highlight reel nearly every game.
With Sanders at running back the Lions suddenly were potential postseason players every season. The Detroit Lions reached the playoffs six times during the 1990s, though they consistently fell in the first round. The franchise began to struggle after Sanders retired in 1997. Sanders left the game very early and many suspect it was out of respect for the only man ahead of him on the career rushing list, Walter Payton.
After the Lions went 9-7 in 2001 they hired Matt Millen as team president and CEO. His leadership led to a disastrous string of seasons that finally ended in 2008. The Detroit Lions failed to post a winning record during Millen's time in the front office, though many times the team simply lost heartbreaking games.
Tom Lewand replaced Millen and one of his first actions as president came at the end of the season when he fired head coach Rod Marinelli. Jim Schwartz has been hired to replace Marinelli and the team hopes that the young talent they have is able to turn things around quickly in Detroit.
