I confess there has been a missing piece in my continuing series about the Curse of Bobby Layne, and I can’t resist presenting another anecdote that adds to the power of the curse’s legend.
First, it often has been said and written that the Detroit Lions have won only one post-season playoff game since that championship season of long ago, 1957. It’s not entirely true.
The Detroit Lions in 1960, 1961 and 1962 were winners (you read that right, winners) of the now long forgotten Playoff Bowl or Runner-up Bowl. It was cooked up to be a battle between the two teams that were runners-up in the Eastern and Western Division Conferences back then in the National Football League. The American Football League had not become a force as yet.
So while many, including myself, have advanced the notion that the only time the Lions won a post-season game was in 1992, a 38-6 beating of the Dallas Cowboys, it’s not entirely true. It was Detroit’s only post-season triumph in the Super Bowl era that began in 1967, when the AFL and NFL clashed for the world title.
For those who don’t recall the Curse of Bobby Layne, it should be noted again that the Lions last stood atop the world of professional football in 1957 with a 59-14 shellacking of the Cleveland Browns. QB Bobby Layne was injured and didn’t play in that game, giving way to Tobin Rote.
Layne returned to Detroit in the fall of 1958 to prepare for the next season after being famous for a non-nonsense blood and guts approach that helped the Lions ne in the championship game in four of the last six seasons.
But coach George Wilson and the Lions’ front office brass decided they’d had enough of Layne’s off-field behavior, including drinking, carousing and getting arrested for drunken driving. Wilson also was reported to have considered Layne’s massive leadership skills a threat to his authority. Furthermore, the brass wasn’t convinced Layne had healed from his ankle injury from the previous season.
So they traded him to the Pittsburgh Steelers for a young quarterback named Earl Morrall.
Layne was so outraged, declaring the Lions were his team and was reported to have stormed out of the office, declaring, “Lions will lose for 50 years!”
Well, aside from that victory in 1991 and three consecutive Playoff Bowl wins, they haven’t won now for 64 years. The eerie part is that on the 50th anniversary of his prediction (curse), Detroit became the first NFL team to go 0-16, a feat matched years later by — wait for it — the Cleveland Browns.
Furthermore, the Lions had the first draft pick in 2009 and chose University of Georgia QB Matthew Stafford, who grew up in Texas and graduated from the same high school as Layne.
So guys like me were beginning to believe the curse would be broken and Stafford would lead us to the Promised Land. But it was not to be after Stafford was traded to the Los Angeles Rams.
And by all appearances, the curse continues, as Detroit now sports a record of 0-10-1 and just might be the first team to go winless in 17 games.
I noted that the really awful 16-16 tie game with Pittsburgh earlier this month brought back memories that were somewhat unpleasant and creepy.
In 1959, I was living in a mobile home in Carrollton, Ohio, and I learned that stepfather Wayne Goodwin traveled all the way to Pittsburgh one Sunday to watch the Steelers play the Lions. The Old Man went with a lineman buddy and they watched the two teams play to a 10-10 tie.
Pittsburgh’s quarterback for the game was Bobby Layne.