Detroit Lions

• 1. Introduction

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  The Detroit Lions hold a distinction that no other long-standing NFL team shares. Of every franchise that has operated through the entire Super Bowl era, they are the only one that has never appeared in the game. The Lions play in the National Football Conference North division and host their games at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit. So how did a team with this record come to Michigan from a small city in Ohio? Where did its particular shade of blue come from, and who chose it? Why does the team play football on Thanksgiving Day, year after year? And what happens to a fan base when its home games disappear from local television? The answers involve a baseball team, a radio network, a lobbying coach, and some very unusual numbers.

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• 2. Spartans Become Lions

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  In 1928, a team called the Portsmouth Spartans was founded in Portsmouth, Ohio, long before anyone thought of it as a Detroit club. The franchise joined the NFL on the 12th of July 1930. Its first head coach, Hal Griffen, led that 1930 team to a record of 5-6-3, a winning percentage of .464. Money was tight. In 1934, amid those financial struggles, the franchise moved to Detroit and took the name Lions. The new name nodded to the city's Major League Baseball team, the Detroit Tigers.

  Success arrived quickly in the new city. Between 1935 and 1957, the Lions won four NFL Championship Games. Then the winning stopped. After the 1957 title, the franchise did not win a playoff game until the 1991 season. It then waited until the 2023 season for another.

  Before that first Detroit season, owner George A. Richards had two decisions to make. He had to settle what his team would wear, and he had to decide when it would play.

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• 3. Honolulu Blue

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  Glenn Presnell, then the last surviving member of the 1934 Lions, recalled how the team's colors were chosen. After the move from Portsmouth, Richards asked Presnell and his wife to pick from several combinations. Red and white was on the list, as were orange and black, and blue and silver. The Presnells liked blue and silver best, so Richards selected it. The blue has an official name, Honolulu blue, inspired by the color of the waves off the coast of Hawaii.

  Silver helmets, silver pants, and jerseys in either blue or white have marked the Lions' look since 1934. The one real break came from 1948 to 1950, when head coach Bo McMillin switched the team to scarlet and black. That palette reflected his earlier years as coach at Indiana.

  Smaller changes arrived in steady steps. In 1956, the jerseys gained "TV numbers" on the sleeves. These were extra numbers meant to help broadcasters identify players from the line of scrimmage. In 1999, they moved to the shoulders. White trim was added to the logo in 1970. In 1972, the numbers received outlines, white on the blue jersey and silver on the white one. In 1982, the color arrangement on the blue jersey numbers was reversed. The silver facemasks became blue in 1984.

  In 1994, every NFL team wore throwback jerseys, and the Lions looked back to their 1935 championship season. The helmets and pants were solid silver, and the jerseys were Honolulu blue with silver numbers. There were no TV numbers on the sleeves. The socks were solid blue and the cleats were black. The helmets carried no logo at all, because helmets in that era were simple leather.

  One experiment in 1998 lasted a single season. The team paired blue pants with its white jerseys and gray socks, then dropped the look afterward. That combination would not return until 2017.

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• 4. Black Comes and Goes

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  In 2003, the Lions added black trim to their logo and jerseys, and the helmet facemasks changed from blue to black. An alternate black jersey followed in 2005. For 2008, the team dropped it in favor of a throwback uniform marking the franchise's 75th anniversary. That throwback became the permanent alternate in 2009. On the 20th of April 2009, the Lions also unveiled a new logo and uniforms. The logo gained a flowing mane and fangs, and the typeface turned modern.

  On the 1st of February 2017, the Lions announced a new typeface and logo, and they removed black from the team identity entirely. The earlier logo stayed, but its border changed from black to silver. New uniforms were unveiled on the 13th of April 2017. They included the return of blue pants with the white jersey, an all-gray alternate, an all-Honolulu blue alternate, and a helmet with a silver facemask. The initials "WCF" also appeared on the left sleeve as a permanent tribute to William Clay Ford, who owned the team from 1963 until his death in 2014. The sleeve tribute replaced a black WCF patch that had been worn on the left breast after his death.

