Bobby Layne - The Curse of Bobby Layne

The Curse of Bobby Layne

In 1958, the Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Layne responded to the trade by supposedly saying that the Lions would "not win for 50 years". This story has been disputed as being a hoax, particularly because the quote was never published at the time.

Still, for the next 50 years after the trade, the Lions accumulated the worst winning percentage of any team in the NFL. They are still one of only two franchises that have been in the NFL since 1970 that have not played in a Super Bowl (the other team is the Cleveland Browns, although the first Browns team did win the Super Bowl after the 2000 season as the transplanted Baltimore Ravens). The Lions, for those 50 years, were 1-10 in ten postseason appearances, their lone playoff win coming against Dallas following the 1991 regular season. In the last year of the supposed curse, 2008, Detroit went 0-16, the first team to lose every game of a 16-game season.

Coincidentally, in the 2009 NFL Draft, right after the curse supposedly expired, the Detroit Lions drafted University of Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford first-overall. He came from Highland Park High School, the same high school as Layne, and lived in a house on the same street as Layne's. In 2011, Stafford's first full injuryless season, he led the Lions to their first playoff berth since 1999 but still failed to take them to the Super Bowl when Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints routed them in the Superdome.