When the Lions didn’t roar in January

In lieu of our traditional Super Bowl Radio Row, we’re reaching out to our NFL world to invite voters for the Pro Football Hall of Fame onto the show this week to discuss a trio of Ravens on the Canton ballot. Dave Birkett of The Detroit Free Press covers the Lions and tells Nestor what happens after you lose in January in a town that has never won The Big Game.

Nestor Aparicio and Dave Birkett discuss the Detroit Lions’ 2022-2023 season, highlighting the team’s 13-4 record, the second-most wins in franchise history, despite significant injuries. Birkett notes the Lions’ defensive losses, including three starting defensive linemen and three top linebackers. Despite these challenges, the team reached the playoffs, losing to Washington Commanders. Birkett praises Dan Campbell’s leadership and authenticity, contrasting him with previous coaches. They also discuss the NFL’s postseason pressures and the impact of star quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes on team success. Additionally, Birkett shares his perspective on Hall of Fame voting, emphasizing the importance of being among the best at one’s position during their career.

Dave Birkett of Detroit Free P…pens after you lose in January

Wed, Jan 29, 2025 5:11AM • 23:29

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Detroit Lions, Super Bowl, Joe Flacco, Jamal Lewis, Dan Campbell, Brad Holmes, Lions history, NFL injuries, Hall of Fame, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, playoff loss, team chemistry, football town, fan enthusiasm

SPEAKERS

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Dave Birkett, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T. Am 1570 tasks in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. We are doing a cup of soup or bowl all next week for our charity series of feeding some folks here in the community. If you’re coming out, make sure you bring some canned goods. Say hello. We’ll be doing it from noon until five, five different locations, starting at cost. That’s all. They’re brought to you by our friends and wise markets, as well as our friends at the Maryland lottery. And I will have some magic eight ball scratch offs to give away, which I think is good number eight with the Lamar Jackson and all that. So I’ve been doing my residue. I’m not going to the Super Bowl in New Orleans. Been there, done that, held the parade, wrote the book, held the trophy, did all of that stuff many moons ago. But in lieu of that, this week, we’re getting around. We’re talking all sorts folks. Joe Flacco joined us this week. Jamal Lewis in advance of the big Verizon party they’re having down at the stadium next week on Super Bowl Sunday. This is a guy that much like me for much of my career, at least now covering the Detroit Lions, and he has been on that beat for better or worse for a better part of two decades. I was also an NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame voter on NFL history. But Dave Burke joins us. I see you at owners meetings and combines and Super Bowls and all these years, this was the year you had to, sort of like, leave next week open just in case, because you didn’t have a lot of those years with the lions on this beat. It’s good to have you board, of course, of the Detroit Free Press, you can find his work, B, i, r, k, e, t, t, anywhere. Social media travels a good year. To be Alliance historian, I would say, if I call you that right, not

Dave Birkett  01:39

you know, no doubt I actually wrote a book this year. I know you’ve been down that road, and it was about lions history. And it was, turned out to be a great year for it to come out, you know, sort of a little coffee table book, and got a great reception from Lions fans, because the team was was so positive this year. And like you said, you know, I mean, I go to the Super Bowl. I don’t know what this is, probably 15 straight years now, but never have had the home team in it. Of course, thought they might get there this year. They fell a little bit short against the Washington commanders. But hey, maybe, uh, maybe next year for the Lions. Well, look, the

Nestor Aparicio  02:10

Schwartz is in Megatron and and, you know, sort of early to middling Stafford. You probably had to put a couple of those aside for a couple of years, right?