  On the 20th of September 2021, the Lions wore white pants with their white road uniforms against the Green Bay Packers. The pants had no striping. They had last appeared during the scarlet and black seasons of 1948 and 1949.

  On the 12th of April 2023, the team announced a commemorative logo and jersey patch for its 90th season. The design paid homage to the logo used from 1961 to 1969. On the 21st of June 2023, the Lions unveiled an alternate blue helmet carrying that 1960s logo, paired with the gray uniform. It was the first blue helmet the team had worn since 1955.

  On the 18th of April 2024, a new jersey set arrived, and each piece had a name. The home jersey is called "One Pride." The road white jersey is called "the 313," and it carries a Honolulu blue "Detroit" wordmark on the front. A black alternate called "Motor City Muscle" brought back the color the team had removed seven years earlier. Head coach Dan Campbell, hired on the 20th of January 2021, had worn the original black version as a player. According to team president Rod Wood, Campbell lobbied for its return, and it happened after the Lions won the NFC North title in 2023.

  During the 2024 season, the silver pants were worn only once, in a Week 2 defeat against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The throwbacks were never worn. The Lions mostly wore all-blue or all-white, and they won every regular season game in those two combinations. A throwback had been scheduled for Week 18 against the Minnesota Vikings, but the team chose the all-black uniforms instead. Detroit went 2-1 in the all-black uniforms.

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• 5. Thanksgiving Tradition

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  George A. Richards, the Lions' owner in 1934, also owned WJR, a major Detroit radio affiliate of the NBC Blue Network. That network was the forerunner of today's ABC. In 1934, he negotiated an agreement with NBC to carry his Thanksgiving game live across all of the network's stations. The Lions have played on Thanksgiving ever since, apart from the years 1939-1944, when World War II interrupted the tradition.

  The holiday game has its own wardrobe. From 2001 to 2004, the Lions wore 1950s-style jerseys on Thanksgiving, because the NFL encouraged teams to wear throwbacks on that day.

  Today the Thanksgiving Day game in Detroit is always televised nationally. Fox carries it in odd years and CBS in even years.

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• 6. Numbers and Legends

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  Number 7 belonged to Dutch Clark, a back who played for Detroit in 1931-1932 and again in 1934-1938. The team retired it on the 15th of October 1939. Doak Walker, a halfback who played from 1950 to 1955, saw his number 37 retired on the 11th of December 1955. Bobby Layne, who played quarterback and kicked from 1950 to 1958, has number 22 retired. Joe Schmidt, a linebacker from 1953 to 1965, has number 56 retired.

  Number 20 honors three players: cornerback Lem Barney, running back Billy Sims, and running back Barry Sanders. Number 85 carries a sadder story. Wide receiver Chuck Hughes died of a heart attack during a game on the 24th of October 1971, and the number was retired four days later. Over the years, it has been reissued anyway.

  Some retirements bent. Schmidt's 56 was temporarily unretired with his blessing when the Lions acquired linebacker Pat Swilling from the New Orleans Saints. No player has worn it since Swilling left. In 2009, the Lions retired number 93 after Corey Smith disappeared, presumed dead, when a boat he was fishing in with friends capsized off the Florida coast. The team also wore 93 decals on its helmets that season. In 2010, the number was assigned to Kyle Vanden Bosch.

  The Lions have also named all-time teams. On the 9th of November 2008, they honored a 75th Season All-Time Team at halftime against the Jacksonville Jaguars. It was chosen through an online fan poll and a selection committee. On the 29th of September 2019, they honored a Lions All-Time Team during halftime against the Kansas City Chiefs, as part of the NFL's centennial. That vote drew on fans, team executives, select members of the media, and the Detroit Lions Legends Community.

