OT: What is fundamentslly different about the Lions team/org *now* as opposed to the last 40-some years?

They hired non-idiots to run their team and actually drafted a Michigan player for a change (Hutch).  

William Clay Ford died.

Like Michigans season it's been a somewhat perfect convergence.  Which by law of averages has to happen at some point.  

The name I've seen mentioned less than the others is Goff.  You don't get this far without way above average QB play.  And Goff was essentially tossed aside by LA.  Look at the QBs who played this weekend and who's still standing:  Josh Allen, Baker Mayfield, Jordan Love, CJ Stroud - out

In - Mahomes, Goff, Purdy, Jackson.

It's kinda the cream rising to the top.  Lions have the coach, the GM, possibly the CEO, but certainly the right QB at the right time.

I rewatched a bit iof Dan Campbell's introductory press conference from 3 years ago (3 years ago yesterday in fact) and lost in all the knee-biting bravado is the fact that he wanted the job. He told his agent to do whatever it took to get an interview with Sheila Hamp. He wanted to be in Detroit. How many people want that? Now the fact it was a forced collaboration with Brad Holmes was a risk but it's been been a great partnership (watch the Inside the Den draft episodes on how excited both guys are about the drafted players they've gotten). 

The first thing is it started at the top with a different Ford family member who cared about the teams success and the people involved.  She hired the right people to guide her Chris Spielman and made Barry and Calvin important parts of the organization.  Then they fired that POS loser MP and hired Holmes who made the smart hire in DC and from there the culture and everything fell into place.  Great draft picks and FA signings.   I could go on but the is how it started. 

Head coach, GM, culture

Ownership. Better decision making on whom to hire. Getting Brad Holmes. Create a culture and adding players that fit that culture. Holmes has absolutely been one of the elite GMs since he got to Detroit. Campbell has created and real culture that the players buy into. It’s been remarkable. 

Blind squirrel  and the nut 

The easy thing to say is that the GM (and most importantly, the scouting department) is finally not run by family friends. But I honestly feel like we got lucky. Holmes was a great hire, but I firmly believe Dan Campbell was, in their minds, the most financially viable candidate. I love the guys that we drafted this year (once again, thank you Holmes and professional scouting department).  But I honestly believe that if Holmes had the choice, he would've drafted higher positions of need and taken a CB in the first round. But that's a more costly position. So, I think he hit a homerun with limitations on who he could take in the first round.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not hearing stories about how great the Ford family is. I'm hearing how great the GM and coaches are. And the way they jacked up prices for the playoffs, I still don't get the warm and fuzzies when I see the Fords in the press box. I hope I'm misreading the situation. I want to pull for Sheila and the generation that's running the team, but whenever I see that WCF on the jersey, I remember how badly this organization treated its players.

I don't know, they probably stole signs, I have it from a lot of really smart and totally objective people in Columbus and East Lansing that it's the only way a struggling team can improve rapidly.

Oh, they don't have signs in the NFL? Shit. Huh, I guess maybe changes to the coaching staff resulted in changes to the team's culture and their approach to player development and game planning. But no way anyone else could do that. Certainly not a guy who has lived and breathed football his entire life starting with being raised by his coach dad, and who then played in college and the NFL and has had success as a coach at both levels as well. Only the Lions, an organization synonymous with incompetent futility for 30+ years, could pull that off.

EDIT: last part was not a dis, I am a Lions fan, just stating the facts as they once were...

The Ford men are wussies who were only in it to make money. The Ford women want to win. Things are different from the top down, starting with with Sheila, Spielman, etc. Add in that Dan Campbell has a team-building philosophy that is similar to Jim Harbaugh's and you get a team that plays for each other instead of for their next contract.

Agree with almost all of the above. Ownership has to select an excellent GM. Growing up with Russ Thomas and then Matt Millen among others, we waste so many years. From there the GM helps put the pieces in place. And though there is more than one way to construct a winning team, I have always liked starting with the offensive line.

My hot take is that nothing fundamentally changed. They've always tried to build a successful team, just like the other 31 owners, GMs and coaches. Success in the NFL is way less deterministic than most want to admit - there's no consistent formula that works, and no secret method that can be copied from team to team. Lions fans know, since the Detroit Patriots experiment failed horribly. 

In other words, it's mostly luck. Do your draft picks work out or turn out to be busts? Can you get through a season without major injuries compounding a weak area on the roster? Do you catch teams on the schedule at the right time? Do you get fortunate bounces in-game, and key decisions from the refs? If all those lottery balls line up for you - congrats, you are a playoff team.

I don't mean to downplay Hamp, Holmes and Campbell's efforts - clearly they have skills in their positions, and so far we see results. I just don't think the roster management and team culture they bring is dramatically different than what every other team's management tries to do. 

Side note: 4/5 OL were drafted by Bob Quinn (Decker and Ragnow in the 1st round, Jackson and Glasgow in the 3rd), and Sewell was an additional 1st round pick by Holmes. Credit to him for keeping them all, including bringing Glasgow back as a free agent. But the investment in a top OL takes time to build, starting from the Decker pick in 2016. So maybe the lesson is invest in OL, the unit that's on the field for every snap and make your QB more efficient, and then have the patience to let them develop into grown men and gel as a unit, over multiple seasons?

Dan MF Campbell

Better ownership: by all accounts, the way WCF ran the org was as a good ole boys club, bereft of accountability. A prevailing belief is also that he never cared about a winning team as long as fans kept buying tickets. When he bought the farm, Martha made some good moves up front but it went quickly downhill after Quinn got established. Sheila seems to be doing a much better job putting people in the right roles and getting results.

Better team management: Brad Holmes has built a bang-up roster with strong OL and DL. Historically one or both of these position groups were neglected by the Lions mgmt, which goes to show how little football knowledge was held by the former front office.

