As originally aired on The Rochester Press Box
Coach Jim Harbaugh recently claimed that University of Michigan football was America’s team. Which they certainly are not. But Harbaugh was close. These days, America’s team is a mere 43 miles east of Ann Arbor. Because the Detroit Lions have never been to a Super Bowl. Because no one can remember the last time the Detroit Lions were really any good. And because Detroit’s last football championship came 66 years ago. Ten years before the first Super Bowl.
That title came in 1957 toward the end of the decade that was dominated by the Lions and the Cleveland Browns. In a six-year span, those two met four times for the NFL championship. Detroit won three.
Quarterback Bobby Layne had a hand in all of them. The Blond Bomber was a Hall of Fame football player by day. Legendary swashbuckling carouser by night. The most popular athlete in Detroit could do whatever, wherever and whenever he wanted. As he often did. Layne routinely parked his car up on the sidewalk in front of his late-night establishment of choice. And was arrested once for allegedly driving drunk on the wrong side of the road with his headlights off. He escaped justice before a sympathetic judge claiming the arresting officer had mistaken his Texas drawl for slurred speech.
But Bobby’s time in Detroit ended two games into the 1958 season when he was unceremoniously traded to Pittsburgh. Bitter upon departure, Layne left a curse on the Lions, proclaiming it would be fifty years before they won again. Sixty-five years later, that looks like a pretty effective curse. If there in fact was one.
No published mention of it appeared until 2001, when Detroit sportswriter Jerry Green seemingly concocted it. It was re-energized when the Lions celebrated the supposed end of the curse in 2008 by going 0-16. And now in 2023, as they threaten to break it finally, the curse of Bobby Layne is again being retold. Even if it never actually existed. Which is OK. Because as 19th century writer Mark Twain once advised, “Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.” And since we all seem to enjoy a good curse once in a while, we won’t.
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