By Brendan Knight, Sport Management, 2026

For decades, the Detroit Lions have been known for being nothing short of a disappointment. On January 5th, 1992, the Lions beat the Dallas Cowboys 38-6. Since that day in January, not much had gone the Lions’ way. In 1999, legendary Lion and arguably the best running back in the history of football, Barry Sanders, called an early retirement. Fast forward to the 2008 season. The Lions became the first team in NFL history to go 0-16. Even when things started to look up, it always ended in disappointment for the Lions. In 2015, the Lions finished the regular season with an 11-5 record and 2nd place in the NFC North. With hopes high, the team traveled to Dallas to take on the Dallas Cowboys in “Jerry’s World.” What would be and still to this day is considered by many Lions fans one of the worst officiated playoff games in NFL history, the Lions fell to the Cowboys 24-20. In 2021, star quarterback and face of the franchise, Matthew Stafford, decided to seek out a trade to leave Detroit after being with the team for eight years. This was something that Lions fans had never anticipated, and many were unsure of just where the organization was headed.

 

Detroit, Michigan, has had a history and reputation of being a rough, crime-infested city. In 1967, race riots took place in Detroit for five days, killing 43 and injuring 342 others. Fast-forwarding to the early 2000s, Detroit has been under fire in every imaginable direction. In September of 2008, Kwame Kilpatrick, then mayor of Detroit, pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and was forced to leave office. In 2009, General Motors and Chrysler were forced to declare bankruptcy, ultimately leading to many abandoned buildings in the city. Finally, in 2013, the city of Detroit filed for bankruptcy. It’s safe to say that Detroit has not seen happy days in quite some time. That is until very recently.

 

For years, it was a running joke in the NFL that the Detroit Lions organization was the “coaches’ graveyard.” It seemed that no matter who was in charge of the team, no one would ever succeed. This continued until January 20th, 2021, when the desperate Lions made a gutsy call by hiring Dan Cambell as their new head coach. Campbell played Tight End in the NFL for ten years and spent three of those years with the Lions. From his first press conference, fans could sense this man would no longer allow the Lions to be “the same old Lions” anymore. He changed the reputation of the Lions from a negative one to one that would be known as “313 Grit.”

With this new reputation, Campbell was set to change the narrative of the Lions organization and the entire city of Detroit. Cambell finished 3-13-1 (2021) and 9-8 (2022) in his first two seasons. In 2023, the Lions were set to put the league on notice and gain the respect that had been long overdue. In the season opener, the Lions would travel to Kansas City to take on the defending Super Bowl Champion Chiefs. The Lions beat the Chiefs 21-20, giving the franchise much-needed confidence for the rest of the season. The team would finish 12-5 and go on to win its first two playoff games over the L.A. Rams and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before coming up short in the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers. Even though the Lions couldn’t bring a Lombardi Trophy back to Detroit in the 2023 season, they still gave the city something it desperately needed: hope. For so many years, the city of Detroit has been an afterthought not many people wanted anything to do with it. But this Lions team gave its fans and the city of Detroit a reason to be proud to be from the 313, in more ways than one. In 2023, homicides in Detroit dropped over 18%, from 309 in 2022 to 252 in 2023. It also saw a 15.8% reduction in nonfatal shootings in 2022 (955) and 2023 (804) and a 33.5% reduction in carjackings in 2022 (251) and 2023 (167). This makes 2023 Detroit’s lowest homicide rate in the last sixty years. The last time the city saw its homicide rate this low, the Lions were 11-3. While the exact cause of this positive change remains complex, the timing couldn’t be ignored. For the first time in a long while, Detroit is united and has a shared sense of hope and community pride, which could contribute to a safer Detroit. 

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