Kevin Grundhoffer, contributor

For the first time in 32 years, the Detroit Lions have made the NFC Championship game and broken their playoff losing streak. It feels like an eternity since the fans of Detroit have seen their team look like a super bowl caliber squad. 

In 1998, the organization faced a tough situation that led to their downfall when Barry Sanders retired abruptly after the 1998 season. The Lions thought that they may get an end to their playoff drought when they drafted Matthew Stafford with the first overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft. This came after having arguably one of the worst seasons in NFL history in 2008 in which they lost each of their 16 games. Unfortunately, the Lions only had one playoff appearance in his tenure. Ironically, this past weekend, they beat Matthew Stafford, who is now a member of the Los Angeles Rams to get their first playoff win in three decades. 

What led up to this was the fast rebuild of the lions after the 2021 season. After Coach Matt Patricia was fired midseason in 2020 after an abysmal three years, Dan Campbell was hired. The Lions were in a rebuilding phase, or so they thought. They traded their longtime quarterback, Stafford, for the Rams former quarterback, Jared Goff and several draft picks. When Campbell became a coach, he gave them hope with his legendary press conference about “biting kneecaps off.” It was a metaphor for the toughness he wanted his team to have. At first, the lions started out 0-10-1 before ultimately finishing 3-13-1. 

The 2022 season was quite different as they finished 9-8 and second in the NFC North. They showed vast improvement in Dan Campbell’s second season and they built all that into a division championship this year. The franchise is now one game away from the big dance, the Super Bowl. From finishing abysmally in 2021 to one game from the Super Bowl this year is a rather impressive feat. They did not have an easy road to get to this level as many had picked the Rams to win in the Wild Card round. The Lions held off a sneaky good Buccaneers team in the divisional round on their way from the NFC championship. 

Jared Goff has been a big reason why the Lions are in this position. Goff has started to look like the guy who led the Rams to the Super Bowl six years ago. He is accompanied by the elite running back tandem of David Montgomery, and Jamir Gibbs who almost became one of the few duos all-time to have at least 1000 yards each in a season. Standing in their way are the heavy favorite San Francisco 49ers who are favored by seven points. 

Even if they don’t make the Super Bowl, the Detroit Lions have made history and have given their fans something to be proud of. They proved the stereotype of Detroit being a losing franchise wrong. The city of Detroit has been through hard times just like their football team, but hard times are temporary and, hopefully, by the time this is published, those hard times will have ended with the Lions clutching the NFC Championship.