Taylor Decker was angry. Maybe you remember. His Detroit Lions had just lost to the Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving. A last-second field goal did them in, another gut-punch in a string of them the first half of last season.
Thirty minutes after the game, Decker, all 6 feet, 7 inches of him, stood near his locker and vented.
“This isn’t the (expletive) same old Lions,” he promised. “We’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna get our respect and we’re gonna earn our respect.”
He did. The team did. The NFL took notice as the Lions won five of their last six games and rewarded them with a Thursday night date in Kansas City to open the 2023 season.
Here it is five months later, Decker is standing, this time before the Lions’ media backdrop, 50 feet from the edge of a practice field in Allen Park. He was asked about the change in perception regarding his team, and the expectation and buzz around it.
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“It’s exciting,” he said Thursday, “it’s a huge opportunity for us.”
But … he remembers: last Thanksgiving, the 0-8 start the year before, the Matt Patricia era, parts of the Jim Caldwell era, the close losses, the blowouts, beginning each season as an afterthought.
Decker arrived in Detroit in 2016 as a first-round pick. He’s entering his eighth season. This makes him the longest tenured Lion, and the Lion with the longest memory.
So, when he’s asked about the building anticipation, he qualifies it, because, as he said, he gets paid to do his job, no matter what people are saying, no matter the expectation:
“Not to be grim, (but), I’ve been here a (long time). We’ve just been (expletive) on, kind of the butt of jokes. I don’t want that. That’s not fun to be a part of. So, I’m just going to continue to work and put in everything I can.”
And?
“Whatever our record ends up being, whatever our team ends of being, I don’t know. I just know what I can do tomorrow.”
In other words, all he can do is keep working. This is his safe space, so to speak. He can’t control what others think, what others predict, what others say.
This doesn’t mean he won’t enjoy the bandwagon getting bigger. Of course, he does. Or that he won’t revel in the primetime games.
“I mean that’s fun,” he said. “It’s fun to know people are going to be watching you.”
And yet?
“If you’re playing Thursday night to open the season or Sunday at noon when everybody else is playing, it shouldn’t change the product that’s on the field,” he said. “We’re privileged to be able to play this game. Of course, there is an aspect to it that’s cool. But I just feel like ultimately, you’re supposed to go out there and perform. (Because) there’s been (seven) years I’ve been here now and a lot of times when nobody wanted to watch the Lions.”
Spoken like a cautious veteran, and like a long-time Lion. So, no, he’s not going to forget what the last seven years have been like or count on grand things in the fall when so many variables are out of his control.
Is it a protective mechanism? Absolutely.
But you can bank on him busting his rear to lead what should be one of the best offensive lines in the NFL, a line whose projected starters didn’t play together once last season; guard Halapoulivaati Vaita missed all 17 games.
“For two years, we’ve been trying to get our ‘projected offensive line’ on the field together and I don’t think It’s happened yet,” he said.
Asked how good it can be?
He deferred, naturally; he isn’t in the business of predictions, remember?
“I don’t want to say, ‘this is what we are going to be,’” he said. “That’s lip-service.”
He doesn’t do lip-service. Even if some thought that’s what he was doing last Thanksgiving after the Buffalo loss.
He knew better then. He’d seen almost three months of practice, not including training camp. Had been on the field for all those close losses — Miami, Philadelphia, Seattle, Minnesota.
That was only nine months ago, and part of Decker’s perspective, too. So when he said these weren’t the “(expletive) same old Lions,” he’d earned his insight in the most painful of ways.
Just as he’s earned the right to revel in the good vibes on the practice field this week.
“You can see it. There’s a lot of positive energy here,” he said.
But also hunker down in the grind. After all, that’s the nature of his position, right? Few see what he does unless he makes a mistake. The big guys on that side of the ball aren’t chasing glory, at least not individual glory.
They’re just trying to protect the quarterback, and open a hole for the running backs, and then trot back to the huddle and do it again, and again, and again. No wonder he didn’t want to speak too much about opening night in Kansas City.
Minicamp isn’t finished. Training camp is almost two months away. Then preseason games.
“There’s a lot of steps leading up to (opening night),” he said.
And a lot of work.
Yeah, he’s looking forward to the games, and to untapping the potential he sees in this team, and to giving the fans something he hasn’t been able to give them since he got here. He may be reticent to pump up the hype train, but he knows how much this team means to this community, and how much hope there is for this season.
He’s heard it for months, at stores, at airports, in the Uber he took from Metro Airport to the team’s headquarters in Allen Park last week. The driver didn’t recognize him or figure what he did for a living until they rolled up to the gates and the driver spotted the Lions sign.
“Then you’re stuck in the car for 10 minutes,” he joked. “People are excited. They deserve this … I’ve had so many people be like, ‘my dad’s been a fan for 60 years; for like, once, he was happy at the end of the year. (Or), ‘I’ve been a fan since I was two years old and I’m 34 now and this is as excited as I’ve been.’ I’ve gotten messages and stuff like that. I’m happy for them.”
Decker may not be able to relate to the fans’ perspective, but he shares a love of this place and this team.
“I’ve become a man in this city. Learned to be an adult,” he said. “In college you think you’re a man but you’re not. I figured a lot of that out here, so it’s a special place to me.”
You could hear that in his voice in the locker room last Thanksgiving, and you could hear it in his voice Thursday afternoon, no matter how much he’s trying to stay planted in today. He knows what’s out there, too.
Contact Shawn Windsor: 313-222-6487 or swindsor@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @shawnwindsor.