  The 2019 team added names the 2008 team lacked, including wide receiver Calvin Johnson, long snapper Don Muhlbach, and quarterback Matthew Stafford. Stafford and Muhlbach were both still active when they were chosen. Stafford would later return to Detroit wearing another team's uniform.

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• 7. Rivals Old and New

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  The Green Bay Packers first met the team in 1929, when it was still the Portsmouth Spartans. The Lions and Packers have been division rivals since 1933, and as of the 2025 season the Packers lead the series 108-78-7. The Chicago Bears met the Lions in 1930, also under the Spartans name. They have shared a division since 1933 as well, and the Bears lead 105-82-5.

  The Minnesota Vikings have played the Lions twice a year since the Vikings entered the NFL in 1961. The one exception was 1982, when a strike disrupted the season. The Vikings lead the all-time series 82-45-2.

  The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were division opponents in the NFC Central from 1977 to 2001. The Lions lead that series 34-30.

  The Cleveland Browns rivalry took shape in the 1950s, when the two teams met in four NFL Championship Games. The Lions won three of them. The Browns won one. That rivalry was one of the NFL's best of the decade. After the AFL-NFL merger of 1970, the two teams met much less often, because the Browns moved to the AFC. From 2002 to 2014, they played an annual preseason game called the "Great Lakes Classic." The Lions lead the series 20-6, with three of those wins in postseason play.

  The Los Angeles Rams are the non-divisional team the Lions have played most, with 90 matchups dating back to 1937. In the 2023-24 playoffs, the two met in the postseason for the first time since 1952. The Lions won 24-23 in Matthew Stafford's first game back in Detroit since the Rams acquired him in a trade. The Rams still lead the all-time series 46-43-1.

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• 8. Airwaves and Empty Seats

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  The Lions' flagship radio station is WXYT-FM. Dan Miller handles play-by-play, Lomas Brown provides color commentary, and T. J. Lang reports from the sideline. In 2015, the team announced it would move from WXYT-FM to WJR for the 2016 season, ending a 20-year relationship with CBS Radio. The split was reportedly instigated by a team demand that the station fire on-air personality Mike Valenti, who often criticized the Lions on his drive-time show. A CBS Radio spokesperson said the refusal was meant to protect the station's integrity. The flagship returned to WXYT-FM starting with the 2021 season.

  In 2015, WJBK replaced WXYZ-TV as the flagship station for Lions preseason games. In 2025, Jason Benetti called the play-by-play, T. J. Lang gave color commentary, and Dannie Rogers reported from the sideline. Regular season games are broadcast regionally on Fox. When the Lions host an AFC team, the game airs regionally on CBS. Since 2014, the NFL's "cross flex" rules have allowed any Fox game to move to CBS. In 2011, the Lions became the last NFC team to appear on NBC's Sunday Night Football, which had begun airing in 2006.

  The 2008 season, in which Detroit was winless, and the 2-14 season of 2009 hit when the Great Recession was squeezing Michigan. Fans were not buying enough tickets by the 72-hour deadline, and local broadcasts were blacked out. The first blackout in the seven-year history of Ford Field came on the 26th of October 2008, against the Washington Redskins. The previous 50 regular season home games there had been sellouts. In 2009, the second home game, in which the Lions broke their losing streak against the Redskins, was blacked out locally. So was the comeback victory over the Cleveland Browns. In 2010, there was only one blackout, again for a Redskins game, which the Lions won 37-25. In 2015, the NFL suspended its blackout policies, so every Lions game now airs locally regardless of tickets sold.

  Blackouts were nothing new. At the team's earlier home, the 80,000-seat Pontiac Silverdome, games were often blacked out even in winning seasons and during the career of a popular star like Barry Sanders.

  On the 13th of June 2016, the Lions announced they were adding cheerleaders, the first official squad in over 40 years. The coach would be Rebecca Girard-Smoker, formerly the director of the Detroit Pistons dance team.

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