Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Portsmouth Spartans became the Detroit Lions in 1934. George A. Richards, owner of Detroit radio station WJR, purchased the team and relocated it to Detroit, choosing the Lions name to honor the Detroit Tigers and signal his goal of building the king of the NFL.
The Portsmouth Spartans joined the NFL on the 12th of July, 1930. They played their first NFL game at Universal Stadium on the 14th of September, 1930, and finished that debut season 5-6-3.
Blizzard conditions in Chicago made Wrigley Field unusable for the 1932 NFL playoff game between the Chicago Bears and the Portsmouth Spartans. The game moved to Chicago Stadium, where only an 80-yard field was available. The Bears won 9-0.
After the 1931 season, Green Bay Packers president Lee Joannes refused to play the Spartans despite both teams holding the league's two best records. In response, the NFL adopted a system requiring the full schedule to be set in advance by a three-person committee, with ratification by three-fourths of all NFL teams before a season could begin.
The iron man game was a 1932 contest against the Green Bay Packers in which Spartans coach Potsy Clark refused to make a single substitution. Portsmouth won 19-0 using only 11 players for the entire game.
With fewer than 43,000 residents in 1930, Portsmouth was the second smallest city in the NFL. Only Green Bay, Wisconsin, with a population under 38,000, was smaller.