Lions’ season of hope is full speed ahead after opening with an electric overtime win vs. Rams

DETROIT — They say humans have inhabited this area for about 11,000 years, but it wasn’t until Sunday that any of them — from the tailgates of Eastern Market to the bars of Corktown — could stare into a fresh NFL season and utter, with both a straight face and reasonable confidence, the following words.

Super. Bowl.

The Detroit Lions have famously never even been to it, let alone ever won it. It’s the only team to have been in existence for all 58 of them to never play in it.

More than that though, never before has there been a legitimate belief that such a thing was even within reason. Prior to last January, the Lions had won just a single playoff game of any kind during the Super Bowl era. It came in 1991.

By last winter, Aidan Hutchinson and Amon-Ra St. Brown and Penei Sewell and Sam LaPorta and David Montgomery and Jared Goff and Frank Ragnow and a whole host of others had moved into Ford Field here.

Detroit rattled off two epic, euphoric home playoff victories and then led by 17 in the second half of the NFC championship game before succumbing to the San Francisco 49ers.

David Montgomery’s touchdown run in overtime gave the Lions the win over the Rams on Sunday while also keeping the hype train going for the 2024 season. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Last year’s team was shot out of a cannon though, a work in progress, especially on defense. So general manager Brad Holmes filled holes there and re-signed star players on both sides of the ball. Both coordinators decided to stay on head coach Dan Campbell’s staff. Young players matured.

The hype and anticipation grew to the point that chants of “Jar-ed Goff” were liable to break out at baseball games and wedding receptions alike.

And so the longest suffering fans in the NFL gathered on this gloriously sunny September day embracing what for so long was a dangerous and eventually damning emotion for them, something generations of elders warned their children against.

Hope.

Three-plus thunderous…

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Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-09-09 05:59:36

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