The year is 1958, and the Detroit Lions are fresh off their third NFL championship in the past six years.
However, everything was about to fall apart as the defending champs set in motion a curse and a rollercoaster ride of losing.
Just two games into the 1958 season, the Lions traded away their four-time all-star quarterback, Bobby Layne, the player responsible for their three championships, to the Pittsburgh Steelers for quarterback Earl Morrall and two future draft selections.
On his way out of Detroit, Layne was not too happy. After all, what team trades their starting quarterback after winning a championship the season prior?
As the legend goes, when Layne left the Lions locker room for the final time, he stated the Lions would not win for another 50 years, and the ‘Curse of Bobby Layne’ was born.
From 1958-2008, the Lions had the sixth-worst overall winning percentage out of all the teams in the NFL. Additionally, the Lions only won a single playoff game. They maintained a playoff record of 1-12 in the 50 years, the worst playoff record in the NFL from that period.
In the 2008-09 NFL season, the final season of the curse, the Lions became the first NFL team to finish the season with a 0-16 record. On the bright side, the winless season rewarded the Lions with the first overall pick in the 2009 NFL draft.
With their top draft selection, the Lions took quarterback Matthew Stafford, a first-team All-American who hailed from the University of Georgia.
Notably, before his tenure in Georgia, Stafford attended Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas, the same high school Layne attended. Additionally, Stafford lived on the same street as Layne did while growing up in Dallas.
After his 2020-21 campaign ended, Stafford met the same fate as Layne, minus the three championships, of course, since the Lions were not allowed to win any.
On Jan. 30, 2021, the Lions dealt Stafford to the Los Angeles Rams in exchange for quarterback Jared Goff and three future draft selections. A trade eerily similar to the Layne trade that occurred in 1958.
The season after the trade, Stafford led the Rams to their first Super Bowl win in over 20 years. As for the Lions, the team went 3-13-1 and finished last in the NFC North division for the fourth year in a row.
The last footnote in this curse history, so far, happened midway through last year’s NFL season.
In an attempt to lift the curse from the Lions, former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning filled a bathtub with whiskey and salt in the middle of the endzone in Ford Field, the arena the Lions play in on an episode of ‘Peyton’s Places.’
Notably, the bathtub was filled with whiskey instead of water as an ode to Layne, as it wasn’t uncommon to encounter Layne at a bar in Detroit.
Nonetheless, Manning and actor Jeff Daniels chanted away in an essentially empty Ford Field; what followed was magical.
Before the airing of the episode, the Lions began the 2022-23 NFL season 1-6. After the episode aired, the Lions won eight of their next 10 games and finished the season with a record of 9-8, the best overall record for the team since 2017.
This season, the Lions have started 6-2, the best start to a season since 2014, a year the Lions made a playoff appearance.
For Lions fans, this recent success offers a glimmer of hope and a promise that better days are ahead.
The team’s resurgence proves that even the most daunting curses can be broken — all you need is a bathtub, some salt and a lot of whiskey.
