The Detroit Lions were part of two major announcements on Monday.
First, they were instrumental in bringing the 2024 NFL draft to Detroit. Second, they will be featured this summer on HBO’s long-running reality series “Hard Knocks.”
If you’re a Lions fan, you should be excited about both announcements. If you’re simply a sports fan in Michigan, you should at least be excited about the carnival-like experience the NFL draft’s traveling show promises to sprinkle throughout the city.
But let’s be absolutely clear about something. Neither of these announcements has anything to do with making the Lions better. Zip, zilch, nada. “Hard Knocks” is an obligation that the team is portraying as a promotional tool.
“We are excited about the opportunity to showcase the city of Detroit and the amazing culture we are building at the Lions,” team president Rod Wood said in a statement.
The draft is a business opportunity with potentially a $100 million economic impact that politicians and business leaders are already touting and celebrating in released statements.
“Bringing the 2024 NFL draft to Detroit is a huge win for Detroiters and football fans across the state of Michigan,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said. “It will inject energy into our economy, benefitting countless small businesses and working families in Southeast Michigan.”
“As Detroit’s largest employer, and a company with deep roots in the city, we are looking forward to welcoming the 2024 NFL draft to our hometown,” said Jay Farner, chief executive officer of Rocket Companies.
But no one said anything about how either of these events benefits the Lions and makes them better. It’s basically window dressing, because if you can’t make a team better, at least you can make some money.
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There’s nothing wrong with that, because we have to remember that above all else, after you set aside all the talk about culture and competition and trying to win, it boils down to this: The Lions are a business, just like any pro team is a business. And the bottom line of any business is to make money.
There’s nothing wrong with that, either. But let’s not conflate the two endeavors. Making money and making progress on the field aren’t the same thing. Making announcements that are only tangentially related to the team’s success isn’t making a difference in the standings.
Look, I want to be fair. A long time ago, Wood was honest about not being a football guy and underscored that truth by making air quotes with his hands. He quickly proved that by fumbling Calvin Johnson’s retirement.
What Wood was and remains is a money guy, an investment expert who knows how to leverage wealth and influence. And he has done that here with the draft, where he has been a major player on behalf of the Lions and the Detroit Sports Commission to bring the event to the city. It was an endeavor Wood and the commission first planned to pursue in 2017, which led them to be a finalist for this year’s draft.
“We’ve been working on this a long time,” Wood told reporters in Palm Beach, Florida. “… It will be exciting to have the world look at Detroit. It’s been a long time since we’ve hosted a big event like this, so it’ll be great for the city and looking forward to it.”
Yep. If you’re talking football, it’s been a really long time: Super Bowl 40 in 2006. And Wood was again honest about the prospects of hosting the big game when he told reporters, “I think it’s unlikely, I will never say never, that we’ll have another chance for a Super Bowl, but the draft has become maybe the next biggest event that the league puts on.”
Wood and the commission proved themselves to be realists and a pragmatists, opting for the draft instead of hopelessly pining for a Super Bowl like an scrawny, pimply teenager pestering the prom queen for a date.
So give Wood credit, and lots of it, for landing the draft. He should be celebrated for the effort and the achievement. Just imagine some of the fun attractions we can expect to see around Detroit for the 2024 NFL draft:
• Calvin Johnson Cash Drop: Eric Ebron circles in a helicopter high above Campus Martius. Lions quarterback Malik Willis throws stacks of $100 bills totaling $1.6 million to Eric Ebron, who drops them all. Waiting below is Johnson, who has until 4:20 p.m. to collect the cash.
• Matthew Stafford Drag Race: A random fan is given 12 years to see if he can win more playoff games than Stafford did as a Lion. Don’t worry, you get to keep your full salary even if you don’t.
• Dan Campbell Caffeine-a-Thon. Every day for a week you copy Campbell’s Starbucks order of two venti Pike Place roasts with two espresso shots in each. If you’re alive after a week, you win.
Yes, these events will be fun. But I hope owner Sheila Ford Hamp and the entire Lions organization don’t get too happy with themselves, because enjoying a business-side victory too much plays directly into the narrative many fans have of the Fords carrying only about money.
I’ve been around the Fords long enough to tell you that isn’t true. And carrying about money and winning aren’t mutually exclusive. But the organization, starting with Hamp, must always emphasize that any effort the team makes on the business side is made with the express interest and goal of winning on the field.
That leads me to “Hard Knocks.” If anyone tries to tell me that the reality show, which has devolved into a watered-down informercial for its teams, will help the Lions attract free agents and become a better team, then they must be willing to buy a bridge I’m selling in Brooklyn.
I used to love “Hard Knocks.” I waited with bated breath on Tuesday nights for it to come on. There were so many great moments and peeks behind the scenes: talent shows, coaches playing the workaholic game by wasting time playing solitaire, Rex Ryan dropping F-bombs and talking about snacks, Baker Mayfield’s John Dorsey impression, and Jared Goff’s Cal education failing to teach him where the sun rises.
But “Hard Knocks” turned the fascinating, uncomfortable process of players getting cut into an artform. That changed in 2012, when Miami Dolphins coach Joe Philbin cut Chad Johnson on the program, after the receiver was arrested for allegedly head-butting his then-wife.
The next year, commissioner Roger Goodell said the league wanted to make the cutting process more “humane,” and the show hasn’t approached a moment that embarrassing or real again. Lions coach Dan Campbell was on Philbin’s staff in 2012 and I doubt he would allow a moment that embarrassing, or revealing, to be shown about the Lions.
Yes, I’m sure I’ll still watch the Lions on “Hard Knocks” like the rest of us, even if it’s a show mostly about nothing that no one on the team really wants to be part of. But until the Lions start to win in reality, a reality show will have to do.
Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com and follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez.