Billy Sims, Detroit Lions (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)
The Detroit Lions‘ new regime continues to mold this team. Change isn’t only a good thing for these Motor City cats, but necessary.
For the last dozen seasons, the Detroit Lions’ identity was quarterback Matthew Stafford. For years there have often been discussions about how this franchise needed an identity. However, for 12 years it was all about Stafford.
In the past, that was kind of the Lions modus operandi. This team would try to find a star player to be their identity, then never build a winning team around them. Barry Sanders was the face of Detroit football in the 1990s.
In the early 1980s, it was Billy Sims. Charlie Sanders and Lem Barney had the spotlight in the late 1960s into the 1970s. As a matter of fact, the last iconic player to be part of a championship contender for this franchise was Joe Schmidt who was a member of the 1953 and 1957 world champion Lions before finishing his playing days after the 1965 season.
Despite the recent popular narrative by the media and Kelly Stafford that Matthew was some sort of abused prisoner in Detroit, who just happened to earn quite a healthy bankroll from the Lions, it can be truly said that he was never surrounded with enough talent, both on the field and in the coaching staff to contend for a championship in the Motor City.
It can also be said that Matthew wasn’t exactly perfect in his time as a Lion either. However, he was Detroit’s best player during his time here, and the angst from fans when it was leaked that he couldn’t bear another rebuild and asked to move on to greener pastures was palpable everywhere.
Yet the truth of the matter is that it was time for the Lions to clean the slate and build this team the right way from the bottom up. The foundation was built in the trenches this past offseason and there is still plenty of work to do, but turning around 60 years of bad football doesn’t happen overnight.