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Dave Birkett  02:19

Well, I mean, you know, they had a good team in 2011 but that was a year when, you know, they were very young, so I don’t think anyone ever thought they were, they were legit Super Bowl contenders. They struggled in 2012 only went, think they went four and 12, if I remember, right. So disappointing year, and then, like, 2014 was Jim was gone by then, but they had a really good defense, didn’t, didn’t quite think they had the goods to get to the Super Bowl. It wasn’t a team like this year that you looked at and you said, Man, one of the best, most well rounded rosters in the NFL. They had some really good players, but wasn’t quite to this level. So different vibe here in Detroit, because, for sure, for the first time in a long time, really, last year, but, but this, this regime, I guess for the first time in a long time, people are, you know, bought in, completely believing that this is a team that might finally get it done. I

Nestor Aparicio  03:07

think if he was one of the young guys, I think you’re younger than me. I’m pretty sure I’m 56 and I, you know, I’ve kidded around with the Pro Football voters here, but nobody see more football than me. Cover more football than me. I cover 27 Super Bowls before I was thrown out three years ago. And you even saw me at the owners meeting some nine months ago, chasing them around, because this is what I do. Joe Flacco said to me this week, I don’t know how to do anything else, but do this. I’m sort of in the same boat. 33 years into this. You’re on the Hall of Fame committee. Now give me your back. Did you grow up in Detroit like a kid of Barry Sanders and Billy Sims and Eric Hipple and Gary Danielson. You know, I watched all that from afar. They weren’t very good. I mean, the Wayne fonts team, I remember the Redskins. I was on the radio when the Redskins played the lines. That’s how long I’ve been on the radio when they played that championship blowout game that. RFK, I think about, you know, all of the years and all the stuff that’s going on there. These are the glory years in Detroit, even though nothing’s happened. I mean, Plimpton aside, right?

Dave Birkett  04:06

Yeah. I mean, you know that most people have been alive for at least, right? The 50s were, were certainly the glory years. They won a few championships there, but most people don’t have any recollection of that. Yeah, I grew up in Detroit, you know, certainly, like 90s, where my high school and college years. So, you know, basically spent that decade watching the lions. You know, grew up around the the bad boys, pistons, you know that that sort of era of of even the 84 tigers, when they won the world. So you’re saying is, you’re from hockey town, is what you’re doing, you know, I mean, but I was a basketball guy, so hockey was never really my thing. You know, I I played basketball in my life. Still coach my kids in it. So, you know, basketball was kind of my, my sport.

Nestor Aparicio  04:44

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You know, I met Eddie Van Halen at the palace at Auburn Hill. So I have a great affinity for the bad boys. You know what I mean? So

Dave Birkett  04:50

it was, it was, that was the time to be a pistons fan. And, you know, I think the 90s, when Barry was there, that was the time to be a Lions fan, until right now. I mean, the lions really did have. Some good teams there. They just, and Wayne fonts would be the first one to tell you, as he said in the documentary, you know, like they just didn’t have a quarterback that could help them get over the

Nestor Aparicio  05:08

home. Well, when Schwartz took the job, and, you know, my affinity for Jimmy lingers, you know, we’re still in rock and roll touch. You know, he told me that for it being hockey town and whatever the Tigers and Sparky Anderson, you know, even being a good team at that point, and and the pistons in the NBA and Michigan before Jim Harbaugh got there, and when they were losing Ohio State every year, that the lions sort of ruled the city. And you would never know that, but you would know that as the Free Press beat writer, because you see your clicks, you see the interest level. And I think my dear friend, the Chief Information Officer, Mike Rosenfeld, from web connection, son, lives in Detroit. He’s in the tech space, and he’s all of that that you guys told me 20 years ago in the oh six Super Bowl. It’s now 19 years ago that I was there broadcasting in the big center tower, GM, but that that the lions are the biggest property there. They’re the sleeping giant and all that. And I think the draft, my buddy went out to the draft with his kid, and there was a half million, you know, it’s the craziness of the draft there, that there’s a thirst there, and the ticket prices for the playoff game two weeks ago, just an insane thirst for the Lions in a way that maybe Cleveland could bubble that way. Buffalo’s bubbling that way right now, Baltimore bubble when we lost our team. But I don’t know that there’s a more Sleeping Giant than what you sit on there, and how close it all sort of is coming to, maybe being fruition, maybe being all the years of saying what it could be, maybe it is that now, yeah,

