The 1974 Detroit Lions season was the 45th season in franchise history. It was the Lions' final season playing at Tiger Stadium; the team moved to the Pontiac Silverdome the following season and played home games there until the end of their 2001 season. Prior to the start of training camp, tragedy would strike the Lions, as Head Coach Don McCafferty died of a fatal heart attack at age 53. He would later be replaced by Lions assistant Rick Forzano, who would guide the Lions to a 7-7 record in their final season at Tiger Stadium. This would also be the last season until 2011 when Monday Night Football would air in the city of Detroit as a result of the Lions playing in Pontiac from 1975 to 2001, following by sub par seasons while playing home games at Ford Field during its first eight years.
Famous quotes containing the words lions and/or season:
“Sure, you can love your child when he or she has just brought home a report card with straight “A’s.” It’s a lot harder, though, to show the same love when teachers call you from school to tell you that your child hasn’t handed in any homework since the beginning of the term.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, II, ch.3 (1985)
“The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.”
—Ilka Chase (1905–1978)