A Rocky Roar in Motown

The Lions maul their way to the #1 seed

 By Ken DeLaat

“Every champion was once a contender who refused to give up.” – Rocky Balboa

Always got a kick out of the Rocky series.
No not the flying squirrel show, the Sly Stallone films.
Forever the underdog, Rocky comes back time and time again battered and bruised to finally triumph.
That's what The Game on Sunday night reminded me of.

Despite recent success (Bless you, Dan Campbell) the Lions have always been the underdog. Fans such as myself have been waiting forever (well, since ‘57 for those of us old enough to recall Bobby Layne) for the Lions to achieve success. And this, above all, was to be our year.

They came out of the box firing until one by one players exited with injuries. The heartbreak of seeing Hutch go down, soon followed by Anzalone and a slew of others hitting the IR forcing them to patch together a defense called on to face the league’s finest QB’s with that challenging man to man coverage they employ. Then on offense the one two punch in the running game went to a one punch when Montgomery hit the list.

As they approached Sundy’s epic finale, 2 teams with 14 wins with the winner grabbing the top seed and the loser cratering to #5 and forced to play all of their playoff games on the road, they were banged up, battered and bruised. They limped into this one with a number of starters not only not on their active roster at season’s start but not on anyone’s active roster.

The pundits were saying the injuries were too much. They were just too depleted to beat a Viking team that had run off 9 straight wins to get to this matchup. The Vike’s were healthy and their QB Darnold was having a great year.

But Rocky prevailed. Anzalone returned and the beaten up defense tossed a blanket on the visitors, stopping them time and again in the red zone and keeping them from reaching the endzone all night.

Grit has been the theme of this team and it was grit they showed on Sunday.
Will they win the Super Bowl? Or even get there?
A lot can happen but if any team deserves it this one does. They are the best team in football when at full strength and despite an injured reserve list the size of a novella, they are still one extraordinary team.

Detroit sports fans had a pleasant surprise when the Tigers, another Rocky squad, rose from the dead and made the playoffs and winning the first series over the perennial powerhouse Astros.
And this football season has given us a second course of on the field success despite any roadblocks.

My late friend Don Longcore was ridiculed for years for his loyalty to the Lions, always predicting that every year would be The Year. Well it is, indeed, The Year. And Don would have been ecstatic.
Now maybe this team of destiny will be making reservations for New Orleans in a couple of weeks.
​As Coach Campbell said earlier, “No one gets to write our story. We have the pen.”
 Go Lions!

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