Dave Birkett  06:35

yeah. I don’t know that it’s sleeping anymore, but you’re right for a long time, I think people, maybe under you know, valued what, what exactly Lions fans were, and how much does this team meant to the town, because it is a football town at its core. And, you know, probably right, just the the grid of it, and the, you know, the the hard work, the physicality, you know, everything that really makes football, you know, the game, and it’s something that has always resonated here. The teams haven’t always been great, but there have been great. Been great players, Barry Sanders, Calvin Johnson, right, two of the best to ever do it. So there have been some good things to cheer about, and I think you probably see from afar now, like not just the ticket prices and the home environment, but the way Lions fans make rote games their own. And it probably didn’t quite happen in Baltimore last year, a 2023 season, but just about everywhere else, and maybe it didn’t because of the way that game

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Nestor Aparicio  07:27

was the only game where the ticket prices were a buck and a quarter buck and a half, and they were your fans buying them. That’s right.

Dave Birkett  07:32

And you look at the all the other road venues that the Lions have been to, I mean, Kansas City, the first game of that 2023 season, the chiefs are raising the banner. You know, there’s 15,000 Lions fans that are ringing that stadium. So it really is. It’s a great sports town, and the lions are atop that list. There’s no doubt Honolulu

Nestor Aparicio  07:52

blue for me, I guess the question for you and I get the Hall of Fame, we’ll do Lamar, we’ll do Campbell and all that. But your history of doing this with coaches and organizations and the Ford family running it, and all the coach been through five coaches, six. You’ve been through several in the beat. I mean, I’ve had three since 1995 since they got off the boat that, you know, Belichick was really the coach for five minutes, and then it was, you know, March of brota, Billick and Harbaugh, and that’s all we’ve had here. You’ve had a lot of that. What? What makes Stan Campbell successful in a way that my buddy Jim Schwartz couldn’t be, or other people have not been able to be in that seat. Um, and obviously it’s a good players. And you know, all my coaches, Mike Nolan said that yesterday, you know, good players, good players. That’s the most important thing, if you have that right, you can figure the coaching out to some degree. Because if you can have all the coaches you want, if you don’t have the players, you got

Dave Birkett  08:45

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nothing. Well, that’s true. And you know, he and Brad Holmes have done in a great job. And Brad, being the, you know, the guru of the draft, have done a great job building the roster and stocking with a lot of young talent, you know. But I think, to answer your question about Dan and there have been some other good coaches. I mean, you know, Jim Schwartz did a good job, kind of digging that thing out over 116 and, you know, players really respected Jim Caldwell. He didn’t quite have the, you know, the pizzazz that Campbell does, that the grip on the city, the way that Campbell does. I think what, what makes Dan special is just, well, there’s two things to me to be a successful head coach in the NFL. It’s more than the X’s and O’s, right? It’s, it’s the leadership. It’s, it’s what you mean in the locker room. It’s, it’s the way you can galvanize people to play for you and and, you know, explain your visions and have those things come to life with the people underneath you. And the way that Dan does it is simply with his authenticity, you know, and I think a lot of people, when he had that press conference in 2021 his first as lions coach, I was gonna bring that up by the way they looked at it. Like, is this guy for real, you know, by kneecaps, but like it, that’s who he is. Man like, he loves football, like, to his core. He loves football like, probably after his family the, you know, the only other thing in his life that, like, you know, consumes. Him and but what he is behind closed doors is exactly what you see on TV. And so he’s comfortable with any, any shortcomings he has, you know, he is himself when he speaks. He doesn’t write things down. He speaks from the heart, I think those and as a former player, like a lot of what he sees and the way he preaches it in the the players that he’s brought in have been, you know, in that vision. And so there’s just this like this, this bond with him in the city, and the players in the organization that I’ve never seen among all those coaches that I’ve covered before. Well,

