Mediocre selena gomez ? Delete it fat <| sep |> We ' re one of the oldest Football franchises that still exists . We started out as the Portsmouth Spartans in 1930 . Moved to Detroit and renamed Lions in 1934 . 1934 was also our first Thanksgiving game , a tradition that we still hold . The last time we were ever in an NFL championship game was before it was the Superbowl . It was 1957 . Our QB was Bobby Layne , considered one of the alltime greats . He missed the Championship game because of a broken ankle . We defeated the Browns In the rookiee season of the legendary Jim Brown . In the offseason , we traded Bobby Layne and he declared that Detroit wouldn ' t get to the championship for 50 years . This is known as the curse of Bobby Layne . It has been 58 years , and we have never gone back to the championship . We ' re one of two teams that have never been to the Superbowl since it began in 1964 . The other is the Browns . Jacksonville and Houston have also never been to the SB , but they ' re new teams and didn ' t exist when the SB started . In 1963 , we were bought by William Clay Ford , grandson of Henry Ford . He owned the team until his death in 2014 . We ' ve only won one playoff game since 1957 . This was in 1991 . 50 years after Bobby Layne ' s declaration we went 016 in 2008 . Which is the second time we had a winless year . The first being 1942 . We haven ' t won a divisional title since 1993 . I know that all seems like doom and gloom . We have had a long , rough patch , but we take pride in being perennial underdogs . We had a some great years in the 90 ' s . We ' ve recently had some nice success as well . This year is looking good . We have had some of the single best players the NFL has ever seen . Barry Sanders 8998 is probably be best Running Back ever . Calvin Johnson 0715 could have been the best Wide Receiver if he hadn ' t retired early . Jason Hanson 9213 is by far the best Kicker who ever lived and holds the record for most games played for a single team . Stafford is really working out well for us . We haven ' t had a great QB in a long time , so this is a great change of pace . Anyway . Hope you enjoyed a little Lions history lesson . And hopefully the ghost of Bobby Layne will show us mercy . Superbowl LI is this year . Maybe we can make it Superbowl LIons .