Getty Jeff Daniels wins an Emmy Award in 2018.
The Detroit Lions have been wearing their most loyal fans down for decades, but the debacles of 2020 are seemingly pushing everyone to their breaking point.
Actor Jeff Daniels grew up in Michigan as a rabid Lions fan. He’s been with the team for decades in addition to all Detroit teams. He sticks with the Lions even to this day, but as he admitted, it’s getting tough to do so in 2020 given all the ways the team has toyed with his emotions lately.
Joining The Rich Eisen Show, Daniels explained more about his love for the team, but felt the need to get most of the frustrations he’s experienced over the last few weeks off his chest completely. His thoughts likely echoed scores of Lions fans in the state and across the world.
Like #Lions fans everywhere, the great @Jeff_Daniels is just wondering what different way this team can let him down on a weekly basis:
Daniels said:
“They break your heart, they don’t just lose, they break your heart in doing so. You can’t be ahead 17-3 or whatever it was or 23-6 or something. You just know, if you lean towards ‘we’re gonna win’ you’re going to get your heart broken. It’s just, you think we’re cursed I don’t know, but it’s getting difficult. It’s getting real difficult.”
As for whether or not Daniels is giving up on the Lions for good, the answer of course is no. Still, he’s also not devoting much undivided attention to them given the outcome of some of their games lately. As he said, he keeps tabs of the action, but tries not to get too emotionally invested in the outcome given how devastating they’ve become.
“They’re on in the background, let me put it that way. It’s hard to sit there leaning forward into the television set when you know you’re going to get your heart broken. So sometimes you leave them on in the event something crazy happens like we’re ahead by 2 touchdowns with 30 seconds to go, but still, hang on. But generally, these first 2 games, it’s been the same thing, like ‘then in the second half, we’re going to break your heart.’ It’s like okay, okay.”
Detroit has had a tough start to the season in which people demanded and expected more, and Daniels’ own frustration sums up the feelings of Detroit fans perfectly at the moment. Most everybody feels the same way who follows the team closely, and the frustration with the start to the season has been palpable.
That’s true whether you’re an average fan or one of Hollywood’s finest.
Lions Playoff History
Daniels and Lions fans have been dealing with football disappointment their whole life from a team which simply struggles to win games during the season let alone in the playoffs. Strangely enough, however, the Lions don’t have the longest current drought in the league in terms of a playoff win. That belongs to the Cincinnati Bengals, who haven’t won a playoff game since 1990. The Lions last playoff win came in 1991 against the Dallas Cowboys at home.
Longest draught since a team’s last playoff win:
1. Bengals: 1990 Wild Card
2. Lions: 1991 Divisional
3. Browns: 1994 Wild Card
4. Bills: 1995 Wild Card
An opportunity for the Bills to take another step forward today.
The Lions have been one of the more miserable teams historically when it comes to the playoffs. Detroit hasn’t won a playoff game since 1991. It’s not just 1991, however. Prior to that win, the Lions hadn’t won a playoff game since 1957. They had lost three times combined in the 1970s and 1980s. They’ve had plenty of misfortune in the playoffs as well, losing games in heartbreaking fashion and blowout fashion as well.
Detroit last appeared in the playoffs in 2018, but quickly bowed out, losing to the Seattle Seahawks in close fashion. They haven’t been consistent enough through the years at both making the playoffs and also winning when they do manage to get there.
With Matt Patricia in the fold, the goal has been to get to be a team that not only makes the playoffs consistently, but is able to deliver big wins when they get there for fans like Daniels who are starved for them given all this consistent losing.
Odds Say Matt Patricia on Hot Seat
Patricia has evolved from an exciting new hire destined for greatness to a guy that simply needs more time to public enemy No. 1 in terms of Detroit football and beyond in the last few years. Now, that frustration is culminating in him being named one of the most obvious bets to get the axe first this season in the NFL.
A look at some new odds fresh off Week 2 shows that while Patricia isn’t the current odds on favorite to be fired first, he’s not far off the current pace. Adam Gase and Dan Quinn have slightly better odds thus far to lose their job first, but Patricia checks in at a +600 in close third position.
A number of complicating factors exist which could actually push Patricia higher on the list soon. First off, the Lions have a new member of the Ford family that has recently taken over ownership in Shiela Ford Hamp. Nobody knows what she might be thinking as it relates to a change or her feelings on the season. Additionally, the Lions have already suffered through a few miserable seasons with Patricia at the helm and 2020 was supposed to be different with a ‘playoffs or bust’ mandate. So far, the same types of errors keep being made by the team in losses, which is always a bad look for a staff.
With a loss in Week 3, Patricia’s team certainly wouldn’t be eliminated from postseason contention, but it would be very tough duty for them to climb back into the picture, perhaps making it easier to make an eventual move with the coach when all is said and done.
9-24-1 is an ugly mark for a coach no matter what metrics are used, and if that number gets worse, Patricia could only find himself in more trouble than he is already. If the Lions keep up the losing, he could sit atop this list easily in the coming weeks.
The best move for Patricia to avoid all this heat? No matter the current odds, just win, baby.
It would make Daniels and the legions of other frustrated Lions fans start to be happy instead of so sad.
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