Nestor Aparicio  10:33

the biting the kneecaps thing, you know, I harken back to look. I haven’t had to look at it. We have one coaching search here, really the Billick thing I was in on with David Modell. He told me he was hiring Brian. I flew to Minnesota to be there when they lost like I knew Brian was getting hired. There was no process in that. There was a real process here when John happened and it was Jason Garrett’s job, I don’t you know, you probably remember that. And anybody here would remember that, that Jason Garrett sort of said, now I’m gonna go back to Dallas, because Jerry’s gonna make me a man there. But Steve was in love with Jason Garrett, and wound up picking John, horrible out of a pack of other people. And, you know? And then I went on that, well, I know his brother, you know. So I called Jim and and that was like, called Baldinger in Philly. And I’m like, What do you know about this guy and who, who played for him? And who can I get into, you know, like all of that, what did you know about Dan Campbell? I mean, you’re as wired you are the wired lions guy. You’re the Hall of Fame, like you hear this guy’s going to be the next coach. It’s your first thing is, who knows him? What? What do we get? What’s he do? Well, you know,

Dave Birkett  11:35

the the good thing, I guess, was that he did play for the Lions. And he played, you know, 678, wasn’t, you know, the the eight, 2008 season, when the lions went winless. You know, Dan was hurt the entire year, so he wasn’t around. I actually covered the team. 2008 was my first full season covering the team. I wasn’t the free president. I was at the suburban chain of papers. But, you know, I knew some people that he had played with. So he was, he was, I didn’t know Dan, but he was a familiar name to me, and I knew a lot of people that he had played with just from having covered the team for a long, long time. I think the one thing about Dan, and you know, this probably goes for any walk of life, and maybe it’s the same, you know, in Baltimore, I suspect it is, with all the success that they’ve had, you know, is that it’s about the people. You know, if you have the right people in place and the right people for your organization, your business, whatever it is people that believe in the same sort of core values, that have the same vision like, I think this, this experiment that the lions did with, with putting Dan and Brad Holmes together, having never met before, you know, sort of identifying these values that they wanted their team to be about, finding guys that had them, that the passion, the, you know, the compatibility, the willingness to work together. That’s what it’s taught me more than anything, is like when you have the right people in place, you can do really good things. And I do think the Lions have good people in place right now. And everyone that I spoke with back in 2021 about Dan said that. They said he was just a genuine guy. You know, he’s a football guy through and through, but you know, he was going to do things his way, and he was going to treat people right while doing it. And I think that’s proven to be the case.

Nestor Aparicio  13:08

It’s been amazing how the success that former players, even at a, you know, college level, like a John Harbaugh, just players see things differently, and then the mike vrabels And you guys that played it, and even Tom Brady trying to, like, run things, football, such, I don’t think fans could ever understand unless you’re in it a little bit. And I think they’ve tried to pull back in all of these organizations and all the hard knocks and all of the things that fans could see, and then the analytics part of this, and film stuff, all of that that goes into it. It is, you gotta love it, man, you know. And you gotta sort of be born into it. You can’t just learn it at 30 or 40 and say, I’m gonna go co you know, it’s like playing guitar when you’re a kid, to be really good at it, you know. You

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Dave Birkett  13:51

know, Dan said something after the lion’s last game, after that playoff loss to Washington, like, you know, he wears his emotion on his face, you know. And you could see how much it was eating him up. And you know, he was sort of choked up, and he said something about like man, you just don’t understand, like players and their body, and it’s beat to hell, and like, what they go through. And like, you know, the appreciation he had for his team in that moment, like them having lost, and how much he felt he left him down by not winning. Like man, just if you have a minute to go back and watch like that segment that spoke volumes to me, because that was really, you know, it was powerful, just like the the connection that he had with those players, and maybe that, where that bond all started from his playing days, because he understood what they went through. He understood the, you know, on just a real personal level, like the the everything that you put into it trying to win a Super Bowl and to not do it and to fall short. And just how deflating that was to him in that moment, Dave

Nestor Aparicio  14:46

Burkett is here. He is in Detroit, Motor City, Motown, where high hopes led to big discipline, kind of like our town, kind of like buffalo, kind of like anytime you think you’re good enough to win and you don’t, one more. Requiem. On your season the injuries, right? I mean, just like in a general sense, this will always be and if you write the book next year, year after that, and they actually win, and you write Honolulu blue rain, I don’t know what it would be called. You have to come up with a name for that one, the Campbell expressway. Whatever it would be, the Campbell way that this year would be looked at as stepping stone, this disappointment and all that little different than here, where they went in healthy Andrew dropped the ball. Like, made some mistakes. Like, I think the lines, I would say, excuses, but there’s a reasoning behind 18 injuries. Man,

