The Team of the 1950s: When the Lions Ruled the NFL

Detroit has waited a long time for a championship. That wait makes it easy to forget that in the 1950s, the Lions were the team everyone else was chasing. Three NFL titles in six seasons. Four title-game meetings with Cleveland. A quarterback with swagger and a defense built to match.

Here's how that team came together, how it won, and why it still matters to this franchise.

Finding the quarterback

The Lions entered the decade with good players but no franchise quarterback. They fixed that with a trade, sending fullback Camp Wilson to the New York Yanks for Bobby Layne. The first year didn't go well. Detroit went 6-6 in 1950 and coach Bo McMillin resigned.

His replacement was Buddy Parker, a former Lions player who had been part of the 1935 championship team. Parker's first team went 7-4-1. His second was a contender.

1952: back on top

The 1952 Lions went 9-3 and tied the Rams for first in the National Conference. That set up a playoff in Detroit, played in fog at Briggs Stadium in front of nearly 50,000 fans. Detroit won 31-21, its first playoff appearance in 17 years.

Next came Cleveland in the title game. The Lions won 17-7, the franchise's second championship. It was also the start of a rivalry: the two teams met in four championship games that decade.

1953: the best of the bunch

The 1953 team might be the best in Lions history. Detroit drafted linebacker Joe Schmidt in the seventh round, and he went on to the Hall of Fame. The team went 10-2, had seven Pro Bowlers and eight All-Pros, and swept Chicago and Green Bay in four straight weeks.

The rematch with Cleveland was tighter. With the title on the line in the final minutes, Layne hit Jim Doran for a 33-yard touchdown, and Detroit won 17-16. Back-to-back champions.

A three-peat would have to wait. The Lions reached the title game again in 1954 after a 9-2-1 season, but the Browns blew them out 56-10.

1957: the comeback

By the middle of the decade the run looked finished. The 1955 team won only three games. Then, before the 1957 season, Parker abruptly resigned. George Wilson took over, and the Lions went 8-4 to tie San Francisco for the Western Conference lead.

The playoff in San Francisco is one of the great stories in team history. The 49ers led 24-7 at halftime, and their celebration could be heard through the thin walls at Kezar Stadium. Wilson told his team that was what the 49ers thought of them. Detroit then gave up only a field goal and scored 24 straight points. Layne was out hurt, so backup Tobin Rote led the comeback to a 31-27 win.

A week later Rote threw four touchdown passes and ran for another, and the Lions crushed Cleveland 59-14. It was their third title in six years. It is also, to this day, their last championship.

The curse

In 1958 Detroit traded Layne to Pittsburgh for Earl Morrall and two draft picks. As the legend goes, Layne said on his way out that the Lions wouldn't win another title for 50 years. Decades of mostly losing football gave the story its name: "The Curse of Bobby Layne." The team went 4-7-1 in its first season without him.

Our Take

The curse makes a good story, but the real lesson of the 1950s is about depth. Detroit's last title came with the star quarterback on the sideline, because the roster around Layne was good enough to win without him. That's what a true contender looks like: not one great player but a team that can survive losing one.

It's also why the long wait stings. Lions fans know what it looks like when this franchise is the best in the league, because it has happened before.

One Pride.

Sources: [Wikipedia, History of the Detroit Lions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Detroit_Lions)