Better coaching: Dan Campbell is a force of nature.

Hutch

But I think a lot of it really is culture. Sheila hired Chris Spielman who helped identify and interview Brad Holmes and MCDC. Watch Hard Knocks if you haven't. It was one of the best examples of sports leadership that I've seen. BH has the best drafts in the past three years. Remarkable. MCDC is earnest enough and loves the game enough that his leadership was able to break through the pit of dispair that was the Detroit Lions

It starts at the top with Sheila Hamp, Brad Holmes, Dan Campbell and all the talent they have accumulated on this roster. The draft class of Laporta, Gibbs and Branch is a solid, young Core. Go Lions!!!!

The Coach & GM built a culture of brotherhood and winning. See: Michigan Football 2021-Present

  Brad Holmes roster management!

 Hockenson is elite and loved him in Detroit but it made total sense to trade him away and get a better draft pick. Saved Detroit 9 million and Hockenson was looking and got 17+ million a year on his new contract. I think Sam Laporta worked out just fine !!!  

The difference is the new owner Hamp.   William Clay Ford, rip, couldn't get it done, nor could his son who hired Matt Millen and rebuffed Bill Parcels as coach, who wanted to come here.  This new owner has been the difference, it seems, hiring Campbell and Holmes and sticking with them.  By the way, Holmes got ripped good by the pundits during the last draft and its been shown he was right.

AND..... cannot discount Hutchinson.... he is a winner and it takes a guy like him to help the team rise.  

This is going to be a critical offseason for Lions and the ability to sustain success.

• Replacing Johnson with someone who meshes well with Goff.
• Re-signing Goff and St. Brown
• Fixing CB and adding more pass rushers to front. Lions really need to add 1-2 starters at outside CB.

The Lions are $57 million under the cap so re-signing Goff and St. Brown shouldn’t be a problem. They should have enough money left over to make a splash free agency signing at CB. They have all of their draft picks plus an extra third rounder. Lions are in a great spot.

An owner who got out of the way and let the football people do thier job, a coach who was given the leeway to be his weird, unique self and let his attitude permeate the culture of the locker room, and a GM that put together the best 3 draft run I've seen in my lifetime (and it isn't even close).  This Michigan fanbase should know better than anyone the value in having a locker room that is fully invested in the success of the man next to them.  So, in short, they hired a great football mind in Brad Holmes, a good/great football mind in Dan Campbell who was allowed to hire his staff to execute his vision as a team, and they put together a talented group of players with a vested interest in playing as hard as they can for the man next to them.  Combine that with competent game day management and QB play and you get a team that's capable of going to the Super Bowl.

Chris Spielman and Mike Disner are the most unsung heroes in this story. Sheila called Speilman and asked him to help her with the football stuff. He personally called players and coaches to vet the Head Coaching candidates. They chose Campbell over other candidates people thought were better fits (Saleh). He is her special assistant and is in the buiding everyday.

Mike Disner is a carryover from the previous regime. He is the Chief Operating Officer for the Lions and manages the player negotiations and the roster budget. Prior to coming to Detroit he was the Arizona Cardinals director of football administration and lead contract negotiator. Disner plays a key role in roster construction.

They then hired an experience player scout as GM. Brad Holmes was the Director of College Scouting for the Rams from 2013. He was instumental in finding many of the Stars on that Super Bowl team. When he came to Detroit he brought Ray Agnew who was the Director of Professional Scouting for the Rams. Then he hired former Kansas City and Cleveland Browns GM John Dorsey to help him with the GM stuff he wasn't familiar with.

Brad Holmes then hit home runs in the draft. Almost every player he drafted over the first three years remain with the team and many are key contributors:

Jahmyr Gibbs RB Starter

Jack Campbell LB Rotational

Sam LaPorta TE Starter

Brian Branch DB Starter

Hendon Hooker QB Backup

Brodric Martin DT Backup

Colby Sorsdal T Backup

Antoine Green WR Practice Squad

Aidan Hutchinson DE Starter

Jameson Williams WR Starter

Josh Paschal DE Rotational

Kerby Joseph DB Starter

James Mitchell TE IR

Malcolm Rodriguez LB Rotational

James Houston LB Backup

Chase Lucas DB Backup

Penei Sewell T Starter

Levi Onwuzurike DT Backup

Alim McNeill DT Starter

Ifeatu Melifonwu DB Rotational/Starter

Amon-Ra St. Brown WR Starter

Derrick Barnes LB Starter

Jermar Jefferson RB Waived

They have developed a culture and identity. It starts with ownership.

Totally with you on ignoring the Lions for decades after witnessing my father swearing at the TV and yelling that Bobby Layne would kick these idiots asses every Sunday for years.

My theory was that the Ford’s gave the team to the idiot son to keep him away from the real business.  Sheila seems to be the difference, leading to better management and hires.

My favorite simple explanation?  Aidan!!!!

Lots of reasons, but first among them is Brad Holmes the GM. He knows how to build a roster. He's recognized talent at all stages of the draft. He's hired the right coaches. 

Undoubtedly there are XOs and Jimmy and Joes discussions to be had here but the biggest difference is the GM.

A GM with a well established scouting background. This is why they gave better depth than any Lions team in my lifetime.

A coach brimming with authenticity. This is why they play so hard and so well together.

An owner willing to listen to Chris Spielman. This is why they've upended their destiny.

BRAD HOLMES!

A lot of people know the Lions history better than me - and, I respect that.

If you look around the boards - 11W and RCMB - a couple of years ago, they pointed out that Aidan Hutchinson would be a failure - overrated - etc.    It seems their prognostications a few years ago are just as accurate as they are today.

Go Lions... win two more...