It took three failed attempts before professional football stuck in Detroit, and when it finally did, the city had itself a winner. George A. Richards bought the Portsmouth Spartans in 1934 at the height of the Great Depression, moved the team to Detroit and renamed it the Lions. A year later, the franchise won its first of four championships, and the city was hooked on football. The Lions won three more titles in the 1950s to form one of the NFL’s first dynasties and have spent most of the past seven decades trying to replicate that success to no avail. In Detroit Lions, An Illustrated Timeline, award-winning reporter Dave Birkett vividly recounts the most important people, games and moments of the franchise’s first 90 seasons, from the early days of Earl Dutch Clark, the team’s first superstar, to the 10 Hall-of-Famers who played for the team in the ‘50s, to the spine-tingling performances of Barry Sanders and Calvin Johnson and the team’s resurrection under beloved head coach Dan Campbell. Relive the Lions’ magical playoff run of 2023, their many postseason flameouts before that, the 0-16 season that was the low point in franchise history and Sanders’ remarkable pursuit of 2,000 yards. Go back to Johnson’s (non-)catch against the Chicago Bears and decide for yourself whether the Curse of Bobby Layne was real in an illustrated journey you won’t forget.
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