Dave Birkett  15:33

yeah. And look, I, you know, I don’t know how much those did or didn’t play a factor in that, that playoff loss, you know, like, to me, that was Washington was a better team on that day. And look, if you have Aiden Hutchinson and Lee McNeil and Derek Barnes and some of those, you know, defensive players that were out maybe, maybe that’s not the case. Maybe you have more of an answer for Jayden Daniels. But you know, the lions didn’t play well that game. Jared Goff had four turnovers, or a lot of things that went into it. But yeah, the story of the season went 15 and two franchise record for wins, I mean, tied for the most in the NFL, and they did it while having just a crazy amount of injuries on the defensive side of the ball, and particularly on the front seven. And look that that’s nothing new. I mean, injuries happen in the NFL, right? The Packers, a decade ago, won the Super Bowl with 16 players on IR and seven starters. But when you look at what the lions did defensively and the losses they had to overcome. They lost three of their four starting defensive linemen to injuries. They lost three of their top four linebackers. They lost their best cornerback. So really, the as much success they had this season, this year will be remembered for the obstacles that they overcame in getting there, and then maybe how that impacted the the end result, and them not being able to finish the job and get to New Orleans. You know, we have the

Nestor Aparicio  16:48

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different thing here, right? I mean, four or five times up the mountain losing the championship game at home, you can’t be Kansas City. You can’t be buffalo when it matters. You can’t win in January matters. You make mistakes when it matters. We have a different right going on here, and we got the best player on the planet. So, I mean, there’s a whole different level of what you’re witnessing in Baltimore. What do you make of it from afar as a national football writer, yeah.

Dave Birkett  17:09

And look, my brother in law is a huge Ravens fan. Okay, so I see it from family in some way, you know, like, I look, I think Lamar is, is as much as anything a victim of like playing in the same conference with the best quarterback of this generation, you know, Patrick mahomes. Like, to me, it’s, it’s that simple. Josh Allen is running into it in some ways. You know, Lamar Jackson has run into it in some ways. And I know, you know, he didn’t lose to to mahomes and the chiefs. But like, that’s the biggest impediment to Baltimore success, in my eyes, is what the Chiefs have been able to do, because they just have a unicorn at quarterback. And Lamar is the unicorn in his own right. And Josh Allen, I mean, all three of those guys, as I look ahead, they’re all probably Hall of Famers, right? They’re, they’re the best quarterbacks of this era right now that are playing. But, you know, mahomes has just been able to do something special, combined with the, you know, what the Chiefs have built there, Andy Reid, that defense, Steve Spagnola, Chris Jones, you know, Travis Kelsey, they have a lot of, a lot of Super Bowl caliber parts that they’ve just put together at the right time. I think that. I don’t think this is about Lamar not being able to get it done in the postseason, or, you know, maybe early in his career, there was some of that. But I think as much as anything, it’s just the chiefs are, they’re they’re a dynasty. You

Nestor Aparicio  18:27

make mistakes in January. You pay for it. I mean, period, no matter who you are. I mean, it’s but the injury part of your team in Detroit and the full health here, I don’t know what it will take for them, because I don’t think they could be any healthier. I thought the Derek Henry thing was a stroke of brilliance. I think their DVO way and first down, all the metrics, all of the science that goes into this, even the fact that the kicker, you know, struggled a little bit, the defense struggled on the backside, it is a little like, what is it going to take here? And we’ve won a couple of championships. I don’t know what it would feel like in Buffalo or Detroit for the fans, you

