The following is a guest submission from Bruce Walker, a.k.a Smoke25 on X, that is published in his exact words but edited slightly for formatting. Thanks to Bruce for the excellent read and history lesson!
The Detroit Lions are winning games at a historic rate. How historic, you ask? Well, as of today, their 8-1 record is the team’s best since 1954, where they stood after beating the Green Bay Packers in back-to-back games.
Full disclosure: That last part about beating the Packers twice was unnecessary to the story’s substance, but it felt euphoric to type.
The very next game the Lions played in 1954 was against the Philadelphia Eagles. They scored 13 points, but so did the Eagles, leaving them with a record of 8-1-1. They ultimately won the Western Division but lost to the Cleveland Browns 56-10 in the Championship game. Their final record was 9-3-1.
In each of the previous two years, the Lions did win NFL Championships but lost their second game much earlier in each season. In 1953, the sixth week left the Lions 4-2 at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams, and in 1952, it was in the third week when the San Francisco 49ers left that year’s team 1-2, barely out of the gate, and needlessly worrying fans.
So, how far do you have to go back to find a better record than what the Lions have today? The answer is their first year, 1934, when they ranked second in the NFL in offense (points for) and first in defense (points against. In 1934, the Lions started an impressive 10-0, but they lost their final three games to finish second in the Western Division and subsequently missed the playoffs.
If you want to include the years before the team moved to Detroit, you will find that in 1931, the Portsmouth Spartans matched this year’s team with a record of 8-1 at this same point in the season. They lost the following game against the Chicago Bears, 6-9, leaving them with a record of 8-2. They went on to finish 11-3 in 1931, a game behind 12-2, League Champion, Green Bay Packers.
There you have it. In the seasons where the Lions won championships, they never had a record as good as they enjoy today. Then, in 1934, the only year that found them with a better record than today, the team sported the best record they would enjoy for the next 90 years. Again, the Lions started 10-0 but went home after losing their final three games to miss out on the playoffs.
The 2024 Detroit Lions have an opportunity to continue destroying historical markers like a David Montgomery run through an exhausted Rams defense. This week’s game is against a struggling Jacksonville Jaguars team that played surprisingly stout against the Minnesota Vikings last week. I believe that this year’s Lions team is immune to trap games. According to Bovada, at the time of this writing, the Lions are 13.5-point favorites. I fully expect them to exceed that, but if they only win by a single point, they will advance to 9-1, giving the team their best record since 1934, 90 years ago.