The Lions Finally Roar by Bill Morris, review

Since their last NFL Championship in 1957, the Detroit Lions have endured decades of struggle. In The Lions Finally Roar, Bill Morris provides a compelling account of the team’s history, weaving together the Lions’ ups and downs and the broader cultural and economic history of Detroit.

At the heart of the narrative is the Ford family, who have owned the team since William Clay Ford Sr acquired a controlling interest in 1963, on the same day John F Kennedy was assassinated. Ford is portrayed as a rich kid frustrated by his role in the family business who seeks success elsewhere. Unfortunately, his judgement is suspect. He’s stingy when paying players and hires inexperienced coaches and executives.

As the son of Dick Morris, Ford’s one-time executive assistant, the author has ties to the Lions from an early age, and this perspective certainly adds detail to the early years of the story.

Morris recounts the legend that Bobby Layne, the three-time NFL Champion Lions QB, cursed the team when he was traded to the Steelers in 1958. After that trade, the team managed a few playoff wins in the early 1960s before slipping into a extended period of failure – a single playoff win between 1963 and 2023.

Title: The Lions Finally Roar
Author: Bill Morris
First published: Pegasus Books, 2024
Buy the Book: Amazon US | Amazon UK

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What sets The Lions Finally Roar apart is its ability to contextualise the Lions’ narrative within Detroit’s cultural and economic landscape. Morris explores the connections between the team and the city’s automotive industry, with its cycles of boom and bust, as well as Detroit’s legendary music scene, which gave the city its soul even during its darkest times. His portrait of the Lions and Detroit is layered, showing how football can serve as a unifying force in a divided community.

Ford died in 2014, with control of the franchise passing to his wife Martha. In 2020, she stepped down, handing power to her daughter Sheila Ford Hamp. Ford Hamp had been involved in running the team during her mother’s tenure but once he had sole control, things began to change.

She hired Brad Holmes as general manager and Dan Campbell as head coach in early 2021. Months later, the team traded veteran QB Matt Stafford to the Rams in return for Jared Goff, two first round picks and a third rounder. Campbell’s Lions won three games in his first season, nine in his second and then 12 in his third – reaching the NFC Championship Game. The Lions, as Morris says, finally roared.

THE AUTHOR

Bill Morris is a journalist and author whose work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Millions. His previous books, including Motor City and Motor City Burning, explore Detroit’s history and culture. As the son of a Ford Motor Company executive, Morris had a unique vantage point to observe the Ford family’s role in shaping the Lions’ legacy. He grew up in Detroit and is now based in New York City.

EXCERPTS

On his way out the door, Layne may or may not have uttered words that were destined to become an urban legend in Detroit: This team will not win for another fifty years.

With the Lions trailing 15–9 late in the fourth quarter, Ford became so incensed by a Lions miscue that, in an Elvisoidal outburst, he kicked a hole in the TV screen. Realizing the game wasn’t over yet, Ford rushed to the servants’ quarters and found a radio just in time to hear the announcer describe Terry Barr catching the game-tying touchdown pass. The extra point kick sealed a 16–15 victory. A sheepish Ford vowed that his days of kicking holes in TV screens were over.

The GM’s tightfistedness at the bargaining table was a major contributor to the team’s perennial mediocrity on the field, which in turn would lead numerous frustrated Lions, including their biggest star, to walk away from the game in the prime of their careers.

One day the beat reporters who covered team practices were surprised to see Bill Ford walk onto the field. He chatted with the sportswriters for a while before announcing that Rogers would definitely be back next season. After practice, when a reporter asked Rogers how he felt about Ford’s vote of confidence, the coach quipped, “What’s a guy have to do to get fired around here?”

Marinelli was, in the words of Sports Illustrated writer Michael Rosenberg, “a good man who was well-liked by his players but was not meant to be a head coach.” In short, a classic Detroit Lions head coach.

REVIEWS

Bill Morris is a novelist and this shows in his vivid and engaging writing. Even those with little interest in the Lions will find this incredibly readable. Part of the reason is the light Morris sheds on the Ford family, a group of people rich beyond the imagining of an ordinary person, but full of flaws and bitter rivalries. Fans of the TV show Succession, will find plenty to keep them entertained here, with no football expertise necessary. It’s a truly excellent book. It should go without saying that it’s essential reading for Lions fans but I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in the wealthy figures behind NFL franchises.
Shane Richmond, Pigskin Books

“Fortunately, Mr. Morris, whose novels include “Motor City” and “Motor City Burning,” has made this very readable history about a lot more than the hapless team from Detroit. Because the Lions have long been owned by the Ford family, we learn much about the palace intrigues inside Ford Motor Co., especially those of William Clay Ford, who ran the club from 1961 to 2014.”
Mark Yost, Wall Street Journal

“A fantastic book on the history of what was the worst franchise in NFL for so very long. Particularly fun reading it at as the Lions reach heights unimaginable during the long grim days covered by Morris.”
All Sports Reviews

Morris’s book, which very colourfully takes the readers through Detroit Lions history from the early Sixties to the exciting present times and how Sheila Ford Hamp turned the franchise around in three short years was meticulously researched and provides extensive annotated notes for his sources.
Bill Dow, Vintage Detroit Collection

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