Dave Birkett  19:03

know, right? No. And you know, I mean, it takes me back to what Dan Campbell said after the lions lost in the playoffs last year. You know, like everyone thinks you’re going to get back, right? Everyone thinks you’re going to be there when you have a season, like the Ravens did this year, like the lions did this year, you sort of assume like, yeah, man, we’re going to the Super Bowl. I know a lot. I know Lions fans here that book tickets like during the season. For this year, they bought, they spent 1000s of dollars on Super Bowl tickets. They booked Airbnbs in New Orleans and hotel and flights and everything, right? That’s how convinced they were that that the lions were going to get it done. And really, it’s so, so hard to win in the NFL. And that’s what Dan said after that game last year, was that he told the locker room like, hey, this may be your one and only chance. Like, don’t make it be that one right. You got to come back. Everything has to go right. You can have a really, really good team. One mistake happens, one injury happens, one little slip up, one call by a referee that happened to the saints against the Rams. And, you know, 2000 18, or whatever that that was. You know, one little thing can cause you to not make it through your goals. And so you have to cherish every opportunity that you have. You’re

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Nestor Aparicio  20:10

gonna vote on the Hall of Fame. Um yonda Smith, Suggs in the mix with all the rest of this. Give me a little philosophical thought on, you know, how you go and how you vote. You’re one of the younger voters, but you’ve been on a long time. You’ve been on a decade at this point, and, you know, Baltimore’s tuned into it a little bit. Here on behalf of the players, yeah,

Dave Birkett  20:29

no. Look, I think, you know, by and large, when you get talked about in that room, you probably have a pretty strong, you know, Hall of Fame case. So all of those guys are certainly, you know, worthwhile, you know, candidates. For me, I view a Hall of Fame player as someone that I would consider among the best players in the discussion to be the best player at his position during that that era. And you know, more than a one year wonder doesn’t have to be a 10 year stretch. But if you’re talking about Marshall yanda being one of the best interior linemen for, you know, the better part of five years. Like to me that that makes somebody a Hall of Fame player. Okay, if you’re that in the NFL, then then you are in the discussion for the Hall of Fame for me. So I think all those guys sort of rise to that, that caliber. I would have no problem voting for any of those guys. I mean, you know, just to be frank, we’ve had our vote already. It’s structured a little bit different this year than it has been in years past. But, yeah, I think all three of those guys have the goods to be in Canton at some point here in the very near future, maybe even this year.

Nestor Aparicio  21:35

Well, I’ll miss you at the game next week. You know, Kansas City, Philadelphia. Me, you know, some point there’ll be a buffalo Detroit for all of us. We were all pulling for you. Man, you know, you’d be working your ass off right now, like, not, like you’re not already, right?

Dave Birkett  21:48

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Yeah, that’d be, you know, that’s what everybody was thinking this year. Man, some, some new team was going to step up and win one buffalo in Detroit. Be that’d be the the Rust Belt Super Bowl, I guess, but

Nestor Aparicio  22:00

not showing up at the podium as a reporter

Dave Birkett  22:02

with Mark Andrews after the game. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, I think, well, let me put it like this, yes, yes. I would love, you know, for him to be there. I didn’t even realize he didn’t do that. I think I appreciate the people that, do you know? I mean, I appreciate the people that that’s got to be the toughest thing in the world, right, to step in front of the cameras and, you know, talk about all the mistakes and acknowledge what happened and face the music. And when people do that, when they make a crucial mistake, and they stand in front of their locker and they take those questions from the reporters. I mean, as a reporter, you don’t like asking those questions. Nobody relishes going up to you and saying, Hey, what about that mistake. Man, like, how that happened, right? But when people stand in front of their locker and do that, like, man, that tugs at your heartstrings a little bit, because, you know how much it it, you know, it hurts them too. And so I appreciate the players that do that probably a little bit more than, you know, hold it against the players that don’t. Yeah,

Nestor Aparicio  22:57

I think as long as we’ve been at it, we’ve all been bad locker rooms. You know, bad losses, big wins. We know everybody’s a good winner. That’s what I wrote. Everybody wins. Well, people lose. I learn a lot about, you know, accountability and how they’re handling it, and how much it matters in a lot of ways. So Dave Burkett is here. He’s gonna vote for the Hall of Fame this week. He’s gonna cover the Detroit Lions, probably forever, until they win, or else, him and Kid Rock too. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, A and 1570 Towson, Baltimore. Come out see us for a couple Super Bowl next week. Hang in there with us.