Lions Ineptitude Part 1 of 3

The more things change, the more things stay the same. It is a cliche, but it could not be more fitting to describe the historically inept Detroit Lions. In a league in which parity amongst teams evokes optimism from all 32 teams, in a city in which football is ravenously devoured and loyalty runs as deep as Lake Superior, and with stable ownership willing to spend enough money to win, the Lions have fallen woefully short. Since 1964, the Lions have won exactly one playoff game (1991) and have had 15 head coaches. To put that in perspective, the Pittsburgh Steelers have had 3 head coaches and have won 26 playoff games. While the Steelers are an exceptionally well-run team with incredible stability at the coaching position, there is no reason the Lions cannot match their success. Both are owned by longtime NFL patriarchs (Dan Rooney, and William Clay Ford, respectively), both have brand new stadiums and both are Midwestern industrial towns with a working-class fan base who merely expects their team to play hard and to have a fighting chance.
"One playoff win in 49 years" says a lot, but it does not completely portray the personal anguish and suffering a Lions fan endures. Sure, it is just a sport, but in the city of Detroit it is much more than that. It is a part of their identity, an inextricable part of who they are. They may make fun of the Lions all the time, but below the insults is an intense love for the team, and when there is even the slightest glimmer of hope, the city of Detroit and the surrounding suburbs come alive and rabidly follow the fortunes of their beloved Lions. Detroit has been dubbed "Hockeytown" by some, but I find this to be a misleading title: Detroit bleeds honolulu blue and silver. In the mid-90's, when thirty-five year old men had never been alive for a Lions Championship, and had only seen that one playoff victory, the 80,000-seat Pontiac Silverdome, the biggest stadium in the NFL at the time, still sold out on a regular basis. To contrast this, in the 80's, Mike Illitch had to give away cars to sell seats at Joe Louis Arena to watch the "Dead Wings."
And yet, in spite of all this failure, all this heartbreak, there is always hope with every new head coach. Invariably, a press conference is called, and the new man steps up to the podium with a bright smile and some compelling answers as to how to fix the Lions. And just as often, the constant pressure of futility, a skeptical media, and an organization that is content to be mediocre breaks down that optimistic man, and sends him out of the NFL. Only one man has ever left the Lions and lived to coach another team, and that man, Dick Jauron (current coach of the Buffalo Bills) only was an interim coach of a few games. This is no coincidence: Lions head coaches leave the organization as changed men, with a damaged psyche that some might compare to a mild form of PTSD. Bad personnel moves, poor drafting, unrealistically high expectations, loss of control of the locker room, tragic events, and untimely injuries have all played a part in dooming Lions Head Coaches of the past and continues to this day. In Part 2, I will examine exactly what brought this diverse group of proud men to their knees, and what prevented them from continuing on as a head coach. In part 3, I will compare the Lions to other lovable losers, such as the Cleveland Browns, the Chicago Cubs and the Boston Red Sox.