Lions aiming for Super Bowl after breakout season that was the franchise’s best in generations

ALLEN PARK, Mich. (AP) — Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell stepped on a riser and stood behind a new, large lectern at the team’s training facility.

“This is a huge podium,” Campbell said Monday before the team’s first training camp practice.

Expectations are big for the Lions, too.

Detroit is coming off its best season in generations, earning two playoff victories in one postseason for the first time since winning the 1957 NFL title.

The Lions are one of four franchises that haven’t reached the Super Bowl, but they’re No. 4 among favorites to reach the championship game, according to BetMGM Sportsbook.

It’s easy to see what oddsmakers like about Detroit.

The Lions have won 20 of their last 27 games in the regular season and are coming off a closely contested loss in the NFC championship game at San Francisco after leading the 49ers by 17 points in the third quarter.

General manager Brad Holmes made many moves to improve the team’s chances of taking another step, strengthening weaknesses on both sides of the ball in free agency, a trade and the draft. Holmes also cut down potential distractions by giving quarterback Jared Goff, receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown and offensive tackle Penei Sewell new contracts.

“We know we can win a Super Bowl,” St. Brown said. “We have the team. We have the coaches. We have everything we need in this building to win a Super Bowl. That’s our goal. That’s our focus.

“Everything we do from here out moving forward is to get that Super Bowl.”

If a Lions player said that a couple years ago, the response would’ve likely been laughter.

Campbell’s first team lost 13 games in 2021 — a fourth straight season with double-digit losses — and had setbacks in six of the first seven games the following year.

Soon after Lions owner Sheila Ford Hamp refused to panic during the rough start in 2022, insisting she was confident in Holmes and Campbell, a franchise that has struggled to get it right for decades found a groove.

Detroit closed that season with eight wins in 10 games, narrowly missing the playoffs, and picked up where it left off last year by matching a team record with 12 wins.

The Lions won a division title for the first time since 1993, beat the Matthew Stafford-led Los Angeles Rams for their first playoff victory in three-plus decades and eliminated Tampa Bay before falling one game short of the Super Bowl.

“We’re fortunate to have the success, but we know what came before that,” said offensive tackle Taylor Decker, who endured a lot of losing after being drafted by Detroit in 2016. " It was the work that came before that when no one cared what the Lions were doing.”

When the Lions kicked off training camp last year, Campbell asked the players to stand up, turn around and look toward the back of the full-team meeting room. They saw the team hadn’t won a playoff game since 1992, a division title since 1993 and a league championship since 1957.

After finally winning the division and a playoff game, offensive guard Graham Glasgow said the display was updated by someone who wrote 2023 on pieces of white, athletic tape.

“Those are still up there and there’s still tape through it with old-school tape,” Campbell said. “It just looks better that way.

“But we’ve checked the box on two and we’ve got one more to check.”

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Follow Larry Lage at https://twitter/larrylage

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